In a technology driven era where customers are raising the bar, businesses are flexing their creative prowess, showing off their personalities and leveraging technology to elevate the customer experience. A decade old study by Cornell University Waiting for Merlot: Anticipatory Consumption of Experiential and Material Purchases, argued that experiential purchases (money spent on doing) tend to provide more enduring happiness than material purchases (money spent on having). The happiness we feel from material goods fades over time, experiences, on the other hand, continue to bring us joy every time we think about them.
Today, nearly 90% of buyers say that the experience a company provides is just as important as the quality of its products or services. Given this shift in customer preferences, here are a few ways businesses are leveraging tech to form memorable encounters to develop and maintain long-term relationships with their customers.