Customer-Centric Project Design

I see "customer first" everywhere on websites as if it’s a business strategy. It isn’t. True customer centricity doesn't just change how you talk about customers. It changes your entire business model: → Who you build for → How you make decisions → How you deliver and keep delivering value I've studied hundreds of companies to understand what separates the ones that truly live it from the ones that just put it on their websites.. Here's what the real ones have in common: 1. Customer Segments (Who it's for) → They start with one specific, underserved customer, not everyone → They resist expanding until they deeply understand that first group 2. Value Proposition (Why choose them) → Built around a need the customer is trying to fulfil → The promise is specific enough to say no to the wrong customers 3. Customer Relationships (How they work with you) → Retention is engineered from day one → The "wow" moment is designed, not left to chance 4. Revenue Streams (How they make money) → The model grows when the customer grows → Pricing reflects how they create value for customers 5. Key Resources (What powers them) → Customer knowledge is treated as a strategic asset, protected and shared → There's always someone in the room whose only job is to understand the customer 6. Key Activities (What they do every day) → They talk to customers every week → Decisions get tested against customer expectations, not internal opinion 7. Cost Structure (Where money goes) → They balance spending on both acquisition and customer retention → Investment in customer success is non-negotiable, not a cost to cut Why it's different: ▶︎ The customer is in the model ▶︎ Growth is pulled, not pushed: happy customers do the heavy lifting. ▶︎ They start with pain, not product: solutions come after deep understanding. Customer centricity is a design decision you make in every part of your business. What else would you add?

Confession time: Outside-in thinking is a lot harder to maintain than it seems. Even for those of us in Customer Success. The tendency is always to drift toward inside-out thinking, making our processes and focus company-centric rather than customer-centric. Don't believe me? Just look at one example of this: Customer Journeys. Many teams say that they have a defined Customer Journey. But rather than actually being oriented around the customer, for many the journey map is a list of activities from the company's perspective that are built around milestones the company cares about (contract signature, go-live, renewal, etc). I know about this, because I've been guilty of it in the past myself. I confuse my activity list with a customer journey and wonder why customers aren't as successful as they'd like. While important, that isn't a customer journey. It's an activity list. It's a rut none of us mean to fall into, but it's the natural drift because we live and breathe our own organization. So what do you do about it? How can you adopt a more customer-centric mindset in this area? TRY THIS APPROACH INSTEAD: 1. List out the stages your customers' business goes through at each phase of their experience with your product. Use these to categorize journey stage, rather than your contract lifecycle. 2. For each stage, list out what their experiences, expectations, and activities should be to get the results they want. Don't focus on listing what YOU do, but rather focus on listing what a customer does at each phase of their business with your product. List out the challenges they'd face, the business benefits they'd experience, the change management they'd have to go through, the usage they'd expect. Think bigger than your product here. 3. Then map what support a customer would need to actually accomplish these desired outcomes at each stage of the journey. Think education, change management enablement, training, etc. 4. Based on all of the above, you're finally ready to start identifying what your teams do to support the customer. ____________________________________________ A process like this helps build customer-centricity in 3 ways: 1. Customers stay the center of how you decide which activities are most important to focus on. 2. It empowers your team to become prescriptive about what customers should be doing for THEIR success. 3. It exposes what you don't know about your customers' business. And if you don't know something, just ask them. Don't make assumptions when you can talk to customers directly. Avoid the company-centric drift, fight to maintain true customer-centricity however you can. This isn't just a nice to have in 2025 . It's a business imperative. That kind of outside-in thinking is what causes you to focus on customers' success instead of just Customer Success (love that turn of phrase from Dave J.). But I want to hear from you! How do you guard your org from drifting to inside-out, company-centricity?

