Incorporating Inclusivity to Positively Impact Customer
Experience Outcomes and Organizational Culture
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Author: Aileen Marie Day
Pub. Date: 2023
Product: Sage Business Cases
Sage
Sage Business Cases
© Aileen Marie Day 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529619447
Keywords: customers, organizational culture, social media, teams, organizations, outcomes, feedback,
inclusion, case studies, feedback loop
Disciplines: Organizational Culture, Organization Studies, Business & Management, Diversity, Equality &
Inclusion, Human Resource Management, Change Leadership, Leadership
Access Date: September 4, 2023
Publishing Company: SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals
City: London
Online ISBN: 9781529619447
© 2023 SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals All Rights Reserved.
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Abstract
This case outlines how a leader used the practices and principles of customer experience as a business discipline—specifically, customer insights, otherwise known as voice of the customer data—to
understand customer needs and to influence a change in how her organization communicates, empathizes with, and develops products for all customers. Shannon, the newly appointed Customer Experience Leader at a school and office supplies warehouse, came to find herself educating a crossfunction team in the importance of not just collecting customer insights but actioning the customer
feedback to close the feedback loop.
In Shannon’s position, she found an opportunity to help further progress the organization’s governance
around closing the customer feedback loop. This additionally gave her the opportunity to build up her
organization’s culture and accountability in inclusiveness and diversity. This case study shows how, in
taking these opportunities, Shannon further progresses the organization’s capacity to become more
customer centric.
Students will be asked to examine the underlying obstacles to creating an inclusive workplace environment. They will use this insight to help them formulate a strategy in which the delivered customer
experience resonates with the organization’s diverse and authentic culture.
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Case
Learning Outcomes
By the end of this case study, student should be able to:
1. illustrate the impact of inclusion on the employee and customer experience;
2. analyze the part culture plays in the engagement of teams to create an inclusive organization;
3. apply strategy and empathy to influence inclusiveness;
4. recognize the importance of closing the loop on feedback; and
5. appraise the importance of leadership in supporting and driving change.
Inclusion: How to Influence Inclusion in Organizational
Teams Indirectly Responsible for Exclusion
Shannon, the newly appointed Customer Experience Leader at School and Office Supplies Warehouse,1
came to find herself educating a cross-function team in the importance of not just collecting customer insights
but actioning the customer feedback to close the feedback loop (Markey et al., 2014). Customer experience
refers to the perception that customers have of an organization, a perception that is based on the interactions
across all touchpoints, people, and technology over time (CXPA, 2022).
According to the leading body for customer experience professionals, the Customer Experience Professionals
Association (CXPA), there are five core competencies in the framework of customer experience (CXPA,
2022):
1. customer insights and understanding;
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2. customer experience strategy;
3. metrics, measurements, and ROI (return on investment);
4. design, implementation, and innovation; and
5. culture and accountability.
Incorporating inclusion in business is an important innovation necessary to the ongoing growth and diversity
of an organization’s success (Chaudhry et al., 2021). However, often inclusion feels more like the responsibility of the leaders and decision makers and not a responsibility of their teams. However, as individuals, we
all play a role in creating an inclusive environment where employees know they are valued for their diversity
and, in turn, share these values where appropriate throughout the customer experience. Characteristics of
inclusion can be experienced as feelings of safety, work-group involvement, feeling valued, participation in
decision making, and the ability to be authentic (Adamson et al., 2021). Taking personal accountability for
the creation of an inclusive environment can be made even more difficult when situations of exclusion arise
through no fault or responsibility of our own and to rectify said exclusion could be seen as stepping out of line.
The potential pressure of speaking out can be greatly mitigated when organizations and the individuals within
it develop a culture of inclusivity; however, such a culture is not present in many organizations. Therefore,
taking action to rectify exclusion can be perceived by the employee witnessing it as being adverse to their
career or perceived hierarchical standing within the business. Therefore, they are not engaged in a change
culture and let the exclusion continue to occur.
