Annette Franz is founder and Chief Experience Officer of CX Journey Inc. She's a Certified Customer Experience Professional (CCXP) with 30 years of experience in both helping companies understand their employees and customers and identifying what drives retention, satisfaction, engagement, and the overall experience - so that, together, they can design a better experience for all constituents.
She started her career at J.D. Power and Associates in 1992 and has since spent the majority of her career running consulting services organizations for CustomerSat, Medallia, Allegiance, Confirmit, and Touchpoint Dashboard – all major customer experience technology vendors. She’s also had three stints working on the client-side – at Mattel, Fidelity Investments, and Compellon – in customer experience leadership roles.
In early 2017, Annette left the corporate world to start CX Journey Inc., a customer experience consultancy in which she focuses on coaching and consulting clients soup to nuts on CX strategy in order to help them put the “customer” in customer experience. CX Journey Inc. is based in Orange County, CA.
Annette was named one of “The 100 Most Influential Tech Women on Twitter” by Business Insider and is regularly recognized as one of the top thought leaders around the world in Customer Experience. She served six years on the Executive Committee of the Customer Experience Professionals Association’s (CXPA) Board of Directors (including one year as Board Chair), mentors other professionals in this field to help them advance their careers, and is a keynote speaker and an avid writer; you can find her work not only on her own blog but also in Forbes, Business2Community, CustomerThink, Quality Digest, APICS Magazine, TechTarget, and more.
She wrote the book on customer understanding! Annette is the author of Customer Understanding: Three Ways to Put the “Customer” in Customer Experience (and at the Heart of the Business). Her second book, Built to Win: Designing a Customer-Centric Culture That Drives Value for Your Business (Advantage|ForbesBooks), was released on March 22, 2022, outlines the ten foundational principles of a customer-centric culture and inspires leaders to think differently about customer-centricity.
She is an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council, an invitation-only community for successful business and career coaches. Members are selected based on their depth and diversity of experience. And, finally, she is an Advisory Board Member for CX@UCI, CX Forums, and Cast.app – and she serves as chairwoman for the US Customer Experience Awards (Awards International).
