by Annette Franz | Sep 9, 2026 | customer effort, customer experience, customer retention, customer service, customer-centric, price, Uncategorized
I originally wrote today’s post for MarTech. It appeared on their site on April 3, 2026. Leaders often treat fees as a pricing decision, but customers experience them as a trust decision. Every fee sends a signal about how a company thinks about the relationship:...
by Annette Franz | Aug 5, 2026 | customer experience, customer-centric, customer-centric culture, data, employee experience, insights, leadership, Uncategorized
I originally wrote today’s post for MarTech. It appeared on their site on August 1, 2025. In far too many organizations, decisions are made in boardrooms, far removed from the reality of the customer. Metrics are dissected. Dashboards are studied. Yet somehow,...
by Annette Franz | Jul 29, 2026 | customer experience, customer experience design, data, emotions, personalization, Uncategorized
I originally wrote today’s post for MarTech. It appeared on their site on March 31, 2025. What if the key to customer loyalty isn’t faster shipping or flashier ads but a cleverly timed stroll down memory lane? A new wave in customer experience (CX) is gaining...
by Annette Franz | Jul 22, 2026 | culture, customer experience, employee experience, leadership, learning, Uncategorized
Most leaders believe they’re listening – and learning. They run surveys, host a town hall or two, do the occasional Gemba walk. Then they step back, review the data, and declare themselves “informed.” But they’re not; they’re sampling. And sampling...
by Annette Franz | Jul 15, 2026 | alignment, culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, outcomes, strategy, systems thinking, Uncategorized
This is the fourth in a series on the Golden Thread and your systems. If you haven’t read Where the Golden Thread Breaks Most Often or Strategy Is a System, Not a Statement or Customers Don’t Experience Your Intentions. They Experience Your Systems. it’s worth...
by Annette Franz | Jul 8, 2026 | business outcomes, culture, customer experience, employee experience, golden thread, leadership, systems thinking, Uncategorized
This is the third in a series on the Golden Thread and your systems. If you haven’t read Where the Golden Thread Breaks Most Often or Strategy Is a System, Not a Statement, it’s worth starting there. We’ve established that the Golden Thread breaks when what leaders...
