‘Customer Engagement’ Is Overrated—Here's What Really Builds Loyalty
Everything you thought you knew about customer loyalty is about to be challenged—are you ready?
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The Problem: Misunderstanding What Customers Actually Want
Do your customers really care about being 'engaged'?
Do they wake up hoping to build deeper emotional connections with your brand?
Spoiler alert: They don't.
What customers really want—what they're practically screaming for—is a straightforward, frictionless solution to their problems.
The Engagement Illusion
Somewhere along the line, brands got wrapped up in this idea that every interaction had to feel like the start of a beautiful friendship.
But your customers aren't dating your brand.
They're just trying to pay their bills, track a lost order, or fix that weird error message popping up at checkout.
The Myth of the Relationship
Remember when you called customer service about your spotty internet?
Did you care if the agent asked how your day was going or chatted you up about weekend plans?
Nope.
You wanted your Wi-Fi back ASAP.
Brands confuse friendliness with effectiveness.
Sure, a warm greeting can ease frustration temporarily, but if the core issue remains unresolved, you've only painted lipstick on an unhappy pig.
What Research Tells Us
Customers don't need you to be their buddy.
They need reliability, consistency, and speed.
According to a PWC study, over 70% of customers prioritize efficiency and ease of resolution over feeling 'connected' to a brand.
Let that sink in: seven out of ten customers would trade your friendly banter for faster results in a heartbeat.
Engagement without solving the problem isn't just useless—it's annoying.
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The Solution: Focus on Being Indispensable, Not Lovable
Indispensability Trumps Affection
Here's an idea that might bruise some egos:
Your customers choose your brand because you consistently deliver results. Period.
Think Amazon.
Do you love Amazon?
Probably not.
But can you live without it?
Probably not.
Learning From Success Stories
Amazon isn't trying to charm you with cute emails or friendly chatbots named Alex.
They're obsessed with Customer Experience Optimization, relentlessly removing friction, delivering quickly, and making your life easier.
Be like Amazon.
Be indispensable.
Stop trying to be their friend when you could be their hero.
Indispensability breeds loyalty more powerfully than affection ever could.
Practical, Not Personal
Does your CXM approach still lean into fluffy concepts like building connections or fostering emotional bonds?
If so, it's time for a wake-up call.
Your customers interact with your brand because they have jobs to get done.
They choose you because you get the job done better than the competition.
It's practical, not personal.
Instead of attempting to win hearts, use journey analytics to pinpoint precisely where you can deliver immediate, practical value.
Think of it this way: your customer isn't looking for romance; they're looking for a plumber at 2 am to stop the flooding.
Implementation: How to Shift Your CX Strategy
Audit and Eliminate
Start by auditing your customer journey.
Ruthlessly eliminate unnecessary interactions—especially ones designed to fake engagement or create superficial connections.
Replace With Value
Replace engagement-focused touchpoints with ones that offer direct help.
If your analysis shows customers dropping off during overly conversational interactions, it's time to swap that cozy chat with clear instructions and solutions.
Make every interaction transactional in the best way possible: efficient, meaningful, and laser-focused on resolution.
Leadership Requires Honesty
True CX leadership involves recognizing uncomfortable truths—and here's one: customers don't owe you their love.
Your job isn't to charm them; it's to solve their problems so well they never consider going anywhere else.
Leaders who understand this shift can realign teams around delivering consistently exceptional, friction-free outcomes.
Embrace improvement not as a mission to become more lovable, but as an ongoing commitment to becoming profoundly useful.
Stay Ahead of Shifting Trends
As trends shift, smart brands are simplifying, not complicating.
They're cutting fluff and doubling down on clarity.
They measure success by fewer clicks, less wait time, and more problems solved quickly.
Ask yourself, honestly, are you keeping pace?
Great customer experience isn't about manufacturing artificial moments of connection.
It's about creating an environment where solutions flow naturally and effortlessly.
Overcoming Common Obstacles to Change
As you shift toward results-focused customer experience, you'll likely encounter resistance. Here are the most common obstacles and how to address them:
1. "But our satisfaction scores are high with our current approach"
Solution: Run a controlled experiment comparing satisfaction vs. effort scores and retention rates between your current approach and a more direct, results-focused one. Data speaks louder than assumptions.
2. "Our brand guidelines emphasize friendly, conversational interactions"
Solution: Present the research showing most customers prefer efficiency over friendliness. Propose updating brand guidelines to reflect customer priorities rather than internal preferences.
3. "Our agents are trained to build relationships"
Solution: Redirect training to focus on problem-solving efficiency. Measure agents on resolution metrics rather than "friendliness" scores. Show how this actually reduces stress by aligning their work with what customers truly value.
4. "We've invested heavily in our relationship-building technology"
Solution: Repurpose existing tech to deliver faster solutions rather than superficial connections. The same CRM that tracks personal details can be used to track resolution paths.
