Customer Orientation and AI

So much has already been written about customer centricity. Is there anything left that is unclear? Certainly not.

And yet, in 2026, I still had to do and endure many irritating things as a customer.

It makes you wonder why.

There are several reasons.

• The fact that much has been written and said about customer centricity does not mean that everyone has heard or read it.
• An individual leader may have a role description and incentives that have nothing whatsoever to do with customer centricity.
• It often takes many different teams and many different leadership and coordination roles to deliver anything to the customer. In such structures, customer orientation can get lost even though no one intended that to happen.
• An individual employee may have a role description and instructions that have nothing whatsoever to do with customer centricity.
• An individual leader or employee bears no responsibility for a customer being dissatisfied. Or even leaving altogether.
• The customer is “annoying” — the corporate culture is such that people are allowed to think and say something like that.
• People are miles away from the customer. There are many technological and organizational layers between their own work and the customer. They never have anything to do with a customer at all.
• People think they have already made everything customer-friendly and that the customer simply does not “get it.”
• People feel powerless — their own work is such a small slice that they cannot see everything that would actually need to change to make it customer-friendly.
• People are completely overloaded and overworked and do not have the mental capacity to engage with questions like these.

What does any of this have to do with AI?

At first, nothing. Customer centricity was important before AI. Software initiatives, and even more so data platform initiatives, already struggled to maintain full customer centricity before AI.

But AI can help you, and AI brings new questions to the table.

If you ask an AI the right questions, it can help you understand the customer better and work in a more customer-oriented way.

And then new aspects emerge: the customer uses AI too. Can they find you?

First, the potential customer

• The potential customer uses AI to search for something. Will they find you or your company?
• The potential customer uses AI to learn more about you. Does the AI reflect exactly what makes you or your company distinctive?
• The potential customer uses AI to get an overview of your services or products. Can the AI navigate through all your digital touchpoints?
• The potential customer uses AI to compare you with your competitors. Do you sound exactly like everyone else — interchangeable?
• The potential customer wants to transact with AI on your website: book something, write something, buy something. Can they?

Now, the customer

• The customer needs to get something done: Can their AI agent do that with you?
• The customer has a question: Can the customer's AI communicate with your AI well enough that the question ends up answered?
• The customer needs real help: Can they send their AI over to you to arrange an appointment with a real human?
• And after the purchase: Does your company show up when AIs recommend things to others?

I think if you take these questions as a starting point, you can much better figure out what needs to be transformed in your own organization.

You need a North Star, and the North Star should always be the customer. All other conditions should be shaped around this perspective.

The moment you seriously address these questions, workflows, structures, and leadership inevitably change — internally, so that it works externally. That's exactly where I accompany you: from workshops and coaching to tailored ways of working and hands-on collaboration.