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Original 2026-01-01

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1 CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

2 Customer lifetime value is the tell-tale sign of brand health. Here’s how to improve it.

3 <h3>Innovative ideas to improve customer experience</h3>

4 A good customer experience isn’t just about solving customer problems. It’s about creating a full-circle approach that connects marketing and service to deliver personalization across the entire customer lifecycle.

5 According to Klaviyo’s 2025<a>future of consumer marketing report</a>, 66% of consumers expect the brands they shop with to make them feel valued and understood. The cost of failing to meet these expectations is high: a recent<a>survey from Qualtrics</a>found that an eye-watering $3.7 trillion in global sales is at risk due to bad customer experiences.

6 - This is why it’s so important for brands to view customer service not as a cost center, but as a revenue driver. Your customer experience strategy, then, doesn’t depend on just getting the transaction right. It requires personalizing interactions as customers browse, buy, and even return items.

6 + This is why it’s so important for brands to view customer service not as a cost center, but as a revenue driver. Your customer experience strategy, then, doesn’t depend on just getting the transaction right. It requires personalizing interactions as customers browse, buy, and even return items.

7 - Your online storefront is your primary marketplace where transactions happen, but it can also be a more significant part of your customer experience strategy. When your customers can buy, correct orders, return items, manage subscriptions, and chat with customer support in one place, your storefront becomes a data-generating engine that feeds a more personalized, long-term relationship.

7 + Your online storefront is your primary marketplace where transactions happen, but it can also be a more significant part of your customer experience strategy. When your customers can buy, correct orders, return items, manage subscriptions, and chat with customer support in one place, your storefront becomes a data-generating engine that feeds a more personalized, long-term relationship.

8 - Creating that win-win situation for the customerandthe brand is how marketers can create a winning customer experience strategy amidst rising customer acquisition costs (CACs).

8 + Creating that win-win situation for the customerandthe brand is how marketers can create a winning customer experience strategy amidst rising customer acquisition costs (CACs).

9 <h2>Customer experience strategy vs. customer journey mapping vs. lifecycle marketing</h2>

10 - Customer experienceis the overarching emotional connection customers have with your brand.

10 + Customer experienceis the overarching emotional connection customers have with your brand.

11 - Customer experience strategyis how your brand delivers that experience through a variety of tactics.

11 + Customer experience strategyis how your brand delivers that experience through a variety of tactics.

12 - Customer journey mappingis a technique that breaks down and analyzes all touchpoints from awareness to loyalty, such as ads and acquisitions, customer service, delivery and fulfillment, and more.

12 + Customer journey mappingis a technique that breaks down and analyzes all touchpoints from awareness to loyalty, such as ads and acquisitions, customer service, delivery and fulfillment, and more.

13 - <a>Lifecycle marketing</a>is one component of customer journey mapping, typically managed by the marketing team. Lifecycle marketers make decisions to help move customers through their journey from engagement to purchase, and from purchase to loyalty.

13 + <a>Lifecycle marketing</a>is one component of customer journey mapping, typically managed by the marketing team. Lifecycle marketers make decisions to help move customers through their journey from engagement to purchase, and from purchase to loyalty.

14 You can think of these parts working together in a way that ladders up to customer experience.

15 These techniques are particularly important for B2C, where buyers are only loyal to 1-5 brands, according to our future of consumer marketing report. Any business hoping to compete in a crowded market has to deliver at every touchpoint, and every touchpoint needs to reflect how someone feels at that stage of their customer journey.

16 Think of it this way: you’re not going to treat a first-time buyer the same as a 10-year loyal customer, and you wouldn’t treat someone who just returned an item the same as someone who just left a 5-star review.

17 Today, experience is everything. But it’s hard to keep up if you don’t have the right tools.

18 <h2>Why traditional customer experience strategy isn’t working for B2C brands</h2>

19 Traditional customer experience strategy was designed for long, slow B2B sales cycles. While a single B2B contract is usually worth 6-7 figures and can take months to close, B2C brands can process thousands or millions of transactions in the same timeframe-and the typical B2C purchase tops out at a few hundred dollars.