5. "Our leadership believes in the importance of emotional connection"
Solution: Frame the shift not as abandoning emotional connection but as respecting customers' emotions—specifically, their desire to solve problems quickly and move on with their lives.
Remember that shifting to results-focused CX doesn't happen overnight.
Start with one customer journey, prove the concept, and expand gradually as you demonstrate success.
You have more power to drive this change than you might realize.
Customer experience transformations often start with a single champion who sees the truth and has the courage to challenge conventional wisdom.
With the frameworks and tools in this article, you're already better equipped than most to lead this revolution in your organization.
Beyond the Binary: Giving Customers Control of Experience Levels
What if the answer isn't choosing between relationships or results, but letting your customers decide what they want at each moment?
Remember the last time you took an Uber when exhausted versus when you were excited about an event? Did you want the same conversation experience both times?
Consider how Uber revolutionized ride-sharing by giving riders control over the interaction level with drivers.
Their "Quiet Mode" option allows passengers to choose between "quiet preferred," "happy to chat," or no preference at all.
This simple feature acknowledges an important truth: different customers want different levels of interaction in different contexts.
When rushing to an important meeting, a rider might prefer silence. After a social event, they might welcome conversation.
What if you applied this model to your customer service?
Imagine starting an interaction with:
"Would you prefer a direct solution or would you like me to walk you through the process?"
This approach respects customer preferences rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all "relationship" on everyone.
The key insight isn't that relationships never matter—it's that your customers should control the interaction level, not your brand.
Respect means giving your customers the choice between efficiency and engagement, rather than forcing either approach.
Comparing Relationship-Focused vs. Results-Focused Approaches
Understanding these conceptual differences is essential, but what do they look like in practice?
Here's how your approach to common customer touchpoints changes when you prioritize results over relationships:
The difference is clear: relationship-focused approaches consume customer time and attention without delivering proportional value, while results-focused approaches respect customers by valuing their time and priorities.
These differences extend beyond structure to the very language you use with customers.
Shifting Language From Relationship-Building to Results-Delivering
Your word choices signal whether you prioritize relationships or results.
Here are examples of how to transform your customer communications from relationship-focused to results-focused:
Notice how results-focused language is direct, specific, and oriented toward the customer's goals rather than the brand's desire for connection.
It respects the customer's time by getting straight to the point and clearly communicating the value or action needed.
Your Action Plan: Becoming Indispensable
What would change if your team stopped trying to be liked and started obsessing over becoming essential?
How would your customer metrics look if you eliminated every interaction that didn't directly solve a problem or deliver value?
It's time to transform your customer experience strategy:
Identify Your True Value: Map exactly where and how you solve customer problems better than anyone else
Measure What Matters: Track resolution speeds, success rates, and effort scores—not satisfaction with your "friendly service"
Realign Your Teams: Shift from creating "moments of delight" to eliminating moments of friction
Rebuild Your Processes: Design every interaction to get customers to their desired outcome with minimal steps
Your customers don't want a Valentine's card—they want a superhero who shows up, solves the crisis, and vanishes into the night.
Become that superhero, and they'll never call anyone else again.
When you consistently deliver results that no one else can match, you don't need to manufacture relationships.
Your customers will stick with you not because they love you, but because life without you seems impossible.
And that's a far more powerful position to be in.
What's Coming Next Week
So now you get the big idea - customers want results, not relationships. But here's the tricky part: how do you figure out where your team is falling into the relationship trap? And how do you know which customer interactions need fixing first?
Next week, I'm going to hook you up with two tools I've seen work wonders for companies just like yours:
1. The Relationship-Results Diagnostic Tool — Think of it as a BS detector for your customer experience. It spots exactly where you're wasting time on fake friendliness when customers just want solutions. You'll instantly see where to make changes that actually matter.
2. The R.E.S.U.L.T.S. Framework — This is your step-by-step guide for evaluating any customer touchpoint. Companies love this because it turns all these big ideas into stuff you can actually do tomorrow. Their customers are happier, and they're keeping them longer.
I've watched teams use these tools to cut out pointless steps, streamline customer journeys, and build experiences that customers genuinely value.
Want these tools for yourself? Make sure you're on the list for next week's email. While your competitors are still sending "just checking in" messages, you'll be building a customer experience that makes you absolutely essential to your customers' success.
What Successful CX Leaders Do on Sundays
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👋 Please Reach Out
I created this newsletter to help customer-obsessed pros like you deliver exceptional experiences and tackle challenges head-on. But honestly? The best part is connecting with awesome, like-minded people—just like you! 😊
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Got feedback? Tell me what’s working, what’s not, or what you’d love to see next.
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— Mark
www.marklevy.co
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This was meant for me to read today! A shift in mindset.
Hi, Mark!
I always got an icky feeling when brands focus too much on telling me how grand they are and how good of a relationship they want with me, but the basics aren't even working correctly. At the end of the day it's very maslowian, we need our basic needs met before having storytelling shoved down out throats. Loved the article. Thank you!