Everyone talks about being customer-centric, but most of the time it’s just nice words in PowerPoint slide decks. Real customer experience starts with leaders who see customers as more than IDs in a database or figures in monthly revenue reports. They truly listen to customers and take execution seriously. Because CX is not a project, not a trend, and certainly not merely a task for Marketing. It is the disciplined practice of delivering on your brand promise. Every single day.
Paying customers keep the chimney smoking
“The customer is at the centre.” It’s a sentence that appears in countless board presentations, alongside terms like customer focus, brand loyalty, and customer experience. Nice words. But what about the reality? Is it just bragging while continuing to operate from a traditional product mindset? What does real customer feedback tell you? And what do the trends in your business results show? Exactly. That’s every reason to take customers, and how they experience your brand, seriously. They are the ones who keep the chimney smoking. No one else.
There is no genuine attention for the customer in the boardroom
Leading a company is like elite sport. If you want to stay on top, it’s about creating long-term value. That means setting strategy, executing it, and continuously checking whether it works. Taking the temperature regularly. Seeing what works and what doesn’t. Sensing the market sentiment. Hearing from customers how they feel about you.
But what about the customer mindset within the C-suite?
- Do they ever descend from their corner office?
- Do they look beyond the numbers on their management dashboards?
- Do they occasionally listen to people within their organisation?
- Do they ever go ‘undercover boss’?
… and suddenly, it becomes quiet.
Martech tools are not the ultimate customer experience solution
You often hear this: “We’ll just buy the best marketing technology, and customer experience and growth will follow.”
Wrong. You can buy the ‘best’ tools according to Gartner or Forrester, but technology remains only a tool — if you know how to use it well. Even with the best tools, CX results don’t improve automatically.
Forrester’s 2025 research numbers are crystal clear:
- 73% of companies failed to improve their CX.
- 21% even performed worse than the year before.
Why CX fails to take off
Four root causes stand out:
- CX is treated as a project, not as an ongoing, integrated programme.
- Marketing budgets are under pressure, so CX quickly becomes a “nice-to-have.”
- Returns are not demonstrated clearly enough — and that’s exactly what CEOs and CFOs care about.
- There’s insufficient awareness that CX is your value strategy in action — it’s how you live your brand promise.
Why CX is a strategic growth lever
Sustainable growth matters. In fact, growth is the main goal for most companies. You achieve that by:
- Acquiring new customers who buy your products or services → marketing
- Scaling effectively with the right technology → digital transformation
- Keeping the back door closed so customers stay longer → CRM and CX
This directly builds on what Treacy & Wiersema once defined as the three core value disciplines:
- Deliver a product that meets expectations → product leadership
- Provide a service level customers can rely on → operational excellence
- Build relationships that put customers at the centre → customer intimacy
Often, it’s a mix — with emphasis on one, depending on your brand promise.
Customer experience, as the Germans say, is Chefsache.
How to activate the CX growth lever
The momentum comes from two sides:
1. From CX operations: speak the language of the boardroom
As an operational team, you can achieve far more in CX when you use arguments that resonate with executives — growth, cost savings, profit. Take a practical approach:
- Identify where in the customer journey you can truly make a difference
- Build the business case
- Start experimenting and iterating
- Measure using hard KPIs, such as conversion rates or higher average transaction values
Ensure your data is in order (for reliable KPIs), and work cross-functionally — CX spans the entire customer journey.
2. From the boardroom: stay connected to the frontline
Insight drives foresight — clarity on where growth potential lies and how to capture it. The time you invest pays off many times over:
- Spend a day occasionally on different departments’ floors
- Have your IT infrastructure and struggles explained in plain language
- Share lunch with people from operations
- Go mystery shopping — experience what your customers experience
Come down more often from your top-floor corner office.
Because with real insights from the field, you simply make better decisions.
What do YOU see as the biggest CX bottlenecks in your organisation?