Shannon and the School and Office Supplies Warehouse
Shannon was the National Customer Experience Leader for the School and Office Supplies Warehouse, a
large retail and e-commerce organization that supplied products for offices and schools around the country.
The business was the authority in its market and thought of as the benchmark in its industry by business
leaders. Although considered the benchmark, it too could benefit from improvement in some aspects of its
business, including the internal culture and the customer experience, both in-store and online. To assist with
this development, Shannon understood that, despite the organization’s small number of portals for customer
feedback, a relationship needed to be built with the team members responsible for responding to inquiries via
the organization’s social media accounts (Tsai, 2001). Team members were not direct reports to Shannon; in
fact, they worked in a completely different team. Therefore, it was necessary for Shannon to build trust with
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the team and their team leader, which in turn would allow the team to feel comfortable sharing insights learned
through the social media channels. Until this occurred, all insights derived were directly linked to marketing
outcomes with very little of the feedback related to the customer experience.
Creating Influence and Building Confidence
Shannon had not been in her role for long when she completed an assessment of the organization’s voice of
the customer listening posts. She learned that the only source of customer feedback was derived from physical cards. These cards were available in stores—there were 110 stores throughout the country. The cards
were completed by some customers, handed to store employees, and then left in a pile to collect. Eventually
these cards were disposed of in a bin. Governance around customer feedback did not exist, and what procedures did exist were ignored with no follow-up. Therefore, there was little to no accountability as to whether
customer feedback was ever heard, let alone rectified when appropriate. The other avenue of direct-to-business customer feedback was via the multiple social media channels the organization held accounts on, including Facebook and Twitter. Shannon learned through observation of customer posts made on these channels that in many cases customer posts went unanswered or, if answered, merely gave a polite and cursory
response thanking the customer for getting in touch. No visible closure of the feedback loop was apparent.
Shannon organized a meeting with the department head of the social media team to discuss the current situation and procedures around managing feedback. The discussion during the meeting was quite cursory.
Shannon was told that the focus of the social media team was to extract insights for the benefit of the marketing and advertising departments. The data was collated each week by a separate agency and discussed
amongst the relative department heads each week. Shannon was invited to meet the social media team and
she requested permission to spend some time with them learning what they did with the social media channels. Shannon then purposefully kept the social media team engaged in all her work, aiming to have the team
feel engaged with the customer experience outcomes of customers in stores and online. She explained that
the more involved they were, the more certain insights found by Shannon’s analysis of customer feedback
would make sense. If there were changes occurring to a particular department’s function, a customer may
be motivated to talk about it on the social channels. In these situations, the social media team would already
have been advised and could respond appropriately.
Initially, team members were hesitant to respond. They noted that their job was not to respond, but rather to
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just acknowledge the feedback. Shannon, in commenting on this information, said, “[w]hat if it were up to you
to respond? Would you be confident to start the conversation?” Much of the team was uncertain, noting that
they would not know what to say, when to say it, and so on. During the next few weeks, Shannon would visit
the team each day and discuss the feedback appearing on the social channels, helping team members to understand situationally what they could do, how they could do it, and why closing the feedback loop mattered
to the customer and the organization.
After about four weeks, Shannon found the team proactively and cheerily responding to feedback, not just
acknowledging it. They were becoming more confident with the task of managing feedback and working to
close the loop with customers.
The Challenge of “It’s Not Mine” Mindsets
In time, customer feedback on social media channels began to increase as customers started to see resolutions to posted complaints and opportunities to be heard. One such customer was a mother of a six-year-old
boy. The mother, Nancy, made contact with the company via Facebook. Nancy exclaimed her disappointment
that her son, who was in store collecting supplies to begin his first year of school, was upset that the art apron
that he wanted was in a section marked for girls. Nancy attached an image with her post that displayed two
different art aprons. One was blue and clearly marked in large letters "FOR BOYS" and the other, a purple
apron clearly marked "FOR GIRLS." Nancy went on to explain her son’s favorite color was purple but that he
was scared that he would be made fun of if, at school, he had an apron purchased from the bin marked “FOR
GIRLS.” She asked in her post how an organization can specify which colors are for boys and which are for
girls. Clearly upset at her son’s feeling of exclusion, Nancy then went on to admit that she was considering
taking this situation to the media to create the necessary change that she as a customer expected from an
organization in this day and age.
