News Alert: You're Not Customer-Centric
You're Just Good at Damage Control
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You’re stuck on hold.
Again.
The same grating elevator music loops in your ear.
You check the time.
Five minutes. Ten minutes.
A robotic voice chimes in, "Your call is very important to us."
You sigh, knowing exactly how this is going to play out.
The chatbot was useless.
The website, a maze of options.
The agent finally answers—only to transfer you.
You’re frustrated, but not surprised.
This is just how customer service works, right?
Wrong.
Now imagine a world where you never have to call support.
No hold music.
No chatbot loops.
No waiting for a ‘supervisor override.’
Everything just… works.
That’s what real customer experience should be.
So why are so many CX teams stuck in firefighting mode, celebrating faster complaint resolutions instead of eliminating the problems that cause them?
Because…
Most companies don’t have a CX strategy—they have a damage control strategy.
And customers are tired of it.
The Illusion of Customer Experience
Most companies claim they’re all about customer experience.
What they’re actually doing is putting out fires.
Long call wait times? Offer a callback option.
Customers baffled by your billing? Toss in a chatbot to explain your already convoluted invoice.
Product glitchy? Make a ‘How-To’ video instead of fixing the damn thing.
Everyone resetting passwords constantly? Blame user error instead of building a better authentication system.
Returns through the roof? Make refunds easier instead of, you know, fixing the actual issue.
These aren’t solutions.
They’re band-aids, and like all temporary fixes, they only cover up the problem instead of healing it.
The longer companies rely on quick patches, the worse the underlying issues become—driving up churn, frustrating customers, and creating an endless cycle of complaints.
And yet, entire CX teams exist just to keep customers from quitting, not to actually make their experience effortless.
A company that genuinely cares about customer experience doesn’t just scramble to fix things when they go south.
They make sure the frustration never happens in the first place.
But hey, why do that when you can just slap a “customer-first” sticker on your website and call it a day?
Reactive vs. Proactive CX
Most companies are stuck in reaction mode.
They measure CX success by how well they recover from screw-ups instead of preventing them entirely.
The best CX teams don’t spend their time playing whack-a-mole with complaints. They prevent the problems from happening in the first place.
The Metrics Are Lying to You
NPS, CSAT, and all those fancy CX metrics?
They don’t tell the full story.
A high NPS doesn’t mean your experience is amazing—it might just mean customers had a nice interaction with support after dealing with a nightmare.
The problem?
These metrics focus on recovery, not prevention.
They highlight how well you handle issues but ignore whether those issues should have happened in the first place.
Want the real story? Start asking better questions:
How often do customers have to reach out for help?
How many of those issues should never have existed in the first place?
Where are we making things harder than they need to be?
What percentage of our support volume is actually preventable?
How many hoops do customers have to jump through just to do something simple?
Are customers recommending us because they love us, or because they’ve just made peace with our nonsense?
Your goal isn’t to “wow” customers after a bad experience—it’s to make things so smooth they don’t even have to think about it.
The Real CX Strategy: No More Apologies
If your CX team spends more time saying “Sorry for the inconvenience” than actually innovating, you’ve got a problem.
The best customer experience? One that never needs an apology.
So, what’s the move?
Fix the actual problems. Stop tweaking the support script—eliminate the reason for the call.
Empower customers. Give them self-service options that don’t make them want to throw their phone at the wall.
Rethink success. CX isn’t about making bad experiences “less bad”—it’s about making them invisible.
Measure what really matters. Don’t just track satisfaction—track friction.
Celebrate prevention, not reaction. If your team’s biggest win is how fast they fix things, you’re measuring the wrong thing.
The Takeaway: Redefine What CX Means
If your team is drowning in complaints, you don’t have a CX strategy.
You have a crisis management system.
A real CX strategy means designing experiences so seamless that customers don’t even notice them.
Because if they’re thinking about their experience, chances are something already went wrong.
It’s time to rethink the approach—no one should have to suffer through another round of hold music just to get what they paid for.
What Successful CX Leaders Do on Sundays
DCX Links: Six must-read picks to fuel your leadership journey delivered every Sunday morning. Dive into the latest edition now!
👋 Please Reach Out
I created this newsletter to help customer-obsessed pros like you deliver exceptional experiences and tackle challenges head-on. But honestly? The best part is connecting with awesome, like-minded people—just like you! 😊
Here’s how you can get involved:
Got feedback? Tell me what’s working, what’s not, or what you’d love to see next.
Stuck on something? Whether it’s a CX challenge, strategy question, or team issue, hit me up—I’m here to help.
Just want to say hi? Seriously, don’t be shy. I’d love to connect, share ideas, or even swap success stories.
Your input keeps this newsletter fresh and valuable. Let’s start a conversation—email me, DM me, or comment anytime. Can’t wait to hear from you!
— Mark
www.marklevy.co
Follow me on Linkedin
Thanks for being here. I’ll see you next Tuesday at 8:15 am ET.
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📌🚀Grab my Free CX Leader’s Guide to Organizational Buy-In
Ready to cultivate a customer-obsessed culture? A CX Leader’s Guide to Organizational Buy-In is your playbook for ensuring that every department—customer service, sales, product, tech, finance, HR, and beyond—puts customers at the center of everything it does.
Learn how to rally every department around customer obsession, click the button below to get started:
Join the global community of 1,150+ CX trailblazers who receive the DCX Newsletter first—packed with fresh insights, inspiration, and tools to elevate your customer experience game. Don’t miss out—join the movement today!