Stop chasing “more leads”. Start growing the customers who keep coming back and bring others with them. Most sales conversations start with: “How do we get more at the top of the funnel?” The better question is: “What are we doing with the customers we already have?” That’s where customer centricity comes in. When you design your business around your best customers – not just what you want to sell – three things happen: 1️⃣ Retain – Make it easy and rewarding to stay Retention is the first growth lever. If a good customer leaves, you don’t just lose revenue, you lose future opportunity. Ask: -> How easy is it for them to continue with us? -> Do we remove friction, or create it? -> What signals are we ignoring when they start to disengage? 2️⃣ Expand – Solve more problems, grow shared value Your existing customers are already paying attention to you. Instead of pushing “new” at strangers, deepen value with the ones who trust you. Ask: -> What bigger problem are we really solving for them? -> Where are they forced to go to another provider, and why? -> How can we grow their outcome, not just our invoice? 3️⃣ Refer – Turn happy customers into active advocates The most credible marketing is a customer who chooses to talk about you. Ask: -> Are we giving them stories worth sharing? -> Do we make it simple and natural to refer? -> Do we recognise and reward advocacy, or just expect it? Around this loop sit four discipline questions: -> What it is: Are we truly designing around customer needs, or around our org chart? -> Why it matters: Do we see retention, expansion and referrals as core revenue levers, or “nice to have”? -> Where to focus: Are we clear on our high-value, high-fit customers and the problems we solve best? -> How to deliver: Are teams aligned around customer outcomes, and are we measuring beyond “new leads”? Customer centricity is not a slogan. It is a deliberate choice to grow with the customers who stay, buy more, and bring others with them. If you look at your current sales strategy, is it lead-obsessed, or truly customer-centric? #Sales #CustomerCentricity #SalesAcceleration

Here’s the typical B2B corporate spiel you’ll find in whitepapers, pitch decks, or LinkedIn posts about service design and customer experience. “At [company name], we pride ourselves on delivering best-in-class service design solutions that enhance end-to-end customer experiences. By leveraging agile methodologies and cross-functional collaboration, we optimise customer journey touchpoints to ensure stakeholder alignment and drive measurable business outcomes. Our human-centric approach puts the user at the heart of our strategic framework, enabling scalable, future-ready experiences that foster brand loyalty and digital transformation.” Yawn! That kind of language says absolutely nothing. It’s the verbal equivalent of a beige carpet. I know, I've written dozens of these because, you know... brand guidelines. I've been asked to "humanise" a brand so I am chucking all this nonsense in-the-bin. This is what I want to know about your service design and customer service: Tell me what broke, show me what it felt like to be a customer stuck in that system. Walk me through the moment everything started to unravel. Then show me what changed, how the design made things easier, and why it mattered, and this is what I'll write for you: "We help fix the challenges that frustrate your customers and wear down your team. The dropped calls, the confusing forms, the twelve-step journeys that should’ve taken three. We get to know the people using your service (not just the ones designing it) and we listen. Then we redesign what’s not working, we make things clearer, faster, and more human so your customers don’t give up halfway through, and your team doesn’t have to keep apologising for things they didn’t build. That’s what good service design does. It makes everything feel less like hard work and more human." Don't mistake clarity with simplicity, and simplicity with lack of authority. The people reading it are not moved by “stakeholder alignment” or “agile transformation frameworks,” they’re moved by clarity and the feeling that someone actually understands the problem they’re trying to solve. Then make sure your visuals show a real person, not a desk, or a phone or a laptop.

Almost 10 years ago, I stepped away from my Head of Marketing role. Not because I didn’t love marketing, I did. A lot in fact. But because I wanted to solve the problem that I, and lots of my marketing peers were being tripped up by ↓ The disconnect between campaign and core. Companies often prioritise the performance customers see, but overlook the experience they feel. Brands craft powerful marketing messages promising simplicity, customer-centricity, or innovation, only for customers to experience the exact opposite once they interact with the business. 👎 A “customer-first” company with an impossible-to-reach support team. 👎 A “seamless” experience riddled with friction. 👎 A personalised campaign that leads to a generic, frustrating journey. And it's why I became a service designer; to bridge the gap between the customer experience and how teams show up, interact and deliver it every day. It’s not enough to talk about customer-centricity, because your customers are gonna see right through that. It has to be seen, actioned and felt in how teams work, make decisions, and design experiences - with your customers need at the core. Because this is the production behind your performance. At The Marketing Meetup last night, I shared my journey of building customer-centric cultures, and the three key steps that make it happen (OK, caveat here, this is a massively over-simplified version): ✅ Understand Customer insight isn’t just a marketing function. Every team should be plugged into real customer conversations. Dive into the data then push it further; spend time in their shoes, immerse yourselves in their worlds and bring those experiences into your daily team interactions. ✅ Embed Align your values and ways of working with your brand promises; map the experience gap by comparing brand messaging with real customer experiences. Train teams to think customer-first, ensuring CX is part of daily decision-making, and recognise and reward employees who bridge the gap, turning customer-centricity into action. ✅ Operate Customer-centricity must be a business-wide way of working, we're talking about moving from slogans to systems; Design cross-functional engagement strategies that span the 5Es: entice, enter, engage, exit and extend and develop customer journey ownership models - set up squads that are clear on who is responsible for each stage, and how teams work together to improve the end-to-end experience. Great brands don’t just tell great stories. They live them, from campaign to core. What companies do you think are doing this well? I would love to crowd-source a list of these examples, let me know in the comments below 👇 #CustomerCentricity #BrandExperience #ServiceDesign 

