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Annette Franz

Founder + CEO at CX Journey Inc.

Mission Viejo, United States

I’ve spent my career helping organizations find and fix the root causes that drive every business outcome: culture, employee experience, and customer experience. As consultant/advisor, author, and speaker, I’ve guided companies across industries to build workplaces where people thrive, performance accelerates, and customer loyalty becomes the natural byproduct, not the goal. My books, including Built to Win, Customer Understanding, and Employee Understanding, have become go-to resources for leaders looking to elevate their organizations from the inside out.

My work centers on design, action, and accountability. I help organizations see the connections between culture, EX, and CX, and architect systems that actually hold, e.g., governance, listening programs, journey mapping, and culture plans that move beyond theory into measurable impact. Leaders bring me in when they want blunt truth, strategic thinking, and a practical path forward. I combine research, frameworks and lived expertise to help them build organizations that can scale, adapt, and deliver consistently excellent experiences.

I’m driven by the belief that when you fix the culture, you fix the outcomes. That mindset shows up in everything I do, whether I’m developing transformation strategies, training cross-functional teams, or speaking to global audiences about people-first leadership in a tech-enabled future. I bring a direct, pragmatic style, a clear point of view, and just enough humor to keep the work human.

If you’re building an organization where people and performance rise together, let’s talk.

Connect with me:
[cx-journey.com] | [annettefranz.com] | [@annettefranz] |
Find Annette's eSpeakers profile here: https://www.espeakers.com/marketplace/profile/30696?btsc=1

Available For: Authoring, Consulting, Influencing, Speaking
Travels From: Orange County, CA
Speaking Topics: customer experience, employee experience, culture

Annette Franz Points
Academic 0
Author 242
Influencer 383
Speaker 23
Entrepreneur 105
Total 753

Points based upon Thinkers360 patent-pending algorithm.

Thought Leader Profile

Portfolio Mix

Company Information

Company Type: Company
Theatre: North America
Minimum Project Size: $5,000+
Average Hourly Rate: $300+
Number of Employees: 1-10
Company Founded Date: Undisclosed

Areas of Expertise

AI 30.05
Analytics
Big Data 30.02
Business Strategy 31.31
Change Management 30.18
Creativity 30.22
CRM 30.03
Culture 34.60
Customer Experience 34.92
Customer Loyalty 31.31
Design 30.51
Design Thinking 33.88
Digital Transformation 30.01
Diversity and Inclusion 30.08
Future of Work 30.03
HR 30.08
Innovation 30.03
Leadership 31.33
Management 30.08
Marketing 30.05
Predictive Analytics
Project Management
Startups

Industry Experience

Automotive
Engineering & Construction
Financial Services & Banking
Furniture
High Tech & Electronics
Hospitality
Insurance
Manufacturing
Other
Professional Services
Retail
Telecommunications
Travel & Transportation
Utilities

Publications & Experience

122 Article/Blogs
WHEN YOU DON’T LIVE YOUR CORPORATE VALUES…
CX Journey Inc.
March 05, 2024
Over the last few months, as I’ve followed the most-recent issues that Boeing has had with its planes, I’ve wondered how things could have gone so wrong. If you were to ask customers their most basic requirement when it comes to travel, I’m guessing the answer is, “Get me from Point A to Point B… safely!” (Yes, beyond that, they look at price, convenience, speed, etc.)

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience, Design Thinking

THE INTERSECTION OF AI AND CX – SOLVING CUSTOMER PROBLEMS
CX Journey Inc.
February 07, 2024
Seth Godin once said, “Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.” When you do, you solve problems for them and provide value; this ensures that they’ll come back – and they’ll tell their friends.

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Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Design Thinking

CEOS SAY EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND RETENTION ARE TOP PRIORITIES
CX Journey Inc.
January 31, 2024
Employee experience. Employee engagement. Employee retention. Candidate experience. I’ve written many times about those topics in the past. Your employees should be your top priority, your hottest topic – right now. (Actually, always. Employees should always be more first.)

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience, Leadership

DOUBLING DOWN ON CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY
CX Journey Inc.
January 17, 2024
I have seen many articles that refer to a company’s “customer-centric people,” “customer-centric behavior,” “customer-centric tips,” “customer-centric marketing,” etc. I’m sure you’ve read many of them. But in the words of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience

9 STEPS TO DO CUSTOMER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT RIGHT
CX Journey Inc.
January 10, 2024
I originally wrote today’s post for Measures Consulting. It appeared on the Enghouse Interactive blog on September 7, 2023.

