The road to build and grow your company is and will continue to be bumpy, littered with endless challenges. And in the push to be better, scalable, more tech-driven than your competitors, the most important thing is often forgotten: the faith of any startup is sealed by its customers.

71% of US workers say they are likely to contact a company after a good customer service experience, while 79% say they would not deal with a company after a bad experience.

Delighting customers is easier said than done, but as Warren Buffett stated, it’s the one thing every business must do.

The one core value every great company has in common

When given the choice of obsessing over competitors or obsessing over customers, Amazon always chose the latter. According to Jeff Bezos, they implemented CX from the beginning, and “it’s the only reason Amazon exists today in any form.”

Similarly, on any given day, 75% of Zappos‘ orders are from returning customers. According to their philosophy, most of the money they would have spent on marketing is invested in CX, making word of mouth their true form of marketing.

“You’ve gotta start with the CX and work backwards to the technology. You can’t start with the technology and try to figure out where you’re gonna try to sell it, and I made this mistake probably more than anybody else” Steve Jobs

Why do we recognize and admire these brands today? Because they have built their corporate culture and processes around principles of CX, thus earning our loyalty.

CX shouldn’t be an afterthought

Creating CX from the ground up has also helped Eero set itself apart from the rest. While most startups front-load hiring engineers and only one CX person on their founding teams, Nick Weaver hired Sean Harris, their Head of Marketing, and also began building his CX team.

When they launched their CX team, Eero started to offer support via email and by phone, in order to ensure each customer has a positive experience.

“Having two channels didn’t limit our customers, or us. From the start, we put our support email address and phone number in as many places as possible so it’s easy for customers to find” Dana Lindsay, Head of CX

The key metric of many CX team is focusing on how to better meet client problems, while Eero makes their customers feel heard, conducting them through troubleshooting so they won’t face similar difficulties in the feature.

Powerful alliances inside the company

Eero’s CX team works closely with Product and Engineering teams, allowing them to have access to customer insights, based on which they run new ideas and features.

By distributing valuable information to your team, you ensure improvement within your organization.

“CX is not only about how people experience your product, but also how your company experiences your customer”.

Since human-to-human support interactions may become increasingly rare, the ability to focus on these skills will make a brand stand out from the crowd. Its success will be measured in happy customers, not product releases.

And in order to have happy customers, you must have first happy employees [PDF]. Your team will treat your customers well if they are treated the same way.

Be honest to, respect, care for, and reward your employees, regardless of position; in return, they will treat each other and their customers in a warm, caring, and hospitable way. This causes customers to return and also recommend you whenever they get the chance.