Too many CX playbooks are stuck in triage mode, dousing fires at visible touchpoints like support calls or checkout glitches. But while they're firefighting, the real story unfolds in the background—often unexplored until loyalty has simply evaporated into one-off transactions.

"The 'white spaces'—those unseen areas in the customer journey where perceptions become reality—are where most organizations fall short," says Rosebella Abok, Global Head of Customer Experience at ENGIE Energy Access, where she drives CX strategy for the leading Pay-As-You-Go solar provider impacting millions across nine African nations. "They're so focused on the immediate sale, they completely miss the long-term experience that truly defines the brand for the customer."

Beyond the sale: Customer experience, Abok says, is far more than just customer service. "Bad service is just one part, a subset of the entire customer's rational and emotional experience with any brand." These "white spaces" can emerge long after a purchase. Consider a customer who buys an appliance: The initial transaction might be smooth, but how the brand engages (or fails to) in subsequent years shapes their perception. "They are still telling a very good story about the brand in terms of something memorable, but what the organization does not know is what's happening in one year or two years' time. Most brands are only about you for the sale."

More than just a number: Many companies fall into "score chasing," fixating on metrics like NPS. "It's about what companies reward," Abok notes. "If you reward high NPS scores and decide that's the KPI per agent, or even across the business, you incentivize chasing that score." Such a narrow focus can obscure the real drivers of customer value.

Value redefined: "There's a huge difference between customer value and business value," Abok says, advocating for linking business objectives directly to customer value, not just internal metrics. "Customer value is, for the time that I have your service or your product, I am getting exactly what I want, if not more." Real customer satisfaction, she argues, directly drives business value through upsells and referrals, and is the truest metric of growth. "We have to measure business objectives that are linked to customer value."