Customer experience expert Lisa Ford explains why satisfied customers could still walk away – and how leaders can create experiences that keep them coming back.
By Pete Mercer
In business, everything begins and ends with the customer experience. In the competitive and highly regulated world of medical sales, the quality of the customer’s journey is no longer a bonus – it’s a necessity. From the initial point of contact to post-sale support, every interaction shapes how healthcare providers perceive not just a product, but the company behind it.
Repertoire Magazine recently sat down with Lisa Ford, an expert in customer experience, to discuss what exceptional customer service looks like in 2025, what drives customer loyalty, and how leadership plays role in creating a customer-focused culture.
The customer experience in 2025
For over 40 years, Ford has helped companies, businesses, associations, and teams figure out how to be more customer focused and create those memorable experiences for their customers. In that time, she has seen the whole breadth of the customer experience, from top to bottom, bad to good.
As for what the customer experience looks like in 2025, Ford said, “Customer service today is much more customized and personalized to the customer. But I do think there’s a lot that hasn’t changed – the basics of human contact are still in place and need to be. Those human skills, empathy skills … Great listening, just knowing how to finesse someone in problem situations, finding solutions. All that remains the same when you’re one-on-one with the customer.”
Businesses have to work harder to fight for the attention of their customers – attention and time is valuable, and there’s not enough to go around for everyone. Finding ways to make yourself stick out in the crowd is one of the biggest challenges for business leaders to stay relevant in today’s market, especially in healthcare.
With so many devices and medical equipment on the market today, it’s rare to find something unique from the rest of the options that are available. That’s why you need the attention of your customers. “I think customers are certainly more impatient, picky, and demanding. They are on the move, so we have to make certain that we capture and keep them.”
Understanding the customer experience
Part of the challenge with creating a finely tuned customer experience is having a complete understanding of what the customer experience is and how it works. These can be small details, so they’re easy to miss. It starts with understanding that customer service and the customer experience are intertwined with each other, but not the same thing. Ford described the customer experience as the big picture, an all-encompassing idea of how the customer walks away from any interactions with your organization. Customer service is the nuts and bolts, or the soft skills that make all the big ideas come together in a beautiful way.
“First, I’ve got to make sure they’re really seeing customer experience as the total picture, where customer service is a piece of that experience,” Ford said. “The customer experience is what they experience – not what you want them to experience, not your intentions. The experience is what happens when the customer’s doing business with you before, during, and after. All those meaningful touches along the way have to create an emotion that links them to you.”
One of the big components that companies misunderstand is that they have to be proactive and responsive with their customers. This means anticipating needs and having a solution at the drop of a hat. This is obviously a huge challenge, but it’s what is going to separate you from the other people who are not willing to take that extra step to ensure that the customer has what they need. That’s what makes a difference in these interactions.
“Everything matters. We’ve got to make certain that we’re doing it across all those touchpoints. In many cases, that’s what’s missing. Not enough organizations are looking at all their touchpoints to identify what works and what doesn’t.”
Driving customer loyalty
With a better understanding of what the customer experience is, how does customer loyalty play into this? What drives customer loyalty? According to Ford, the number one thing to understand is that a satisfied customer is not necessarily a loyal customer.
With a satisfied customer, you almost have to assume that you’re always one step away from them taking their business elsewhere. What’s stopping them? Sure, they could be happy. But as soon as something shifts, there’s nothing to stop them from finding the next best thing. Ford said, “The customer is in constant change. Their perception of you is in constant change.”
To effectively drive loyalty with your customers, Ford argues that it’s all about adding value. If they feel like they can come to your team with a multitude of problems after you’ve already solved one, that conveys a sense of trust that speaks volumes. You want your customers to feel known by you, and you can further drive that loyalty and trust by doing things like saving them time and money, reducing any concerns they might have, and making their lives easier.
“A loyal customer is the one who continues to do business with you,” Ford said. “They go deeper into your products and services, and they say positive things about you within your marketplace. I think it’s everything from word of mouth to increased spending. They trust you and are more willing to take your recommendations.”
Using company culture as a foundation
The culture of your organization is the foundation of your customer experience, and it will shape how your customers engage with your business. They will be able to tell when your culture is unhealthy because it will impact every touchpoint, especially when they’re speaking to your team members. An unhealthy culture will seep into the fabric of your organization and affect everything, so it’s important to build a strong, healthy company culture as a foundation for the customer experience.
According to Ford, you need three main things to be customer-centric, starting with ensuring that you are hiring people who are ‘smart-to-start.’ To perpetuate a healthy culture, you need to have the right people on your team to carry the torch. Once you have the right people on your team, they need to go through a productive and informative training process. Finally, you need to equip and empower your team members to make the best decisions for the organization and the customers.
“I think the empowerment issue is one of the next big steps of a customer-centric culture,” she said. “That team member needs to be empowered to make decisions on behalf of the organization and the customer. If we’ve hired well and trained well, they can do that. If we haven’t, they’re not going to be able to make a decision that balances the needs of the organization and the customer.”
In the end, it comes down to leadership. Leaders must set the tone for the rest of the organization – leaders should be able to meet any of the expectations that they have for the rest of the business. “You cannot expect people to be more than you are. You have to make certain that you are modeling it and keeping it on the agenda. You need someone who champions it at the leadership level.”