Executives Explain What Customer Love Means to Them

Certain common themes emerged when we asked corporate leaders how they practice customer love.

By Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns

min read


This article originally appeared on LinkedIn. Customer love blooms with purpose-driven leadership. Recently we had the opportunity to ask a number of executives who are inspiring their teams to lead with love how they do it. Four powerful themes emerged. Give a big voice to the front line. “[Put] the customer in the center of every decision, always [put] yourself in their shoes, and anticipate how you can enrich their lives or help grow their businesses. Give a big voice to your frontline people and relentlessly build a customer-centric culture in your company.” — Dominique Leroy, Member of the Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom AG for Europe Happy customers spur innovation. “We work hard to show our customers love by creating beautiful experiences that help people make the most of their money. We empower our teams, hold ourselves accountable to customer experience metrics, and celebrate our customers’ success.” — Kaaren Hanson, Chief Design Officer, Chase “The fierce love that our consumers have for PlayStation fuels everything we do. It drives us to push boundaries and motivates us to continuously challenge ourselves to delight our audience. We don’t take their love for granted; they are the reason why we continue to push innovation in entertainment.” — Eric Lempel, Senior Vice President & Head of Worldwide Marketing, PlayStation Happy customers are the best motivation for employees. “True customer love, or leading an organization to focus on the customer, takes time to develop, but once it is part of the organizational culture, it provides the strongest and most sustainable competitive advantage. It is also core to unleashing your own team’s energy to deliver. Do it.” — Timm Degenhardt, Managing Director, Omers Infrastructure “Citizens leads with love by ensuring every colleague has a daily emotional connection with our customers. Whether it’s our frontline teams or the head of Wealth Management, they have access to direct customer feedback. We then use that input to best support our customers’ evolving needs and create frictionless experiences.” — Beth Johnson, Chief Experience Officer, Citizens Engage customers to improve your products. “At Uber we strive to ‘build with heart’ and bring love and empathy to the way we show up in the world. One way we do that is by inviting users into the design process, as we do with Uber Crew, where we collaborate with drivers to solve problems that make their experience with Uber better.” — Thomas Ranese, Chief Marketing Officer, Uber “At Monzo, our mission is to make money work for everyone. Co-creating products with our customers is in our DNA and a key driver of our unrivalled NPS. We’ve built a bank that customers love and are passionate about and created game-changing products that have changed their financial lives.” — Sujata Bhatia, Chief Operations Officer, Monzo Bank “Pure understands that simplicity is better for customers. Customer feedback directly impacts our portfolio design, focused on ease of use and higher performance, while using less energy and producing less waste. We #leadwithlove because our customers and the planet they live on both deserve to thrive.” — Joe Pinto, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Pure Storage “Our customers vote with their wallets, so we must understand not just what customers do but why they do what they do. Our results are the outcomes of their choices. We lead with love by understanding the total customer experience, to make the right investments that produce strong financial results.” — Mike Linton, Chief Revenue Officer, Ancestry.com Order the Bain Book Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers This new book by Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns demonstrates that great leaders embrace a higher purpose to win, and Net Promoter® shines as their guiding star. Subscribe to the Customer Obsession newsletter on LinkedIn

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn.

Customer love blooms with purpose-driven leadership. Recently we had the opportunity to ask a number of executives who are inspiring their teams to lead with love how they do it. Four powerful themes emerged.

Give a big voice to the front line.

“[Put] the customer in the center of every decision, always [put] yourself in their shoes, and anticipate how you can enrich their lives or help grow their businesses. Give a big voice to your frontline people and relentlessly build a customer-centric culture in your company.”

— Dominique Leroy, Member of the Board of Management, Deutsche Telekom AG for Europe

Happy customers spur innovation.

“We work hard to show our customers love by creating beautiful experiences that help people make the most of their money. We empower our teams, hold ourselves accountable to customer experience metrics, and celebrate our customers’ success.”

— Kaaren Hanson, Chief Design Officer, Chase

“The fierce love that our consumers have for PlayStation fuels everything we do. It drives us to push boundaries and motivates us to continuously challenge ourselves to delight our audience. We don’t take their love for granted; they are the reason why we continue to push innovation in entertainment.”

— Eric Lempel, Senior Vice President & Head of Worldwide Marketing, PlayStation

Happy customers are the best motivation for employees.

“True customer love, or leading an organization to focus on the customer, takes time to develop, but once it is part of the organizational culture, it provides the strongest and most sustainable competitive advantage. It is also core to unleashing your own team’s energy to deliver. Do it.”

— Timm Degenhardt, Managing Director, Omers Infrastructure

“Citizens leads with love by ensuring every colleague has a daily emotional connection with our customers. Whether it’s our frontline teams or the head of Wealth Management, they have access to direct customer feedback. We then use that input to best support our customers’ evolving needs and create frictionless experiences.”

— Beth Johnson, Chief Experience Officer, Citizens

Engage customers to improve your products.

“At Uber we strive to ‘build with heart’ and bring love and empathy to the way we show up in the world. One way we do that is by inviting users into the design process, as we do with Uber Crew, where we collaborate with drivers to solve problems that make their experience with Uber better.”

— Thomas Ranese, Chief Marketing Officer, Uber

“At Monzo, our mission is to make money work for everyone. Co-creating products with our customers is in our DNA and a key driver of our unrivalled NPS. We’ve built a bank that customers love and are passionate about and created game-changing products that have changed their financial lives.”

— Sujata Bhatia, Chief Operations Officer, Monzo Bank

“Pure understands that simplicity is better for customers. Customer feedback directly impacts our portfolio design, focused on ease of use and higher performance, while using less energy and producing less waste. We #leadwithlove because our customers and the planet they live on both deserve to thrive.”

— Joe Pinto, Chief Customer Experience Officer, Pure Storage

“Our customers vote with their wallets, so we must understand not just what customers do but why they do what they do. Our results are the outcomes of their choices. We lead with love by understanding the total customer experience, to make the right investments that produce strong financial results.”

— Mike Linton, Chief Revenue Officer, Ancestry.com

Order the Bain Book

Winning on Purpose: The Unbeatable Strategy of Loving Customers

This new book by Fred Reichheld, Darci Darnell, and Maureen Burns demonstrates that great leaders embrace a higher purpose to win, and Net Promoter® shines as their guiding star.

Subscribe to the Customer Obsession newsletter on LinkedIn