20 That means the customer experience tools designed for a B2B buyer’s journey don’t cut it for the fast, personalized buyer’s lifecycle on the B2C side.

21 When B2C brands fall short on a cohesive strategy, customers can feel it. According to our future of consumer marketing report, 33% of buyers report that inconsistent pricing and promotions on different channels is their biggest frustration with retail or ecommerce brands-a glaring mistake in the age of omnichannel experiences.

22 The bottom line is that a poor customer experience can impact customer lifetime value (CLV): the research also confirms that 20% of B2C buyers abandon a brand after a single negative experience.

23 To truly connect with customers, B2C brands need to unify their marketing and customer service data so they’re delivering the kind of customer experience people have come to expect. This unification-between your<a>data infrastructure</a>, your<a>marketing automation</a>, and your<a>customer service</a>-is where a full-funnel, personalized customer experience strategy begins.

24 <h2>What a full-funnel customer experience strategy looks like</h2>

25 - A profitable customer experience strategy is circular. That means marketing channels are collecting data to create a memorable post-purchase experience, then the post-purchase experience is creating opportunities to collect more data that can feed more pre-purchase personalization.

25 + A profitable customer experience strategy is circular. That means marketing channels are collecting data to create a memorable post-purchase experience, then the post-purchase experience is creating opportunities to collect more data that can feed more pre-purchase personalization.

26 When you’ve implemented this circular strategy, you can start to more easily realize some of these outcomes:

27 <ul><li>Someone orders a product, and they want to check the order status. They use the<a>self-serve hub</a>on your website to find shipping and tracking information. At the same time, they’re greeted with personalized product recommendations based on their purchase that they can add to their wishlist.</li>

28 <li>Someone returns a product through your self-serve hub, which triggers a re-engagement flow with a personalized offer to correct the mistake. (According to our future of consumer marketing report, 50% of customers are willing to give a brand a second chance if they’re offered a discount or replacement.)</li>

29 <li>A customer logs in to their account and browses your site, but doesn’t place any items in their shopping cart. You start an AI or live agent conversation to see if you can help answer any product questions, guiding them toward purchase.</li>

30 <li>A loyalty member signs into their self-serve account and is automatically greeted with tier-based rewards they can act on right away.</li>

31 - </ul>In just two months,<a>Coffee Beanery</a>drove more than<a>$8,000 in revenue</a>with a self-serve customer hub that meetsalltheir customers’ needs, no matter their age. The accessibility has made it easy for their customers to quickly solve common problems without involving a customer service agent-all while generating additional revenue for the business.

31 + </ul>In just two months,<a>Coffee Beanery</a>drove more than<a>$8,000 in revenue</a>with a self-serve customer hub that meetsalltheir customers’ needs, no matter their age. The accessibility has made it easy for their customers to quickly solve common problems without involving a customer service agent-all while generating additional revenue for the business.

32 <h2>8 steps to building an effective B2C customer experience strategy</h2>

33 <h3>1. Gather your cross-functional team</h3>

34 Teams need to work together to deliver an exceptional customer experience. Here’s who you’ll want to gather to tackle your strategy:

35 - <ul><li>Marketing:lifecycle marketing, owned marketing, social media marketing, advertising, customer marketing, etc.</li>

35 + <ul><li>Marketing:lifecycle marketing, owned marketing, social media marketing, advertising, customer marketing, etc.</li>

36 - <li>Customer service:agents or managers who can share customer feedback and sentiment</li>

36 + <li>Customer service:agents or managers who can share customer feedback and sentiment</li>

37 - <li>Operations:people who handle automation or integrations that reach customers</li>

37 + <li>Operations:people who handle automation or integrations that reach customers</li>

38 - <li>Data analysts:people who manage and translate the flow of behavioral data into actionable insights</li>

38 + <li>Data analysts:people who manage and translate the flow of behavioral data into actionable insights</li>

39 - <li>Frontline employees:people who interact with customers in physical stores</li>

39 + <li>Frontline employees:people who interact with customers in physical stores</li>

40 </ul>It takes a village to build a world-class customer experience, and you’ll need everyone’s perspective to get a complete view of the customer journey.

