Episode Summary

We're in business because of and for our customers. And that's why an exceptional customer experience should be at the heart of every business.

But the foundation of every outstanding customer experience is the company's culture.

In this episode of the CX Education podcast, our host Heather Share welcomes Annette Franz, the Founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc. They talk about how technology has impacted customer experience, why culture is the foundation for everything in your company, including CX, and the benefits of automation in business.

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Guest-at-a-Glance

💡 Name: Annette Franz

💡 What she does: She's the Founder and CEO of CX Journey Inc.

💡 Company: CX Journey Inc

💡 Noteworthy: With almost 30 years in the customer experience profession, Annette is internationally recognized as a thought leader, coach, keynote speaker, and author.

💡 Where to find Annette: LinkedIn

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Key Insights 

⚡ There's no business success without customer success. If you're in business, you can't afford to overlook the importance of customer experience. Annette explains, "Ultimately, we're in business because of and for our customers. And if we don't do right by them, if we don't design an experience that's for them — and Seth Godin has this quote, ‘Finding products for your customers versus finding customers for your products.’ If we're finding customers for our products, it's a whole different ball game. But if we take the time to understand our customers, understand their pain points, the jobs they're trying to do, and we design and develop products to help them and add value for them, we're going to be way more successful."

⚡ Technology has transformed the customer experience. Technological advancements have changed the way we approach everything, including customer experience. So what fundamental shifts have happened due to digital transformation? Annette says, "Just the advancements in technology have really changed the way that the experience is delivered and the data we have access to. We always talk about, 'Right data, right time, right people, right time,' that kind of thing. The ability to do that, to predict and prescribe, and to be proactive — these are things that we necessarily didn't have three years ago. So, the experience itself has evolved quite a bit. The profession has, too, because now it is a profession. There was no customer experience professional back in the day either."

⚡ Culture is the foundation. It all starts with your company's culture. If your employees are happy, your customers will be too; it's as simple as that. Annette explains, "If we don't have the culture in place to operate the business the way that we want to operate it, it's just never going to happen. So culture is core values plus behaviors. Obviously, we have to define our core values, and there should be at least one that is customer-driven. We put people first or whatever it is, but ultimately all of them, regardless of what they are, should all have some connection to the outcome for the business and the outcome for the customer. And what we do is that we take the core values, and for each one, we define acceptable and unacceptable behaviors so that people know what that means."