Most organisations claim to be customer centric.
It’s on company websites. It’s in the values. It’s laced into the town halls.
But if you speak to customers – and frontline teams – quite often it’s a different story.
I’m sure many will agree, that ‘customer-centric’ has become one of the most overused and least evidenced phrases in business. It’s a badge, not a discipline. A slogan, and not a practical workable system.
Many leadership teams genuinely believe they’re customer-led… while their customers experience something very different.
Here are some signs of evidence that customer-centricity is just theatrical
Customers only matter when something goes wrong
If the customer agenda only shows up through complaints, escalations, regulatory scrutiny, or social media pressure…
…then you’re not customer centric. You simply just react to customers problems!
Customer-centric organisations don’t wait for pain. They design for optimum customer outcomes.
You measure satisfaction, but you don’t manage experience
A lot of businesses can tell you their NPS.
But ask:
- What drives it?
- What’s broken in the journey?
- Which behaviours are causing friction?
- What the root causes are by channel?
- What the “must fix” issues are at executive level?
…and things can get vague very quickly.
I love data – but essentially data can be shaped to fit almost any agenda.
If the insight becomes a report rather than a programme of change, you don’t have great CX – you have a vanity metrics theatre.
Your operating model is still built around internal convenience
If your business is organised around traditional internal functions, leadership boundaries, historic structures, and “that’s how we’ve always done it”…
…then the customer is not at the centre.
Your customers will likely be experiencing handoffs, conflicting messaging, repeated questions, lack of ownership, and inconsistent standards. It is not an easy transaction for them.
To the customer it feels like chaos – and they know the process is not as straight forward as it should be.
‘Customer first’ disappears at budget time
This one is an unknown phenomenon.
When cost pressure hits – and it will do at some point in the journey – the customer agenda is often the first thing to get diluted.
Marketing and operating budgets are cut. Digital transformation agendas are delayed.
Cuts are made without understanding the impact on trust and loyalty. They very ‘thing’ that brings in the money – is cut loose from the organisation!
Customer-centric organisations don’t just cut short term spend without considering the longer term outcome. Because really effective strategic leadership teams understand that investing in customer outcomes is what drives sustainable revenue optimisation in any case.
Your frontline teams are disengaged
This is one of the most accurate indicators.
If you want to know whether a business is truly customer-led, don’t look at the website, or listen to TV advertising.
Ask the people who sit closest to the customer – ask front line operators.
If they roll their eyes when leadership says “customer first”…
That’s a pretty compelling answer.
This is what real “customer-centricity” looks like
Customer-centricity isn’t just a value on website.
It’s a strategic system, which includes:
Customer outcomes are non-negotiable executive measures
Tangible, measurable outcomes like:
- Quality of outcome from the customers perspective
- Trust indicators
- Effort required
- Level of ease
- Employee Engagement
- Time to resolve
- Repeat contact rate
- First time fix
And are owned by the executive team as board KPI’s, not delegated to other departments like service, CX or marketing. True customer centricity, starts at ‘the top’.
Standards that stick
Customer standards have to translate into cultural behaviours.
If you can’t define what “good” looks like, how it’s measured, the mechanisms used to improve it, how it’s trained and reinforced into the organisational culture – and importantly, have evidence of a strong customer feedback process – then “customer-centricity” is just branding.
Experience design is directly connected to operating model design
This is the missing link in most businesses – and I have recorded a number of podcasts with the globally renowned Ian Golding about CX being a strategic system – this is a fundamental part of that system.
‘Customer experience’ cannot be layered on top of a broken antiquated structure.
It must be the very essence of a business – designed into organisational structure, leadership styles, job roles, skills, behaviours, ways of working, accountability, technology, tooling, governance and effective performance management.
The customer experience you deliver is the one your operating model enables. Period.
Insight turns into action straight away – not after the next quarterly leadership meeting
Real CX organisations don’t just admire the problem and have it as a topic of discussion at quarterly leadership meetings. They act quickly to provide a seamless experience – with continuous improvement loops across the entire customer journey.
They also have:
- Tight feedback loops with instilled ownership and accountability attached
- Fast and effective root-cause analysis and resolution
- Agile change governance and a culture where mistakes are not catastrophised
- Clear prioritisation and a focus on things that really matter
- Relentless follow-through and communication
They treat customer experience as a way of working life – not just something to do when they remember to think about it.
Leaders are present where experience is created
Customer-centric leaders don’t just talk about customers.
They view the organisation from the outside. They tie together the entire end to end experience and respect everybody’s part in the journey.
They engage. The collaborate. They take accountability. They take action.
Because a customer centric culture is never just about what leaders say. Culture is what leaders consistently do.
Final thought
Customer-centricity is not a strapline. It’s not just a values slide.
And it’s definitely not a siloed “CX team.”
It’s also not something that is done once and then dropped – it’s a continuous cycle of prioritisation, innovation and change.
It’s an organisational choice – proven in systems governance, operating model structure, behaviours, continuous feedback loops, accountability, strong decision making and making things happen.
So to determine whether your organisation is really customer-centric – you should consider your answers to these questions:
Does your executive board prioritise and take ownership of the customer agenda?
Is your operating model designed to deliver a customer outcome… even when it goes against historical processes and systems?
If you asked a customer facing employee whether you are customer centric, what would they say?
And last, but not least, is customer feedback truly measured, valued, and acted upon? Quickly?
The answers to these questions reflect the difference between true customer-centricity… and just lip service.
