Everyone says they're customer-obsessed. It's practically a job requirement on LinkedIn at this point. But there's a difference between talking about customer obsession and actually building it into the DNA of how your people operate every single day.
I learned that difference firsthand at First Republic Bank.
One of my favorite stories from that time:
A banker in New York was having dinner at a restaurant one evening. He spotted a customer at another table. Didn't go over to say hello, didn't interrupt their meal, didn't make it a moment about himself or the bank.
He just went ahead and paid their bill on his way out.
When the customer asked for the check, they were told a gentleman had already taken care of it - and wanted them to know: thank you for being a First Republic customer.
There was no ask attached to it, no mention of it in a business review, no expectation of anything in return. Just a genuine expression of appreciation for someone's business, acted on in a private moment when no one was keeping score.
That's not something you can train into people with a policy memo.
Delivering memorable experiences can be learned and it can be scalable. Ritz Carlton experience is the case study. They manage over 100 properties, in 30+ countries, on six continents. Their customer experience is memorable at each property.
Great customer experiences come from hiring people who actually care, empowering them to act on it, and then getting out of the way.
When I think about what it means to design for customer experience, that story is never far from my mind.
The best customer experiences aren't engineered through process and procedure - they can't be.
They happen when the values are real enough that people act on them out of instinct in every moment they can.
First posted on LinkedIn, March 19, 2026.