by Annette Franz | Feb 17, 2021 | automation, customer effort, customer experience, employee effort, employee experience, employee productivity, Uncategorized
Back in late 2015, I wrote an article titled Work Harder or Smarter? in which I offered up some ways to help employees work more efficiently – ultimately, to work smarter. The last item on the list was automation. Fast forward five plus years, and automation is...
by Annette Franz | Nov 26, 2019 | customer effort, customer service, customer understanding, employee effort, journey map, journey mapping, keynote speaker, service blueprint, speakers, Uncategorized, understanding
I’m excited to be a keynote speaker at CCW Nashville in January. As part of our partnership, I am once again sharing some of the content created by my fellow event speakers and offered on the CCW website. In today’s post, I’m sharing a few tidbits...
by Annette Franz | Jun 10, 2026 | artificial intelligence, culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, outcomes, Uncategorized
Leaders aren’t struggling with AI because the technology is immature. They’re struggling with it because their businesses are, and no amount of sophisticated tooling fixes that. They jump into pilots, use cases, and vendor contracts without first answering the most...
by Annette Franz | Mar 4, 2026 | culture, golden thread, leadership, middle management, Uncategorized
Leaders love to talk about culture at the top and experience at the frontline, but they routinely skip the one group that determines whether either will work: middle managers. Middle managers sit in the most misunderstood, overloaded, and under-supported layer of the...
by Annette Franz | Jan 21, 2026 | culture, customer-centric, customer-centric culture, employee-centric, golden thread, leadership, people-centric, profitability, Uncategorized
In 2018, I challenged organizations to ask: Are you genuinely people‑centric or just profit‑centric in disguise? That tension hasn’t faded; as a matter of fact, it has intensified. Let’s stop pretending. Too many companies still talk about being “people-centric” while...
