The power of a feeling: what customer experience really means

There’s this quote - you’ve probably heard it before - that says:

"People may forget what you said or did, but they’ll always remember how you made them feel."

I think that’s exactly what customer experience (CX) is all about.

It’s not about the technical flow. Not about colors or click paths. It’s about the emotional imprint someone walks away with after interacting with your brand. Even if it’s just once.

And sometimes, that impression comes down to the smallest things.

The Phone Line Debate

At work, we recently had a discussion about our phone lines.We’re a multilingual company based in Belgium. So our customers could be Dutch-speaking, French-speaking, English-speaking, sometimes even German.

The question was whether we should add a pre-recorded menu system to triage callers. You know the type: “Press 1 for Dutch, Press 2 for French…”

It seems like a reasonable solution, right?

But I was heavily against it. And here’s why.

From personal to processed

Right now, when someone calls us, they’re greeted immediately. By a human, in both French and Dutch.That single moment already sets a tone. It says:“You’re talking to a person. You matter. We’re here.”

As soon as you introduce a pre-recorded message, the tone shifts. It becomes transactional.Efficient? Maybe. But only for us, the company. For the caller, it’s colder. Slower. More generic. Even if they get routed to the same person in the end, the experience feels different. And that feeling is the whole point.

Efficiency for Whom?

It’s easy to justify automation in the name of efficiency. But we have to ask: whose efficiency are we optimizing for?

• For the company: sure, triage makes things smoother.

• But for the customer: it adds friction.

And in our case, we realized that just changing the phone number might be a better solution. So now, if you visit our French-language site, you see the French phone number. If you’re on the Dutch site, you get the Dutch one.

Simple.

No automation.

Just a small, thoughtful change that improves the experience without taking away the human touch.