Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism?

Customer experience: What comes to your mind when you hear that phrase? What about your customers? When they hear that phrase do they picture the same thing you do?

What do they imagine you doing when delivering super customer experience to them? Is their image the same as yours?

Have you asked them? Do you truly value the customer perspective? Or just value their money? Tough words, I know. But it’s not a criticism.


The tough words are an experienced-based heartfelt reminder.

Company narcissism doesn’t breed customer loyalty!




Customer Experience: Image is Box w/ News Flash

Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism? Image by: Peter-Ashley



Customer Experience: Win Loyalty Through Narcissism

If this were a news headline, would you believe it?

Or would you sooner give your trust and loyalty to a company that asks you
what is important to you vs. designing it from their perspective?




In a recent customer experience podcast Andrew Maher, described this situation:

One of his customers, a large financial institution, has a big customer experience center to which they never bring customers. They use it for designing and testing the customer experience. They also have a double digit negative Net Promoter Score (NPS) and are pleased that theirs is higher than all their competitors.

It sounds as if they believe it’s impossible to wow the customer. This is a very limiting belief. It drives companies to give up reaching out to customers. It keeps them living in the comfort of their own views. Then this limiting belief comes true.


Don’t get trapped. You can wow the customers when you involve them and think from their perspective.

  • Think we not us vs. them.

    Search every aspect of your business to see where us vs. them has created narcissism. For example, are you living the popular yet misguided mantra “employees first, customers second”? There is no need for ordinal thinking here. Replace it with: “We the entire company serve the customer! Inspire with it. Lead with it. Live it.


  • Realize that digital is a people connector.

    Search every aspect of your online interaction with customers from your website portal, to online account statements, and social media. Does your digital design and interaction reflect the customer perspective or mostly your company perspective?


  • Remember customers’ views are not that random.

    The views are different from yours because they aren’t you yet they are solid — not fickle.


  • Seek and destroy the silo effect.

    Internal silos foster narcissism. Large organizations have many departments. When those departments live as silos and work within themselves, it creates narcissism. Many companies are breaking these silos through the chief customer officer (CCO) function. It’s a great start. Yet it can fail if the culture doesn’t support it. Seek and destroy the silo effect!



Grateful for above featured image by Peter-Ashley via Flickr Creative Commons License.

The trap of narcissism can be a pervasive customer experience problem. Apps and e-commerce site design often skip customer input. It causes major trouble, plenty of expensive redesigns, and lots of customers leaving before the purchase.

Conquer the narcissistic urge with the belief that you can and will succeed with the customer — not just with their money.

Regardless of the size of your organization, you can wow ’em and win their loyalty. Think of them. Involve them. Deliver from their perspective and they will come — and come back.



From my professional experience to your success,
Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™

Related Posts:
15 Essential Beliefs to Deliver a Super Customer Experience
Leaders, Are Your Customer Service Limits Actually Roadblocks?
Leaders, THE Threat to Super Customer Experience

©2013-2016 Kate Nasser, CAS, Inc. Somerville, NJ. I appreciate your sharing the link to this post on your social streams. However, if you want to re-post or republish the content of this post, please email info@katenasser.com for permission and guidelines. Thank you for respecting intellectual capital.


Kate Nasser, The People Skills Coach™, delivers coaching, consulting, training, and keynotes on leading change, employee engagement, teamwork, and delivering the ultimate customer service. She turns interaction obstacles into interpersonal success. See this site for workshop outlines, keynote footage, and customer results.



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3 Responses to “Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism?”

  1. Alli Polin says:

    Love this, Kate! I’ve dealt with customer service from large orgs that clearly viewed the world only from their end of the phone. In fact, one company that gave me a major headache because of a glitch in their system instead of apologizing and fixing it said that they would help me by doing some back end changes to their system. As a customer, I don’t care what it takes, I want my problem fixed not to feel bad because I’m the one with the problem! Narcissism is exactly the problem.

    ~ Alli

    • Kate Nasser says:

      Thanks Alli. Your story rings true to millions … and I mean millions of customers. And the odd part of this — it’s not that hard to be customer focused. It all hinges on believing in them and thinking from outside your own perspective.

      Always appreciate your comments here.

      Have a super day.
      Kate

  2. […] Customer Experience: Loyalty Through Narcissism? – Companies should approach their customers with an inclusive mindset in order to provide the experience they really want. […]

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