Customers’ expectations about their experiences during every stage of the relationship with the brands with which they interact have evolved greatly over the last few years. Understanding their journeys and keeping up with those expectations are both critical to ensuring that customers have a great experience.

How do brands do that? Well, by managing the customer journey, they can better understand their customers, improve satisfaction, and build long-term loyalty.

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience

24 THINGS YOU CAN DO TO GET YOUR BUSINESS ON THE RIGHT TRACK FOR 2024
CX Journey Inc.
January 03, 2024
As we launch into a new year, it’s a great time to think about what needs to get done in the next 364 days (it’s a leap year – and you can start today!) to ensure you achieve the business outcomes you desire. In order to do that you’ve got to focus on the people first, right? Both employees and customers. After all, they’re the ones who keep the business humming along and, well, in business.

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience

Synthetic Customer or Personas – Which One Should You Use?
Import from wordpress feed
December 13, 2023
You've heard of personas, and many of you are using them in your day-to-day work. If you're not, you need to start there!
But do you know what a synthetic customer is? Are these being used in your organization? If the answer is no to either of those questions, this article will provide some clarific

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Tags: Customer Experience

The Intersection of AI and CX – in Your Contact Center
Import from wordpress feed
December 06, 2023
The contact center is a pivotal touchpoint in the customer journey. It’s often the primary channel used by customers to interact with your company. Given that, it’s critical that the experience is simple and effortless – and meets all of their expectations.
The intersection of artificial intel

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Tags: Customer Experience

Here’s How to Get the Investment You Need for Your Feedback Programs
Import from wordpress feed
November 29, 2023
Getting support for your feedback programs doesn’t only come in the form of executive commitment (for the resources, etc.) but also in the form of employee involvement and engagement. After all, someone’s got to do the work to improve the experience; that’s not necessarily on you as the custom

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Tags: Customer Experience

DATA IS AT THE HEART OF A GREAT EXPERIENCE
CX Journey Inc.
November 01, 2023
Data is at the heart of designing and delivering a great customer experience. Without data, you’re literally flying blind. But there’s so much data! And so many different kinds of data. Let’s start there.

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Tags: Big Data, Customer Experience

Fixing a Toxic Culture
Import from wordpress feed
October 25, 2023
"You wake up every morning and drag yourself into the office. You know there’s a reason you drag and don’t skip. The thought of being in your office makes your stomach turn, and you wake up every morning checking your temperature to determine if today might be a sick day rather than a work day."

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture

OPTIMIZE THE EXPERIENCE WITH NEGATIVE PERSONAS
CX Journey Inc.
October 18, 2023
I’ve written about personas several times before and included them in my first book, Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business). But one thing I haven’t written about is negative personas. What are they? Why are they important? How do you use them?

I’ll delve into that and more in this article.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership, Design

HUMAN-IN-THE-LOOP (HITL): WHAT #CX LEADERS SHOULD KNOW
CX Journey Inc.
October 11, 2023
Have you heard of “human-in-the-loop,” or HITL for short? It’s not a new concept, but it has certainly grown in popularity in the last year with the emergence of generative AI and its various use cases. (I know. “Emergence” is an understatement.) AI is probably the hottest topic in CX right now. I’ve had more conversations about this than anything else this year. So, I thought I’d take a look at a concept that might mitigate one of the biggest fears about AI, i.e., that it will cause you to lose your job. Guess what? Maybe not. Here’s just one way to keep you in the game. Or in the loop.

