In this week’s episode of the SIMPLE brand podcast, I talk with Annette Franz, author of  Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture that Drives Value for Your Business!

Recently a CapGemini study showed that “while 75% of businesses believe they’re customer-centric, only 30% of their customers actually agreed with that.”

So you can say that your brand is customer-centric all day long,  but if your customer doesn’t agree with you, then you’ve got a big problem. And that problem is even bigger when you’re oblivious to it.

Delivering a truly customer-centric experience is pretty simple. It may not be easy, but it is simple. And it starts with your culture. It starts with you recognizing that your customer experience will not improve until you have an understanding of your customer and their needs instilled into everything that everyone across your organization does - not just those teams that are customer-facing. 

A truly customer-centric experience starts with having a truly customer-centric culture.

I don’t think enough leaders are talking about how to truly accomplish this, but this week’s guest is - it’s Annette Franz.

Annette’s the founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc., a customer experience strategy consulting firm that helps clients ensure that the customer is at the center of all they do.

As a seasoned Customer Experience veteran with over 30 years of experience, Annette’s held CX leadership roles at some of the top brands in the country including J.D. Power, Fidelity, and Mattel.

 And her latest book was just released this month! Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business.

While lots of experts talk about the value of customer-centric experiences, there aren’t enough lessons out there on how to build a customer-centric culture in your organization and how to ensure that the customer is fully ingrained into your organization’s DNA. And that’s just what Annette focuses on in Built to Win, and we take a deep-dive discussion into those lessons.

Some of the topics we discuss include:

• The difference between being customer-focused and being customer-centric and the value of a customer-centric culture
• The barriers to creating a customer-centric culture
• The value of defining both behaviors and anti-behaviors that tie to your organization’s values
• Why your employees should come “more first” [that’s not a typo!]
• How to ensure your customer experience thinking is outside-in vs inside-out
• How to apply the Platinum Rule to your customer experience

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE

• Annette's site
• Annette on LinkedIn
• Annette's book - Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value For Your Business
• Annette's book - Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the "Customer" in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business)