Think about the last time a digital interaction made your day easier. Maybe your bank’s app let you pay a bill in under a minute. Or you ordered dinner through an app without hitting a single roadblock. Or a support chat didn’t make you jump through five hoops just to talk to a human.
These small interactions are adding up. More often than not, people are connecting with brands through screens, not storefronts. And they’re not lowering the bar—they’re raising it.
So, what is digital customer experience? It’s all the ways customers interact with your brand online—on your website, in your app, through emails, or over chat. But it’s not just about the platforms. What really matters is how those moments land emotionally. Were they helpful? Frustrating? Forgettable?
Digital Touchpoints Now Drive Decisions
There’s no shortage of research showing how much customer expectations have shifted. In recent industry surveys, the majority of consumers say the overall experience plays just as big a role in their decision-making as cost or product quality. And these days, much of that experience is happening digitally.
Where a friendly employee might have once smoothed things over in person, brands now have to rely on how well their digital channels perform—how easy it is to find help, how quickly an app responds, or how clearly an email communicates next steps.
If any of those drop the ball, customers won’t necessarily complain—they’ll just move on. And in fast-moving spaces like retail, banking, and healthcare, they’ve got options. A clunky mobile site or glitchy login flow might seem like small annoyances, but customers take those as signals. Signals that your brand doesn’t really have it together.
And once those signals pile up? You’re no longer just annoying customers—you’re losing them.
On the flip side, when a company nails it—when things work the way they should and feel easy—customers take notice. They come back. They tell friends. They spend more. Forrester research backs this up: companies with strong digital experiences grow faster, retain more customers, and pull ahead of competitors who lag behind.
When the Experience Outshines the Product
Delta’s mobile app is a great example. It doesn’t just show flight times—it helps you rebook, track bags, and get support without waiting in line at the airport. That kind of control, especially during delays or cancellations, can make a stressful situation bearable.
Then there’s Domino’s. Their pizza hasn’t changed much, but the way you can order it? That’s a different story. You can order from your phone, your car, even your smart speaker. They removed friction in every possible way, and it paid off.
These brands didn’t just upgrade their tech. They looked at common pain points and fixed them. It wasn’t about bells and whistles—it was about being useful.
Making Digital Experience Work
Improving digital experience often starts with asking where things are going off the rails. Maybe your checkout page causes drop-offs. Maybe your live chat gives canned, irrelevant answers. Maybe people have to re-enter the same information across platforms. Those are small things that add up.
Fixing them doesn’t have to be flashy. It just has to work.