Customers remember experiences by their most intense moment and how they ended — so design those deliberately.
Behavioural science shows memory of an experience is dominated by its peak and its end, not the average of every step. Yet most CX work obsesses over removing friction evenly.
Leading teams now deliberately engineer a memorable high point and a strong finish — a delightful confirmation, a thoughtful close to a support call.
This turns experience design from defect-removal into memory-making.
Why we think it'll come up
Memory is selective
People recall peaks and endings, not averages.
Friction-removal plateaus
Smoothing everything equally yields diminishing returns.
Emotion drives recall
Intense positive moments outweigh many minor frictions.
What it changes for customer experience
For customers
Journeys that leave a genuinely positive, memorable impression.
For business
Stronger recall, ratings, and word-of-mouth from engineered high points.
For CX & operations
Journey mapping adds emotional peaks and endings, not just pain points.
Industries on the front line
For your priority journey, identify where to place one deliberate emotional peak and how to end strongly — then invest there, not only in removing average friction.
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Turn this trend into a measurable experience advantage.