The predicament came to a head when Shannon spoke to the social media team about the fact that, despite
all the amazing effort that had gone into turning around the customer experience with the social media team
in recent weeks, this feedback reverted to the cursory response of old. Shannon went to the team to ask
what was being done to find a resolution to Nancy’s clear disappointment at how the organization treats people who are different to the supposed norm. The team defeatedly replied, “[w]hat can we do? We don’t buy
the products.” It was reminiscent of a group of children being asked whose mess was on the floor, with rePage 7 of 14
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sounding responses of “[i]t’s not mine.” No one felt that this incident was within their grasp to create change
(Janssen, 2005). Shannon asked the team, “So, you’re ok with the way it’s handled then?” The team were
clearly not happy about the situation, but obviously felt powerless to create change as the decision makers,
the merchandise buyers, made their position in the organization clear. They were the authority and the decision makers. They knew what they were doing. They had in the past often refuted reports from customers
about poor product choices and the social media team felt the pressure to leave them alone and not aggravate their egos. Several of the social media team were also parents. When Shannon asked even those who
were not parents, "[i]f this was your child, are you saying you would be satisfied with the action that’s been
taken today?", a genuine and humble “no” resounded from the whole group. However, still unsure as to what
to do and whether risking upsetting a decision maker was worthwhile, Shannon challenged them to change
their mindset from “[i]t’s not my mess or my responsibility, I didn’t buy the product, there’s nothing I can do”
to imagine two scenarios. The first was a positive scenario, in which the organization makes it onto the news
for creating change and they display remorse for their error but express gratitude for helping them to take
inclusion seriously. The second was a negative scenario, where they end up on the news, the organization’s
leadership team is scrutinized, a little boy believes he has to be ashamed of what brings him joy, a mother just
wants her child to feel included but, thanks to the big corporation, that can’t happen, so she grows resentful
of the business and campaigns for people to empathize with her and her son's pain and persuades them to
boycott the company (Sormanen & Dutton, 2015).
When The Unconscious Becomes Conscious
Shannon worked with the team to develop a strategy that would assist them in creating empathy for the customer, Nancy’s son, and influence change that would see inclusion move from an unconscious state to a
conscious strategy within the organization (Anderson & Anderson, 2001). Shannon joined the social media
team as they discussed the customer’s feedback with their department head. Shannon encouraged the team
to lead the conversation. The social media team put forward the same positive and negative scenarios that
Shannon had posed to them earlier and, with this, the team’s manager understood that the negative scenario was not an option. By this stage, Nancy’s comment was gaining support, not just from the social media
team and Shannon but from other customers commenting on and engaging with her post in support of her
sentiments. Considered action needed to be taken. Simply acknowledging the feedback or responding with
inauthentic promises in a hope to placate the crowds would not do this time. The more the social media team
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discussed the feedback, the more they realized how unconscious the matter of inclusion was in the business, and the more they started to realize they were about to be agents of change, which spurred them on to
take the feedback to the merchandise buyers’ assistant to discuss potential solutions calmly and confidently
(Crook, 2022).
Using Empathy to Influence Inclusion
The social media team’s strategy was to factually relay the morning’s events: from receiving the feedback, to
believing there wasn’t a lot that could be done, to understanding that this in fact was the organization’s perfect opportunity to show the public that they were heard, valued, and that the company shared their values of
inclusiveness (Flores, 1993). They were first met with the merchandise buyers’ assistant, the gatekeeper to
the senior buyer. He was receptive to the discussion; however, he mostly focused on the part about not being
on the local news for all the wrong reasons. Accepting that some people will value different things, the social
media team was granted access to the buyer upon his return to the office within the hour.