41 <h3>2. Set up your customer experience tech stack across marketing and service</h3>

42 A B2C CRM, or business-to-consumer customer relationship management system, helps businesses manage their interactions with individual customers, whether that’s in a marketing capacity or through customer service. Choose a CRM that:

43 <ul><li>Unifies customer data, marketing, service, and analytics into one platform</li>

44 <li>Delivers 1:1 personalization across every touchpoint</li>

45 <li>Makes it easy for customers to create personal on-site accounts to check orders and interact with customer service, both human and AI</li>

46 <li>Houses analytics that drive predictive insights and advanced behavioral segmentation</li>

47 <li>Scales without added complexity</li>

48 <li>Includes mechanisms to gather customer feedback, from product reviews to surveys</li>

49 </ul>To get the most out of your data, your B2C CRM should function as a home base for your entire team. Make sure the one you choose integrates with all your organization’s tools, and set up training for every team who needs to use it.

50 <h3>3. Start collecting the right data in a shared platform</h3>

51 Data collection enables personalization-arguably the most important part of customer experience strategy.

52 To personalize your customer experience, start by tracking the interactions a subscriber and/or customer has with your brand: website behavior, purchase history, customer service tickets, self-service interactions, and product reviews on your site.

53 Go a level deeper by running sentiment analysis on social media and external review sites to understand brand reputation on a broader scale. The best brands also<a>solicit feedback</a>. Survey customers to find out why they buy and how they feel about their experiences. Conduct interviews for more in-depth insights, and run focus groups if you have the time and resources.

54 With enough data, you can segment customers based on their shared preferences and interactions with your brand. Here are a few examples of segments:

55 - <ul><li>Site visitors who engage more with email than SMS, or vice versa </li>

55 + <ul><li>Site visitors who engage more with email than SMS, or vice versa</li>

56 <li>Site visitors from various acquisition sources</li>

57 <li>Subscribers who abandon their carts</li>

58 <li>Customers with on-site accounts who have a certain number of loyalty points</li>

59 <li>Customers who only purchase when a promotion is active</li>

60 <li>Customers who purchase frequently but are not subscribed to marketing</li>

61 <li>Customers who acted on a personalized offer after a return</li>

62 </ul><h3>4. Map out your customer journeys</h3>

63 Define your main audience segments, then map how each typically moves from discovery to purchase and loyalty. The jobs-to-be-done (JTBD) framework is particularly useful, here:

64 - <ul><li>Identify a key job.This is the customer’s ultimate desired outcome. What are their goals, struggles, and results?</li>

64 + <ul><li>Identify a key job.This is the customer’s ultimate desired outcome. What are their goals, struggles, and results?</li>

65 - <li>Understand the context.These are the factors that influence a purchase decision. How did customers research the problem? What search terms did they use? What sources of information did they rely on?</li>

65 + <li>Understand the context.These are the factors that influence a purchase decision. How did customers research the problem? What search terms did they use? What sources of information did they rely on?</li>

66 - <li>Define the forces.These are the emotional, social, and functional factors that motivate your customer to get their job done. How bad does the problem have to be before your customer seeks a solution? What is the cost of not solving it?</li>

66 + <li>Define the forces.These are the emotional, social, and functional factors that motivate your customer to get their job done. How bad does the problem have to be before your customer seeks a solution? What is the cost of not solving it?</li>

67 </ul>The way you approach customer journey mapping will differ depending on your industry. For example:

68 <ul><li>An ecommerce brand may want to understand how their typical social media follower makes the decision to purchase for the first time.</li>

69 <li>A restaurant might focus on how someone makes the decision to reserve a table for a special occasion-and what makes them come back after that event.</li>

70 <li>A hotel could analyze everything that happens between booking a room and checking in, and what it might take for someone to download their app.</li>

71 </ul>Use a tool like Figma or Miro to visualize each step, and use data from tools like Hotjar or Lucky Orange to understand granular touchpoints and conversions. These tools make it easier for brands to identify the inflection points that can improve conversion.

72 <h3>5. Weigh your priorities</h3>

73 Identify your biggest blockers and opportunities to improve your customer experience, then prioritize based on impact and required effort.

