Peter Cross, a customer experience veteran and co-author of the book, Start with the Customer (Pearson, September 2025), wants businesses to start with a "yes" culture, the desire to avoid saying no to customers. The point is to create a customer-centric culture that relies on relationship building to gain trust and loyalty.
Cross recently sat down with CX Network to share his philosophy on starting with the customer. He feels there is great urgency in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) to stress empathy and the human touch. Find out about the philosophies that he and his co-author, Jo Causon, share in the book.
CX Network: You mention in your book that there are two types of businesses: those who say yes and those who say no. What does that really mean, and how do you get around saying no, since sometimes it seems impossible?
PC: Many people create complicated frameworks to improve business, especially in the customer space. I wanted something binary and polarizing to start the debate: Which side of the fence are you on? Are you digitally focused or human focused? But I wanted something even more binary, hence the title of the book. Either you start with the customer or you don’t.
The “yes and no” thing is interesting. Clearly, you can’t say yes all the time or you’ll go out of business. But behind “yes” and “no” is what I call setting your cultural default to yes. That means: Yes, we’ll have a go; yes, we’ll see if we can do that; yes, we’ll explore options. Even if we have to say no, we make the customer feel we tried to resolve their problem.
This only happens if your default isn’t set to no, and the team is empowered to find solutions. Ultimately, our job is to build happy, satisfied customers. Customers start with goodwill and know they can’t get everything for free, but they appreciate when you try. It’s about human interaction and relationships.
CX Network: Your co-author says customer service is more important now than ever. Why is this time period making that so true?
PC: Because we are about to lose it. We’ve oversimplified customer service as just being nice, not seeing its greater value to the customer, business or society. Society is built from these interactions. We haven’t focused enough on building a service-focused culture. The seductive power of technology, with its promise to reduce costs and facilitate outcomes, is riding roughshod over true customer satisfaction. There’s so much data that the truth about what customers really think and feel is being lost.
The urgency is that once the great people are gone - when contact centers are 100 percent automated and physical staff are demotivated and undervalued - their opinions and contributions are lost. It’s a scary time with technology, and while some hope humans will never be fully gone, cost-cutting and automation are a recipe for disaster. Customers want it all: connection, empathy, transparency, honesty, inspiration and technology. If we don’t focus on service, we risk losing it entirely.
CX Network: What is active listening, and why do so many companies get it wrong?
PC: The difference between listening and active listening is intent. Active listening means listening to understand and do something about it, not just gathering data. Companies that engage in active listening are those in which people at all levels, especially leaders, spend time with customers and translate observations into action. It’s a real commitment that requires time and must come from the top. Active listening and a listening culture have to be embedded in the company. Leaders need to get out of their offices and spend time with customers regularly. When decisions are made, they should be based on concrete evidence from real customer experiences, not just data. This approach leads to meaningful changes and improvements.
CX Network: You talk about fear, distrust, micromanagement and lack of recognition among employees. Why does that matter to customer experience (CX)?
PC: There will always be people involved in delivering customer experience, even in an automated world. Their experience is the flip side of the customer experience. The happier the employees, the happier the customers. Employment is often transactional, but once you have the right people who are born to serve, keeping them motivated is an art. Recognition, reward, being listened to and empowerment are essential.
Employees in daily contact with customers know what works, but they’re rarely truly listened to. Making them complicit in delivery, so they feel it’s their idea, makes them more likely to succeed. Ideas should come from their lived experience, not just from head office. Building a culture where employees aren’t constrained by rules and can add value is key. Otherwise, they become disengaged and just follow processes without caring about outcomes.
CX Network: In your book, you say, “The longer we allow customer service to decline, the more the next generation of customers will grow up desensitized to its potency.” What did you mean by that?
PC: That quote came in the last days of putting the book together. I spoke to younger people and asked if customer service mattered to them. They said it did, but the only way to get it was to pay a lot for it - like at a five-star hotel. Otherwise, it’s not available. Unless we champion and campaign for service now, in the future it will be reserved for the rich and super-rich. That’s really important and quite scary, because we risk losing it for everyone else.
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