In a recent report, Forrester research present data that correlates a positive customer experience to customer loyalty (link). They surveyed 4700 people and received data on about 1000 companies, regarding the link between loyalty and experience.
As they say themselves:
Our analysis shows that good customer experience correlates to consumers’ willingness to repurchase, reluctance to switch, and likelihood to recommend firms…Â
This fits well with subjective experience and earlier studies. I remember reading some years back about consumer behaviour related to customer experience on e-commerce sites. Although 90% of online customers were concerned about use of their personal data, one third were willing to give personal data to retailers they have built some kind of relationship with, regardless of whether they were buying or not. This was in the dot.com days, and I remember the headline “trust is currency in e-commerce”.Â
It was true then, and its true now. Customers build up their understanding of an online service from the experience it gives them, both visually and through use. This understanding is essentially the perceived offering (the O letter in AT-ONE), and is key to customer judgements about trust and ultimately loyalty. With todays rates of churn and high  acquisition costs, its definitely a worthwhile investment to focus more upon the customer experience.