Experience economy: What customers pay for

This story has significance for readers across Kenya and beyond.

There was a time a business could win a customer with a good product and fair price. That still matters, but no longer decides the contest on its own. Today, the businesses pulling ahead are those that have understood a quieter shift in what people actually want: not just to buy something, but to feel something while they buy it.

This is the logic of the experience economy. Consumers increasingly place a premium on experiences over transactions. A meal is no longer just a meal if the restaurant has turned dinner into a live jazz evening. A gym membership is no longer just access to equipment if it comes with a community of people who show up for one another other.

Entertainment has stopped being a nice-to-have bolted onto a business and become a core part of how that business builds relationships with the people it serves. Nowhere is this clearer than in the way people watch sport. Football has become a unifying experience of modern life, and the venues that understand this are thriving.

Think of a sports bar on a Saturday afternoon when the English Premier League kicks off, or a joint packed for a Champions League final.

The product on offer is technically the same. What people are paying for is something else. It is the shared gasp of a last-minute goal, the friendly needling between rival fans, the sense of belonging to something bigger than an individual transaction.

Businesses that have leaned into this understanding are seeing the payoff. Emotional connection is a far more durable foundation for loyalty than price competitiveness.

A customer who associates your establishment with the thrill of watching their team win will return without persuasion. They also do something more valuable – talk about it. Word-of-mouth marketing flows naturally out of genuinely experiences in a way it never flows out of a discount code.

This has implications on how businesses think about their offering. A bar or restaurant that treats live sport as background noise on a muted TV is missing the point.

One that treats it as a centrepiece, complete with reliable big-screen access to the matches, comfortable seating for groups and an atmosphere that rewards showing up, is building something closer to a destination than a venue. The margin between the two, in terms of footfall and repeat business, is significant.

Reliable access to that content is the quiet infrastructure behind it. None of the communal energy of a Champions League night matters if the screen goes dark at kickoff. This is part of why partnerships between hospitality venues and established content providers have become a fixture of how businesses plan their calendars around the football season.

Getting that infrastructure right without fuss is what allows a bar owner to focus on the experience itself rather than worrying about the signal holding. Behind every good customer experience sits a less visible chain of decisions about content rights, distribution and technical reliability.

Entertainment does not have to be your core product to be part of your customer experience strategy. A bank that sponsors community football viewing, a mall that sets up a fan zone during a tournament, a telco that bundles content into its offering, are making the same bet. That shared moments of genuine enjoyment builds brand affinity in a way advertising spend alone cannot buy.

Businesses that will keep winning are those paying attention to what customers value in the moment, and building around that with intention. In an economy increasingly defined by experience, that attentiveness may be the most important competitive advantage a business can have.

The writer is the Head of Customer Experience & Care at MultiChoice Kenya

Reporting originally appeared via Business Daily. Read the full source for additional context.