Great CX? It’s the culture, stupid

We walked into a pristine Nairobi showroom stocked with some of the world’s leading homeware brands, from kitchens to bathrooms. The demo spaces were beautifully laid out, inviting you to touch, test, and picture the products in your own home. Serious money had been spent. You could have been standing in London, Milan, or Dubai.

And yet.

The first challenge was finding someone to help. Staff were thin on the ground, and those in view were either tied up with other customers or moving with the studied urgency of people hoping not to be stopped.

After some persistence, we managed to collar one assistant sprinting past and lead her to the section housing the products we were interested in. Sadly, she seemed to know very little; her answers to our questions consisted of ums and ahs and guesses. We had to look for a manager to get any meaningful product knowledge. Eventually, we managed to pinpoint the few things we wanted to buy.

Our helper went off to check that they were in fact in stock, which was a whole other process. A quarter of an hour later she reappeared to confirm that, hallelujah, we could indeed buy them and take them home. 

We left her to process the order while we went on to look at other parts of the showroom.

But now she had vanished. Colleagues had no clue as to her whereabouts; nor were they bothered. One said she must have “stepped out” and should be back soon. I went off looking for a manager to explain that we were trying to hand over some money to the enterprise and being thwarted. He didn’t look too concerned, but said he would find her.

In the end, a colleague took over the process and checked us out. Except that one of the key items turned out not to be in stock, after all, so the order would have to be delivered on another day.

This business is successful. It offers the world’s best products. The look and feel of the place is world-class. But the customer experience? Meh at best. None of the humans interacting with customers, on the phone or in person, care too much. The CX ain’t great at all.

Why is that? It’s the culture, stupid. Customer experience is never just a process or a training manual. It is culture made visible.

As I explain in my book, The X in CX, the x-factor in customer experience is a culture that upholds and rewards great service. A culture that expects only the highest standards of human interaction. A culture that shows up as daily habits and practices, on repeat, across locations.

Without that, you’re all hardware and no software, all looks and no heart, all froth and no substance.

And where does this winning culture come from? From only one place: the bosses. The founders and shareholders of the business have to feel the burning need to treat customers with warmth and friendliness. The managers have to pick up the gauntlet and create daily, on-the-ground service excellence. And the necessary behaviours have to be monitored, enforced, and improved. Every day.

If the owners of the business don’t feel it, CX is stillborn. If they don’t care deeply enough, the rest is theatre.

A great CX culture feels different the moment you walk in. Customers do not have to hunt for help, face indifference, or brace themselves for disappointment. Things flow. People know their stuff. Small problems are owned rather than bounced around. You feel appreciated, not endured.

And for employees, it is not a grim regime of forced smiles and robotic scripts. It is clarity, confidence, and pride. People know what good looks like. They are equipped to deliver it. They are backed when they make sensible decisions for customers. In that kind of place, service stops being an act and becomes a shared standard.

When a good culture is in full flow, even the recruitment changes. The business looks for those who already care about serving others, are already bubbly and friendly, already take their work seriously. No cajolements or punishments needed.

That is why customer experience cannot be built from fittings, brochures, and brands alone. It is built in the daily conduct of human beings, shaped by what leaders tolerate, insist on, and reward. Get the culture right, and customers can feel it in minutes. Get it wrong, and no amount of shine can hide the indifferent shrug underneath.

THE SIGNAL IN THE NOISE

Customers rarely remember the marble and the lighting. They remember how your people made them feel.

 

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