At this stage, Shannon noted that there had not been any further communication to Nancy since the initial
crude response thanking her for her feedback with a cursory "[w]e’ll pass it on." She asked the social media
team if they thought it valuable to publicly respond again and let Nancy know that that they were still working
on it and reiterate that they were thankful for the feedback. The team agreed. They responded publicly but not
before inquiring as to whether they should just message her privately in case they couldn’t make the changes.
Shannon explained that, in her experience, delivering a public response was not just for one customer but
for everyone sitting on the sidelines watching the situation unfurl (Pantano & Corvello, 2013), waiting to make
their own judgment on the organization’s trustworthiness. There were immediate responses to the public reply, including many memes of Michael Jackson eating popcorn, implying people were watching the show.
Comments came through calling the organization’s bluff. Many more quietly engaged without showing it, only
visible through the reach and engagement analytics available to the team at the time.
It was now time to meet the buyer himself. Briefed by his assistant, but only really hearing “[w]e’re going to
end up on the news if we don’t fix this,” the social media team, this time now also supported by their department head and Shannon, quickly calmed the buyer’s assistant, and stuck to their strategy of keeping to the
facts. However, persuading the buyer to feel empathy for the young boy and his mother (Holt et al., 2017) was
paramount. The buyer listened to the information but suggested that perhaps it was even out of his hands
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as the product’s manufacturer would be the one who ultimately would need to get on board with the change.
The social media team, now growing in confidence that this was their opportunity to make a cultural shift, but
feeling like every step threw another roadblock in the way, exclaimed in exasperation, “George, you are the
buyer for a multi-million-dollar national company. Surely what you want, you get?” George, who had potentially just had his ego and position challenged, stared in surprise at the remark. Another member of the team,
seeing the opportunity to cultivate empathy in George, then commented, “[i]f this was your son, would you let
the decision be up to a manufacturer?" (Holt et al., 2017)?”
The buyer barely hesitated before exclaiming, "I see the problem, I just can’t guarantee the manufacturer will
care; however, if he wants our business, I presume he’ll be smart enough to consider it" (McCrudden, 2007).
Shannon watched as each member of the meeting wielded their own personal power to influence change.
The buyer, now adamant that he himself was as described, the man who made the decisions, and realizing
that time was now of the essence, decided to simply call the manufacturer and do away with the proposed
long-winded email option. The buyer described the concerns to the manufacturer. He then read out the social media post made by Nancy and the subsequent reactions to her dilemma, and then, to the delight of the
whole team, the manufacturer simply replied, “[h]uh, I never thought of it but yeah, we can change it on the
next run, no worries.” The social media team, their department head, Shannon, the buyer’s assistant, and
the buyer, who were all ready to go in to battle, sat forward in their seats and looked closer at the telephone
that George had on loudspeaker for the team to listen to the call. The buyer, puzzled himself at how easy the
change was, then said, “[s]o that’s it, you just change it next run? What does that mean?" The manufacturer
said he would redesign the apron covers to exclude any gender and remove the picture of a boy or a girl from
the packaging and any reference to gender. He then said he would send it through for approval and, while he
was at it, he’d check the rest of his range that he manufactured for the organization and do the same where
applicable. He then thanked George for bringing it to his attention and said, “I never really understood why
we had it on there anyway. It makes sense to get rid of it, let them wear their favorite colors.”
Creating Inclusion One Opportunity at a Time
George was very pleased with himself. However, he began thinking about the bigger picture and what this
meant for the organization and the products, and what that meant for the customer experience. George instructed his assistant to organize tabling the matter at the next buyers’ meeting and to collate a case study
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that the other merchandise buyers could understand. His aim was to now create and influence positive
change in their own product ranges where applicable (Desai, 2014).
