speaking

In my recent mini speaking tour around Europe, speaking to companies about customer centricity, I received a wave of sharp questions. Many of them came up repeatedly about everything from empowering employees to dealing with difficult customers, from consistency to empathy, and leadership.

In this newsletter, I’m sharing the six most frequently asked questions. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be digging deeper into each one to help you apply these lessons inside your organisation.

Ready? Let’s go.

1. Finding the “yes” – how can we make it practical for teams to say yes to customers?

I talked about something I see all the time. A customer reaches out in a difficult or emotionally charged moment, and the response they get is, “I’m afraid we can’t do that.” It’s not that the employee doesn’t care. It’s that they’ve been trained to follow a process, not to help a person.

“Finding the yes” means shifting that mindset. It means teaching our teams how to respond with judgement, empathy, and a focus on what the customer actually needs—especially when the situation doesn’t fit neatly into a policy. It’s about allowing flexibility within reason, not removing structure altogether.

The most customer-focused organisations train their people to contextualise situations. They give their frontline staff the authority to act when the standard process fails the customer. They also provide support from leadership, so employees feel safe using discretion.

Start by setting guardrails. Make it clear where flexibility is possible and what your non-negotiables are. Then encourage your teams to use their judgement within those boundaries. Provide real examples of when it’s appropriate to say yes. That could be waiving a charge for someone in distress, extending a service window for a vulnerable customer, or sending a replacement item without a receipt because you trust the story.

Most importantly, back your people when they take a thoughtful risk. If you punish initiative, you train people to play it safe. If you reward good judgement, you build a culture where both customers and employees feel valued.

2. Are there “bad” customers, and how do we deal with them?

I don’t like calling anyone a “bad” customer, but not all are worth keeping. Some repeatedly abuse staff, exploit policies, or drain time without adding value.

This question came up in a B2B context, but it matters in B2C too. In my experience, these customers are a small group, around 5%, but they take up far more than 5% of your energy.

Here’s how to handle them while staying customer-centric:

– Define clearly what unacceptable looks like. In B2B, it might be scope creep without discussion, chronic late payments, or a toxic tone. In B2C, it could be harassment, manipulation, or serial refund abuse.
– Be transparent with your teams. They need to know they’re not expected to accept mistreatment in the name of service.
– Train staff in calm, professional ways to hold boundaries. Customer centricity doesn’t mean allowing chaos.
– Protect your people. If your team sees that you support them in hard moments, they’ll show up better for everyone else.

The vast majority of customers just want a good experience. Spend your energy there, and don’t let the loud 5% set the tone for the rest.

3. Why is inconsistency such a big problem in customer centricity, and how do we fix it?

I mentioned that a lack of consistency is the most common customer-centricity problem. Even companies with the right intentions often fail to deliver a reliable experience across all touchpoints. They might delight a customer in one interaction and then disappoint them in the next—which erodes trust.

Most companies struggle with consistency because their teams often operate in silos. Channels are disconnected, which leads to fragmented customer experiences. In many cases, leadership does not enforce a uniform set of customer-first standards across the organisation, which results in uneven service and confusion for customers.

Here’s how to build that consistency:

– Align every team around shared customer principles, not just departmental targets.
– Create a clear customer promise—and reflect it in every channel and interaction.
– Build feedback loops so teams learn from what customers actually experience, not what they assume happens.
– Train employees consistently across roles and locations, so the experience doesn’t depend on who picks up the phone.
– Make consistency a performance measure, track it, report it, and reward it.

It’s not the occasional wow moment that wins loyalty. It’s being reliably good, every time.

4. How do we operationalise empathy while staying profitable?

This question came up again and again, and not from HR or CX teams, but from CEOs. That surprised me. It’s encouraging, but also revealing: leaders are starting to realise that empathy isn’t a soft skill, it’s a competitive one. But many still don’t know how to turn it into a working system. The good news is empathy and profitability can go hand in hand, so you don’t have to sacrifice profit for empathy, they reinforce each other.

Here are some concrete ways to do that:

1. Train for empathy: Incorporate customer empathy into training programs. For example, teach active listening skills, doing role-play scenarios where employees practice putting themselves in the customer’s shoes.
2. Create empathy infrastructure: Encourage leaders and teams to regularly share and learn from customer stories. Some companies have an “empty chair” in meetings representing the customer, to consider their perspective in every decision. Others, like Amazon, famously start product proposals with a hypothetical customer press release to ensure any idea begins with the customer’s viewpoint.
3. Balance empathy with business sense: Being empathetic means finding solutions that address the customer’s feelings and needs in a sustainable way. For instance, if a delivery is late and the customer is angry, you’d acknowledge their emotion and solve the problem, without bankrupting the company. Train your team on where that sweet spot is – meeting real needs generously, but also knowing the limits (harkening back to setting boundaries from question 2).

Empathy in business isn’t about being nice, also that, but it’s about recognising the human being behind the customer, walking in their shoes, and solving their problem in a way that’s both compassionate and efficient. Empathy without action means nothing. Customers don’t just want to be understood—they want things to be made right.

5. Where to start to become a more customer-centric organisation?

Many leaders asked, essentially, “This all sounds good – but where do we start to become more customer-centric?” My advice is to start with the foundational building blocks and go step by step:

1. Customer centricity begins with leadership. It’s not enough to talk about it—leaders need to show it. That means spending time with customers, listening directly, and modelling the behaviour they want the rest of the organisation to adopt.
2. You can’t serve who you don’t understand. Use data, interviews, and feedback to learn who your customers are, what matters to them, and where they struggle.
3. Your teams need the tools, training, and authority to act in the customer’s best interest without jumping through hoops. When people feel trusted, they act with more care and confidence.
4. If you want people to prioritise the customer, reward them for it. Recognise and celebrate customer-focused behaviour, and include customer outcomes in how you measure performance.
5. Choose one customer journey, fix it, and then move to the next. Think of it as a loop: listen, improve, measure, and repeat.

You don’t need to transform everything overnight. What matters is starting with intent and making the customer part of every decision, every day.

6. What leaders can do to be more customer-focused

This was my favourite question. It came up during an intimate keynote with the company’s most senior leaders and I was genuinely glad it did. It showed that leadership is ready to take personal responsibility for customer focus.

The truth is, it always starts at the top. What leaders say and do shapes the culture. Here are a few practical ways to reinforce customer focus from the top:

Leaders should engage directly with customers. This means reading customer emails, listening to support calls, or spending time alongside frontline teams. These actions show the organisation that customer insight matters and that leadership isn’t removed from reality.
Removing internal barriers is essential. Leaders must ensure teams have the tools, systems, and authority they need to act in the customer’s best interest, without unnecessary approval chains or delays.
Accountability must also be built in. Customer outcomes should be part of how performance is reviewed and rewarded. This isn’t just about metrics, it’s about learning from both good and bad customer experiences and sharing those lessons across teams.
Finally, leaders should consistently celebrate the right behaviour. When employees show good judgement or go the extra mile for a customer, those moments should be recognised publicly. It reinforces the culture, boosts morale, and teaches others what “good” really looks like.

Conclusion:

These questions from my keynote sessions show that many leaders are on that journey, striving to find the right balance of customer experience and business results. The fact is, those two goals go hand in hand. I hope these answers provide value and some actionable ideas for you and your organisation. Keep the great questions coming, and more importantly, keep championing your customers. After all, as I often say, the customer’s experience is your company’s reality.

What’s the one question you’d like me to explore in more depth?

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