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Tags: AI, Customer Experience

VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER: THE FOUNDATION OF A CONNECTED EXPERIENCE
CX Journey Inc.
September 27, 2023
Digital transformations are a funny thing. I’ve read too many articles about digital transformations where authors and brands alike think that these transformations are all about the digital strategy and the digital experience.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Digital Transformation

KeyBank’s Path to Journey Orchestration – Part 2
Import from wordpress feed
September 20, 2023
In this week's post, Ben Motteram (aka CXpert) shares his interview with Jon Briggs of KeyBank and Tim Attinger of OvationCXM, where they talk about KeyBank's path to implementing (quite successfully!) their journey orchestration strategy. This is part two of a two-part series.
The post KeyBank̵

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Tags: Customer Experience

KEYBANK’S PATH TO ORCHESTRATING CUSTOMER JOURNEYS – PART 1
CX Journey Inc.
September 13, 2023
Today’s post is the first in a two-part series by Ben Motteram, customer experience strategist and founder of consulting firm CXpert. I share this post because it covers a hot topic in customer experience circles today: journey orchestration

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture

FIVE WAYS TO SOLVE YOUR CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY CHALLENGES
CX Journey Inc.
September 06, 2023
Getting all executives committed requires building the business case and appealing to the left and right sides of their brains – or to their heads (logical) and their hearts (emotional). Also, you’re going to need to link the work that lies ahead to business goals and outcomes. This requires data – data that provides insights into customer behaviors and preferences, data that tells customers’ stories, data that helps the business make informed decisions about how to deliver the expected experience, and operational data.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership, Culture

EMPLOYEE OFF-BOARDING: CAN YOU AUTOMATE IT?
CX Journey Inc.
August 30, 2023
Similar to onboarding, the job of off-boarding employees sits with multiple folks because it can and does include multiple aspects of the employment relationship. It’s a team effort. Who is involved and what are their roles?

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Tags: Culture, HR, Future of Work

EMPLOYEE OFF-BOARDING: ARE YOU TAKING IT SERIOUSLY?
CX Journey Inc.
August 23, 2023
A few weeks back, I wrote about the importance of employee onboarding. Since then, I’ve also written a couple of articles on customer onboarding and a couple on customer off-boarding. Yes, there’s a pattern here; it’s time to write about employee off-boarding. It’s just as important as onboarding, as it helps maintain a positive relationship with departing employees, safeguards company assets and sensitive information, and facilitates knowledge transfer to the remaining team members.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership, Culture

DESIGNING YOUR CUSTOMER OFF-BOARDING PROGRAM
CX Journey Inc.
August 16, 2023
Last week, in the first article of this two-part series, I wrote about the concept of customer off-boarding, the opposite of customer onboarding. This week’s article will cover who’s responsible for it, if it makes sense to automate it, and how to design a proper off-boarding program.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture

DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS FOR YOUR CUSTOMER ONBOARDING PROCESS
CX Journey Inc.
August 02, 2023
In last week’s post, I wrote about the importance of proper customer onboarding, as well as the benefits of doing it right and the pitfalls of doing it wrong or not doing it at all. In this post, I’ll answer a few important questions, namely: who’s responsible? is automation OK? and what are the key design considerations for this process?

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Tags: AI, Customer Experience, Culture

THE BENEFITS OF PROPER CUSTOMER ONBOARDING
CX Journey Inc.
July 26, 2023
Let’s take a look at what customer onboarding is, if it’s only for B2B, what it entails, why it’s so important, who’s responsible for it, how it looks if it’s automated, and what some of the necessary considerations are when designing an onboarding program. I’ll cover the first four in this week’s post and the latter three in next week’s post.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership, Culture

THE IMPORTANCE OF EMPLOYEE ONBOARDING
CX Journey Inc.
July 19, 2023
Years ago, I wrote an article that was syndicated on the Business2Community site. In that article, I mentioned the importance of proper employee onboarding. Someone commented on the article with outrage, saying that I was making up new words and that this term wasn’t necessary. Stick with what we already have. Blah, blah, blah. I think that was back in 2013 or 2014. Unbelievable. That term has been around since the 1970s.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture, HR

DOES YOUR BRAND DOWNPLAY THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER?
CX Journey
June 28, 2023
That’s how CCW starts their latest report, the 2023 CCW MARKET STUDY | CX Trends, Challenges, & Opportunities. I can’t tell you how much the statement that companies chase trends and investments based on lord-knows-what resonates with me. You cannot be customer-centric without bringing the customer voice into all you do. After all, that’s what it means to be customer-centric.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture

IF YOU WANT TO WOW SOMEONE, DO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED
CX Journey Inc.
June 21, 2023
If you want to WOW someone, do something unexpected rather than ordinary. After all, you’d never get excited for receiving a paycheck for the correct amount. You assume it’ll be right. The same holds true for other areas of your life.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Culture

1 Board Membership
Board Chair, Customer Experience Professionals Association
Customer Experience Professionals Association
January 01, 2020
Founded in 2011, the Customer Experience Professionals Association is the premier global non-profit organization dedicated to the advancement and cultivation of the Customer Experience profession.