You don’t need a sales title to influence customer experience. You just need the right daily habits. Many professionals assume customer-centricity is the job of someone who is in - Sales - Support, or - CX teams. But in reality,  - Every email you write - Every delay you cause - Every handoff you make Shapes how the customer experiences the organisation. The gap? Most roles don’t see the customer, so they stop thinking about the customer. Here’s a simple 5-step daily routine to stay customer-centric ; even if you’re in operations, finance, tech, or HR 1. Start your day with one customer question Before opening your task list, ask: “How does today’s work reduce friction for someone outside the company?” 2. Translate tasks into customer impact Don’t say, “I need to finish this report.” Say, “This report helps the client decide faster.” Impact-first thinking changes how you prioritise. 3. Anticipate one downstream dependency Ask: “Who uses this after me?” Customer-centricity often shows up in smoother handovers and not grand gestures. 4. Scan for invisible friction Look for small delays, confusing language, or unnecessary approvals you’ve normalised. Fixing micro-friction is real customer empathy. 5. End the day by closing one loop Follow up -Clarify-Update. Customers remember responsiveness more than perfection. Customer-centricity isn’t a department. It’s a discipline practised daily, quietly and consistently. The professionals who grow fastest aren’t closest to the customer by role They’re closest by mindset and habit. #customercentricity #sales #personaldevelopment #customerexperience #salestraining #corporatetraining #softskills

If you just finished planning seasoning and feel like OKRs are a four-letter word, I promise you this talk I had with Jeff Gothelf "aka the Gotfather of OKRs" will change your mind. Key takeaways: 1️⃣ Addressing The Dreaded "Planning Season" We’ve all dealt with big off-sites, hours lost in spreadsheets, and the year-long product roadmap—only to watch half the “strategic plan” unravel. Jeff says that's garbage. “Why does planning need a season?” The market doesn’t wait, your customers don’t wait, why should you? He suggests continuous, lightweight planning—think weeks, not months—recognizing your plan as a best guess. When unexpected events arise (and they will), you can quickly pivot and act on new insights. 2️⃣ Clear Strategy First, Then the OKRs Many teams jump straight into OKRs in a vacuum and wonder why they fail. Jeff’s Lean Strategy Canvas helps clarify direction: identify the big internal goal, obstacles, “where to play,” and how you’ll win. OKRs that don’t flow from a bigger-picture strategy are bound to disappoint. “If we set goals in that way [i.e. customer-centric key results], it fundamentally changes how the organization works.” Start with a long-term objective—like “become the easiest way to onboard a new team member”—and define *measurable behavior changes* (“increase the percentage of first-time admins who set up a new user flow without support”). Without a strategy anchoring your OKRs, you’re just picking numbers and hoping they work. 3️⃣ Actionable Key Results Should Measure A Change In Behavior Every successful product or feature drives a change in user behavior: 🔸 They use your product more often 🔸 They complete key workflows at a higher rate 🔸 They finish workflows faster 🔸 They report higher satisfaction Effective Key Results capture that shift by answering three questions: ✨ Who? ✨ Does What? ✨ By How Much? Instead of celebrating a launch date, measure how many users complete a core workflow with the new feature. This can be tricky for early-stage products, but start with rough indicators. Talk to users every week. Over time, refine these metrics to prove you're delivering real value. It’s far better than shipping blindly, hoping something sticks. 4️⃣ Acknowledge The Uncertainty Of It All Even the best OKRs fail if your culture punishes learning. Teams often know they’re off track but stick to the plan out of fear. As Jeff said, “If we’re going to do discovery work, we’re going to learn that we were wrong about some stuff.” Leadership must handle that truth if you want the real benefits of OKRs. Stop clinging to the illusion of certainty that comes with a 12-month roadmap. Confirmation bias will push you to stick with whatever you put on there, even if better opportunities emerge. Embrace continuous discovery. Update your OKRs as you learn. Measure the user behaviors that matter. Trust your team to adapt as the world shifts. Stop waiting for “planning season” to make your next move!

