CX in Emerging Markets

What does customer centricity really look like in fast-growing emerging markets? In this episode, we answer a listener question from a fintech support professional in the Gambia navigating rapid growth, limited resources, and constantly evolving customer expectations. We explore how organizations can build trust at scale by creating a customer-centric culture rooted in leadership, listening systems, and daily operational discipline. We also discuss why frontline support teams are critical in emerging-market fintech, serving as the real-time voice of the customer and a powerful driver of business insight and loyalty.

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Resources Mentioned:
Order your copy of Experience Is Everything -- http://experienceiseverythingbook.com
Learn more about CXI Membership™ and apply -- http://CXIMembership.com
Experience Investigators -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

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Transcript

A Listener Question From Fintech

Jeannie Walters 0:00

It's another episode of the Experience Action Podcast, and we have a great international question.

Listener Question 0:08

Hi Jeannie, my name is Rufai Hydara, and I work in customer support within the fintech space in the Gambia. My question is: in emerging markets like many parts of Africa, where businesses are still balancing rapid growth, limited resources, and evolving customer expectations, how can organizations build truly customer-centric cultures, not just as a strategy, but as a long-term competitive advantage? And as a follow-up, what role do you think frontline support teams should play in shaping that culture, especially in fast-growing fintech environments? Thank you.

Customer Centricity Is The Operating System

Three Pillars Of A CX Culture

Frontline Support As Culture Shapers

How To Engage And Grow With Trust

Resources To Go Further

Jeannie Walters 0:41

You know what I love about this question is that even though it's really about emerging markets where things are happening quickly, growth is happening quickly, resources can be constrained, and customer expectations are evolving almost daily. Even though that's about emerging markets, that's about all of us right now. This is something we can all learn from. Because I think the first thing that we need is for organizations to understand that customer centricity is not a department and it's not a slogan. It's really a business operating system. And so in fast-growing environments, the companies that win long term, they're usually not the ones with the biggest budgets, believe it or not. They're the ones that build trust consistently. So in places like the Gambia and many parts of Africa, businesses often have an incredible advantage you might not recognize. And that is because relationships and community, they already are very deeply ingrained in the culture. They matter culturally. So that's actually a really strong foundation for customer-centric leadership. The challenge is scaling intentionally as business grows and as we maintain and develop more of those relationships. So there are really three things we need for a customer-centric culture as a long-term competitive advantage. First, you've heard me say this before, we need the right mindset. We need to align around the right mindset. And perhaps most importantly, we need a leadership mindset. Leaders have to believe that customer experience is more than customer service or service recovery. They have to make sure that they are understanding how decisions throughout the organizational management and leadership are impacting the customer and those who serve them. Pricing, communication, operations, technology, hiring, everything leads back to this. So if leaders are only talking about revenue and growth targets, they're missing opportunities. Employees will only focus on those things at the detriment of customers. But if leaders continually communicate about the importance of not only having customers, but building customer trust, then you're really going to develop that customer-centric culture. Second, we need systems that make it easy to listen and respond to customers. We need a feedback strategy. That means we need to know what we're doing with the insights that we gain from feedback before we even ask the question, before we actually set up the feedback. We do not need massive technology investment here anymore. We actually can do this with a lot of the tools that are available today. Some of the customer-centric companies that we know, they actually simply stay close to their customers. If you have an account management or customer success team, giving them the right language and tools and questions can lead to a lot of the insights that will make all of this a little easier. We need to create those feedback loops and more importantly, we need to act on what we listen and learn from. And then finally, we need discipline around all of this. This is not something that we turn on a light switch and we become customer-centric. We need to make sure we're not saying that one training session or developing a mission statement and putting it on the wall is all a culture needs. We need a lot more than that. This is about daily habits, accountability, governance, making sure fast-growing companies are not losing their culture because they're not intentionally reinforcing it as they scale. So your follow-up question about frontline support is also incredibly important because honestly, frontline teams are the heart of the customer experience. We have to stay very connected to them to make sure that what they're hearing, everybody else in the organization is hearing as well. So instead of treating them like they are just executing on a plan, let's bring them into the discussions about decision making, about intelligence, because they have it. They are close to our customers. They are hearing not only the complaint, but they're hearing the emotion, the frustration, the disappointment, all of those things that really matter. Frontline teams really can help us understand what are the expectations that customers actually have, not just the promise that we made, and what are their emerging needs in real time. So frontline teams can play major roles in this. They need to be empowered problem solvers. We need to give them not only the right tools and the knowledge, but also the decision making to say, yes, I'm going to solve this for you, even if it means coloring outside the lines a little bit. We also want to make sure that they are a genuine feedback engine for the business. We should be asking and connecting and giving them ways to provide feedback to the rest of us. What are customers struggling with? What are the questions that you're hearing more? Where are customers getting stuck? Those questions can lead to bigger insights than waiting and waiting and waiting for a bunch of survey results. So that information is incredibly important for growth strategy. And third, we want to make sure that our frontline people actually understand that they are emotional representatives of the brand. They are the ones who are putting that human connection into the customer experience. So we need to make sure that they are empowered by understanding the aligned mindset through a customer experience mission and understanding what are the tools, resources, and support that they have in order to maintain and deliver that emotional connection. This is really exciting. It's an exciting time. And I believe that as we move forward to a world where hopefully we'll be more customer-centric, we continue to connect the dots. That's really all about the culture that we create and we intentionally maintain, even through growth, even through challenges, even through market shifts. We can all do this. Fantastic question. Thank you for reaching out. Don't forget, you can ask me any question at any time by leaving me a voicemail at askjeannie.vip. And thank you again for all your incredible support around my book, Experience is Everything. Experience is Everything is really your playbook, your guidebook to getting that mindset, strategy, and discipline around customer experience leadership. So if you haven't picked it up, I hope that you will. And if you have and you've read it, I would love to see a rating or review wherever you can. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for all you do, and I'll see you next time. If you're ready to turn insights into action, join CXI Membership, our community for customer experience investigators just like you. Get the tools, support, and inspiration to move from ideas to true impact. And don't miss my book, Experience is Everything: Making Every Moment Count in the Age of Customer Expectations. Available wherever you order books. Until next time, keep asking questions, keep improving, and keep leading with experience.