74 - Easy to fix, high impact → Do these tasks first

74 + Easy to fix, high impact → Do these tasks first

75 <ul><li>Ensure consistent pricing and promotions across all channels.</li>

76 <li>Clean up email/SMS lists to<a>improve deliverability</a>and engagement.</li>

77 <li>Add clear customer review sections to product pages.</li>

78 <li>Optimize the mobile shopping experience.</li>

79 <li>Set up<a>abandoned cart email</a>flows.</li>

80 <li>Create FAQs for product pages.</li>

81 <li>Connect a self-serve customer hub to your storefront.</li>

82 - </ul>Hard to fix, high impact → Plan these tasks next

82 + </ul>Hard to fix, high impact → Plan these tasks next

83 <ul><li>Level up your<a>personalization strategy</a>based on behavioral data.</li>

84 <li>Create a tiered<a>loyalty program</a>with meaningful rewards.</li>

85 <li>Set up an omnichannel customer service system.</li>

86 - </ul>Easy to fix, low impact → Do when you can

86 + </ul>Easy to fix, low impact → Do when you can

87 <ul><li>Gather<a>user-generated content</a>and video testimonials.</li>

88 <li>Improve<a>order confirmation emails</a>.</li>

89 <li>Set up<a>browse abandonment email</a>flows.</li>

90 - </ul>Hard to fix, low impact → Save these for later

90 + </ul>Hard to fix, low impact → Save these for later

91 <ul><li>Create a custom mobile app.</li>

92 <li>Implement virtual AR/VR try-on features.</li>

93 <li>Build custom analytics dashboards.</li>

94 </ul><h3>6. Set up an early warning system</h3>

95 Leading indicators-data that predicts future trends-are essential to track when making big strategic changes. The earlier you can detect a potential problem, the earlier you can mitigate potential losses. Essential indicators include:

96 - <ul><li>Churn rate:If this number goes up, something’s wrong. But to understand what to do next, dig deeper-are new customers not buying for the second time, or are VIP customers starting to churn? The details will determine your fix.</li>

96 + <ul><li>Churn rate:If this number goes up, something’s wrong. But to understand what to do next, dig deeper-are new customers not buying for the second time, or are VIP customers starting to churn? The details will determine your fix.</li>

97 - <li>Reviews and surveys:Analyze review sentiment and survey comments to identify what stands out to customers, good or bad, about your brand.<a>AI tools can help</a>parse this content.</li>

97 + <li>Reviews and surveys:Analyze review sentiment and survey comments to identify what stands out to customers, good or bad, about your brand.<a>AI tools can help</a>parse this content.</li>

98 - <li>Engagement metrics:Click rates are more useful than open rates since they indicate whether you’ve piqued buyer interest. Understand which content drives action, when customers engage with your content, and where customers drop off. Klaviyo’s flow analytics tool can show you where exactly people stop engaging.</li>

98 + <li>Engagement metrics:Click rates are more useful than open rates since they indicate whether you’ve piqued buyer interest. Understand which content drives action, when customers engage with your content, and where customers drop off. Klaviyo’s flow analytics tool can show you where exactly people stop engaging.</li>

99 </ul><h3>7. Craft personalized experiences that improve CLV</h3>

100 A customer’s first purchase is ideally just the start of a long-term relationship. To build more customer loyalty, brands need to create personalized omnichannel experiences at scale.

101 Here are some examples of ways to improve the customer experience when your data lives in one platform:

102 <ul><li>Personalized website experiences for new visitors vs. subscribers who haven’t yet purchased vs. repeat buyers</li>

103 <li>Personalized marketing or service outreach after negative or positive reviews</li>

104 <li>Win-back offers for customers who have returned an item</li>

105 <li>Location-based product messaging, like promoting moisturizers during the winter in cold climates</li>

106 <li>Lookalike audiences of your best customers targeted with third-party ads</li>

107 </ul><a>Balance Me</a>, an award-winning skincare line, developed personalized email campaigns to drive first-time and repeat purchases by creating a series of email nurture campaigns specifically for people who are new to the brand and giving customers the option to receive an email notification when an item is back in stock.