Is your enterprise go-to-market strategy actually solving customer problems, or just hitting internal metrics? In a fascinating conversation with Mary Catherine Plunkett, VP of Customer Success Design Autodesk on the latest episode of Good Revenue, we unpacked why traditional go-to-market approaches are failing modern businesses - and what to do about it. Here's why this matters: Mary Catherine successfully led a $100M partner incentive restructuring at Autodesk that could have been disastrous. Instead, partners loved it. How? By completely reframing the conversation around customer needs rather than internal metrics. 🔑 Key insights: 🔸 Customer experience leaders significantly outperform market laggards (with data to back it up) 🔸Why integrating design thinking across go-to-market strategies is so effective across the enterprise 🔸 Shifting from a traditional sales model to a customer-focused one can be solved through human-centered design and deeply understanding your customer’s "jobs to be done" 🔸 Why strategic conversations should happen anytime, not just during the annual planner 🔸 The effectiveness of Roger Martin's strategic choice framework (from Playing to Win)  🔸 Why you should move beyond Net Promoter Scores (NPS) to a deeper trust dialogue with customers 🔸 Creating shared KPIs (or better yet, steering metrics) to foster cross-functional team collaboration / alignment (which also requires shared vocabulary and decision-making frameworks) 🎯 The big takeaway: We're at an inflection point in go-to-market strategy. Companies that don't fundamentally shift to customer-centric approaches in the next 5-10 years will be left behind. Join us as we explore how design thinking has helped Autodesk align go-to-market and sales with improved customer experiences and outcomes. Episode link in comments 👇 #designthinking #customerexperience #humancentereddesign #business #innovation

Why Customer Centricity Drives Digital Success I spoke with a retail company C-level executive who invested heavily in a new digital platform. The system had every feature imaginable. Still, sales dropped, and customer complaints soared. Why did it fail? They designed a platform around their products and internal processes, completely missing the customer's journey. This happens constantly. Building a system without focusing on the person using it is like buying a Ferrari to haul rocks. True digital success starts with the customer, not the code. In the article, you will know how to make Customer Centricity the core of your digital strategy. You will read how putting customer experience first drives real business outcomes like higher retention and loyalty. You will also see how breaking down internal walls and using solid data makes this approach work. We talk about collecting the right information, building cross-functional teams, and measuring the things that truly matter to your customers. Digital Transformation is not a technology race. It is a human race, won by those who best serve their customers. When customer centricity guides every decision, from initial strategy to final deployment, organizations build digital experiences that truly resonate. They not only meet expectations; they exceed them, creating lasting value for customers and the business alike. Ready to rethink your digital strategy through a customer-first lens? At Digital Transformation Strategist, we can help you identify your key customer pain points and build a roadmap for real digital success.

Nobody wants to buy your product. It’s a hard pill to swallow — but a lot of times we get lost… We get caught up with the product because it is us who is designing the product/service: - We want to give it the best features imaginable - We’re constantly looking at the product/service thinking, “what can we add?” And from painful experience, I can tell you: this “product-centric” approach does NOT work. When we launched the clickOn card (discount card) it was a massive failure. Why? We were tackling too many projects at one time: 1. Over-diversifying so we were lacking traction on our core products 2. Copied what was working in the market and just went out to compete We did it half-way. And we got so caught up in the tiny product details… But we weren’t having CUSTOMER-solution oriented conversations. So bottom line: we learned the hard way. The reality is that people DON’T want to buy your product, they want to buy the: → SOLUTION for their PROBLEM (with a sprinkle of experience and emotions evoked in the process) So here's 3 brutally honest lessons after our product failure (that might help you too): 1. They don’t care how it works — they want the outcome Your customers don't care about your product's features. They care about the outcome it provides. And that product-centric (instead of CUSTOMER-centric) approach leads to: - Misaligned offerings - Poor market fit - Wasted resources I know because I've been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Your product is just a vehicle to your customer's desired destination. That’s why you need to: 2. Paint the picture of the destination, not the journey - What emotions will your product evoke? - What's the end result for your customer? - How will it change their life? Remember: When we buy a plane ticket, we're not buying the flight — we're buying the vacation. Your product is the plane. Your customer wants the beach. 3. Understand what they're really buying Ask yourself: What do my customers really want? When we launched the clickOn card, we were so caught up in the mechanics of how it would work, we forgot to ask if people even wanted it. Always use this mantra: "Nobody wants to buy my product. What do they really want to buy?” "Is it freedom? Better finances? More joy? More love?” So remember these 3 lessons: 1. They don’t care how it works — they want the outcome 2. Focus on the destination, not the journey 3. Understand what they're really buying Stop obsessing over your product's features. Start obsessing over your customer's desires. Align your offering with their true needs. Everything will fall into place from there. — Enjoyed this? Join +1000 founders getting scaling hacks every Saturday - Subscribe to my Newsletter in the featured section. P.S. This is how our discount card website looked like: