Something I talk about a lot is that, what people call “customer experience” is really just how it feels to deal with your business. It's all about emotion. A feeling. The vibe.
It’s not a department or a role. It’s how easy things feel, how clear things are, how confident someone feels as they move forward with you, and whether they come away thinking “that just worked” or “that felt harder than it needed to be”
And when you look at it like that, it starts to show up in all sorts of places… especially in what your customers say about you (and if you don't know, ask).
Full disclosure, this topic of USPs was actually shared in a networking room on Tuesday. Since then I’ve been talking a lot about USPs and what makes you different, and it made me realise how easy it is to overthink it (which was the point being made in the networking room on Tuesday!).
Most of us have, at some point, sat there trying to come up with the right words, listing out experience, qualifications, years in the industry, all the things that feel like they should matter.
And they do, to a point.
But when you actually look at what your customers say after working with you, it’s usually something else entirely.
They don’t tend to talk about your job title or how long you’ve been doing it. They talk about how you made things feel easier, how you helped them see something clearly, how you simplified something that felt complicated, or how you gave them confidence to move forward.
Emotion. How you made them feel. That’s the bit that sticks (nod to Maya Angelou's quote that I regularly share "People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel").
What I’ve noticed, especially this week, is that your customers are already telling you what your USP is. It’s sitting there in your testimonials, your feedback, the things people say on calls or in messages, we just don’t always stop and look at it properly.
We read it, think “that’s nice”, and move on.
But if you take a bit of time with it, there’s so much in there.
A really simple way to start is to look at your last few testimonials or bits of feedback and ask yourself what they’re actually thanking you for. Not the outcome in a broad sense, but the way you helped them get there.
Was it the clarity you gave them? Was it how quickly things made sense? Was it that you helped them focus on what mattered?
You’ll usually start to see patterns come through, and those patterns are far more useful than anything you’d try to come up with on your own.
It’s also a really good way of spotting where you might want to improve. If people consistently mention one thing, that’s a clear strength. If something you thought was a strength never really comes up, it’s worth asking why. And if feedback hints at something feeling unclear or harder than it needed to be, that’s a really useful place to focus next.
The other thing this does, which I think is just as important, is it makes your messaging a lot easier. Instead of trying to sound impressive, you can just reflect back what your customers are already saying, which usually sounds more natural anyway and connects much more quickly.
If you want to try this, you don’t need loads of time. Just take 10–15 minutes, pull together a few recent testimonials or messages, and have a proper read through them. Look for what comes up more than once, because that’s usually where your real USP sits.
I’d be really interested to know, if you’ve had a testimonial recently, what stood out for you and what are people actually coming to you for?
If this is something you’re working through at the moment, this is exactly the kind of thing I help business owners get clear on, so always happy to chat it through.
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