108 They also started sending replenishment reminders and product-specific emails that teach customers how to improve their skincare routines with complementary products. Thanks to this kind of above-and-beyond personalization, the brand now attributes<a>56% of revenue to email</a>-a high-ROI channel that sees lower cost of acquisition than paid ads.

109 <h3>8. Measure the impact of your customer experience</h3>

110 After you’ve implemented changes, you’ll need to measure their impact. Start by auditing your customer journey map and tracking results.

111 A great way to measure the customer journey is by looking at drop-off rates. Pay attention to how different channels, campaigns, and segments contribute to revenue at each phase of the customer journey.

112 But specifically, here are some customer experience metrics you’ll want to look at over time to understand how you’re doing:

113 - <ul><li>Customer satisfaction metrics:net promoter score (NPS), customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer effort score (CES)</li>

113 + <ul><li>Customer satisfaction metrics:net promoter score (NPS), customer satisfaction score (CSAT), customer effort score (CES)</li>

114 - <li>Customer behavior metrics:retention rate, churn rate, repeat purchase rate, CLV, average order value (AOV)</li>

114 + <li>Customer behavior metrics:retention rate, churn rate, repeat purchase rate, CLV, average order value (AOV)</li>

115 - <li>Customer support metrics:first response time, resolution time, ticket volume, self-service engagement rates, etc.</li>

115 + <li>Customer support metrics:first response time, resolution time, ticket volume, self-service engagement rates, etc.</li>

116 </ul>To get the most out of this data, you’ll want to:

117 <ul><li>Combine qualitative feedback (e.g., reviews, surveys) with quantitative data.</li>

118 <li>Track trends over time to see the long-term impact of your customer experience strategy.</li>

119 <li>Compare customer experience metrics against industry benchmarks.</li>

120 <li>Use A/B testing to improve your customer experience where you’ve identified any weak points.</li>

121 </ul><h2>Align your customer experience strategy with Klaviyo B2C CRM</h2>

122 Building customer relationships starts with unifying your data on a single platform. Klaviyo B2C CRM was designed to deliver personalized experiences at scale, so you can create memorable customer experiences by the thousands or millions.

123 Create the ultimate customer experience strategy with the complete<a>Klaviyo Service</a>suite, which includes:

124 - <ul><li>Customer Hub:a personalized destination where customers can manage orders, redeem offers, discover products, and get support-all in one place</li>

124 + <ul><li>Customer Hub:a personalized destination where customers can manage orders, redeem offers, discover products, and get support-all in one place</li>

125 - <li>Klaviyo AI (K:AI) Customer Agent:a 24/7 AI assistant that’s trained on your storefront and customer data to answer questions, recommend products, and resolve issues instantly, across web chat, email, text messaging, and WhatsApp*</li>

125 + <li>Klaviyo AI (K:AI) Customer Agent:a 24/7 AI assistant that’s trained on your storefront and customer data to answer questions, recommend products, and resolve issues instantly, across web chat, email, text messaging, and WhatsApp*</li>

126 - <li>Helpdesk:brings AI and human agents into a unified workspace across email, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and social, providing full customer context for faster response times and more personalized interactions**</li>

126 + <li>Helpdesk:brings AI and human agents into a unified workspace across email, chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and social, providing full customer context for faster response times and more personalized interactions**</li>

127 </ul>*K:AI Customer Agent is currently available in English. Additional languages will be available in 2026.

128 **Klaviyo Helpdesk supports two-way conversations in any language, as long as both the customer and agent use the same language. Klaviyo does not translate messages between languages. The Helpdesk interface will appear in the language you’ve selected in your Klaviyo account settings.

129 <h3>What is a B2C CRM?</h3>

130 Learn how this revolutionary new tool sets B2C businesses up for success like never before.

131 <h3>The history of CRM</h3>

132 From Rolodexes to digital databases, the modern CRM is rooted in a history of continuous innovation.

133 <h3>Are you ready for a B2C CRM?</h3>

134 Take our digital assessment to see if you are ready for a B2C CRM.

135 <h2>Explore the CRM made for better customer relationships?</h2>

136 +