The CXPA supports the professional development of its members and advances the field by providing shared best practices and education, developing standards, offering networking opportunities, promoting the industry, and creating a better understanding of the discipline of Customer Experience.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Education

2 Books
Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business
Advantage|ForbesBooks
March 22, 2022
With her new book Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business, Annette implores leaders to transform their existing company culture and rebuild it in every way around the needs of their customers. “A customer-centric culture is one in which the customer’s needs and perspectives are woven into the fabric of the organization,” Annette explained. “They are, literally, at the center of every decision, conversation, action, process, and strategy.” Learn about the 10 foundational principles needed to do just that.

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience, Leadership

Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the "Customer" in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of Your Business)
KDP
September 03, 2019
In this book, I cover the three approaches to customer understanding: surveys and data, personas, and journey mapping. I could’ve written the whole book about journey mapping, but there’s so much more to building a customer-centric business than journey mapping. The culture must first be deliberately designed to put the customer at the heart of the business. And all foundational elements of a CX transformation must be in place to make that happen.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Design Thinking, Culture

3 Founders
Experia Summit
Annette Franz
September 01, 2019
Experia Summit is a virtual summit for experience management professionals. In just five days, learn from the best of the best about how to build a people-centric organization that not only puts people first but also experiences phenomenal growth as a result of that.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Culture, Customer Experience

Co-Founder, Partner
Insight Wave
December 01, 2018

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Tags: Customer Experience, Design Thinking, Culture

CX Journey Inc.
Annette Franz
April 07, 2017
CX Journey Inc. is a customer experience strategy consulting firm that specializes in laying the groundwork required to establish a CX roadmap and strategy that will drive your culture transformation efforts and ensure that the customer is at the center of all you do. We offer a variety of services, including coaching, consulting, workshops, speaking, and thought leadership/content.

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Tags: Business Strategy, Culture, Customer Experience

1 Industry Award
CXPA Impact Award
CXPA
October 07, 2014
CX Impact Awards recognize individuals that are exemplifying excellent customer experience and making an impact on the organization and its customers. From front-line employees to senior leaders, these awards showcase professionals from all backgrounds and industries who have successfully led or supported customer experience, voice of customer, or other initiatives in pursuit of specific customer experience goals within his or her organization on behalf of clients.

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Tags: Customer Experience

1 Industry Certification
Certified Customer Experience Professional
CXPA
June 12, 2014
The Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) credential is the marker of a committed customer experience professional who has demonstrated the wide range of knowledge essential to manage the customer experience in today’s challenging environment.

The CCXP credential demonstrates that a professional has the experience, education, and competence to lead and direct customer experience strategy, programs, and projects. Candidates for these credentials are looking to distinguish themselves in the workforce, validate their skills, stand out to employers, and maximize their earning potential.

Credential ID 000-052

See credential

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Tags: Customer Experience, Education

1 Influencer Award
HERE ARE ICMI’S TOP 25 THOUGHT LEADERS FOR 2023
ICMI
December 21, 2022
Each year, we ask the contact center community to nominate their choices for the ICMI Top 25 Thought Leaders of 2023. From several hundred nominations, we present the 25 thought leaders for the coming year. Please click on their LinkedIn profiles below, and be sure to congratulate them for their service to the CX and contact center industries.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Leadership

2 Keynotes
Customer Understanging: Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience and at the Heart of Your Business
CX Talks
October 22, 2019

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Tags: Culture, Customer Experience, Leadership

Put the "Customer" in Customer Experience
Freshworks
November 19, 2018

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Tags: Customer Experience, Design Thinking

1 Speaking Engagement
Deliver Service That Meets the Moment
Oracle
January 26, 2022
If you're looking for an event host (virtual or in-person), emcee, or panel moderator, I'm happy to help! In this video, you'll see the Oracle Advertising and CX Virtual Summit (filmed in a cool location in Orange County, CA), which I both hosted and keynoted.

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Tags: Customer Experience, Customer Loyalty

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