The social media team with their department head and Shannon went back to their own departments to ascertain how they would communicate this result back to Nancy and of course every other spectator that had,
since the morning, caught on to Nancy’s post. The decision was made that the same team member (Carrie)
who first responded in the morning with the curt "[t]hank you for your feedback" would also be the one to go
back and deliver the news to close the feedback loop (Zairi, 2000). This action helped to show that as an organization they were indeed thankful for the feedback, enough to drive serious change to the way they made
their customers feel included. Carrie responded to Nancy and, nearly instantly, Nancy replied with a critical
and not-unjust reply of “[r]eally? You’re going to change it”? Carrie replied, now essentially in a live chat mode,
“[y]es, School and Office Supplies Warehouse, as well as the manufacturer, are all deeply appreciative that
you shared this with us. It has given everyone involved the chance to do better. Further changes to our range
will be tabled in coming weeks to understand what inclusion looks like for our wider product range and to ensure that no customer feels excluded simply for their gender, and that will be just the start. We would love to
see a picture of your son in his purple apron when he starts back at school, and we hope he knows we think
he’s awesome.”
From here, the media that was promised did not result in the manner it was originally described; however,
some local and online news outlets caught on to Nancy’s post. The organization’s public relations manager
fielded several statement requests, further influencing the need for a review on the way inclusion was managed, not just for products, but within the organization. A true cultural shift brought on by a little purple apron
and a mom on a mission.

Discussion Questions
1. Why might employees feel compelled to look the other way when inclusiveness challenges arise?
2. How does social media play a part in influencing inclusion?
3. Discuss the potential business consequences of School and Office Supplies Warehouse
taking no action on the feedback shared by Nancy. Why was it just as important to act on
the feedback as it was to collect it?
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4. Describe Shannon’s part in influencing change in the organization’s inclusiveness awareness.
5. What are some meaningful strategies the organization can implement that would help
keep the conversation on inclusion a focus for the business?
Notes
1. 1. While this case is based on real-world events, all company and character names have been fictionalized
to preserve anonymity.
Further Reading
Centre for Inclusive Design. (2021, November11). Your customer experience is not “great” until it’s inclusive.
https://centreforinclusivedesign.org.au/index.php/blog/2021/11/11/your-customer-experience-is-not-great-until-its-inclusive/
CXPA. (2022). CX core competencies. https://www.cxpa.org/earn-your-ccxp/exam-blueprint
Lebel, R. D. (2016). Overcoming the fear factor: How perceptions of supervisor openness lead employees to
speak up when fearing external threat. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 135, 10–21.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.05.001
Rhodes Perry, M. P. A. (2018). Belonging at work: Everyday actions you can take to cultivate an inclusive
organization (Vol. 1). Bowker Identifier Services.
Sinkkonen, J. (2022, March25). The importance of diversity in customer experience. Lumoa. https://lumoa.me/blog/the-importance-of-diversity-in-customer-experience
Villani, I. (2018). Transform customer experience: How to achieve customer success and create exceptional
CX (1st ed., Vol. 1). Wiley.
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References
Adamson, M., Kelan, E., Lewis, P., Śliwa, M., & Rumens, N. (2021). Introduction: Critically interrogating inclusion in organisations. Organization, 28(2), 211–227. https://doi.org/10.1177/1350508420973307
Anderson, D., & Anderson, L. A. (2001). Beyond change management: Advanced strategies for today’s transformational leaders (1st ed.). Pfeiffer.
Chaudhry, I. S., Paquibut, R. Y., & Tunio, M. N. (2021). Do workforce diversity, inclusion practices, & organizational characteristics contribute to organizational innovation? Evidence from the U.A.E. Cogent Business &
Management, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311975.2021.1947549
Crook, M. (2022, April27). Turning unconscious bias into conscious inclusion. https://blog.wunderlandgroup.com/turning-unconscious-bias-into-conscious-inclusion
CXPA. (2022). What is CX?. https://www.cxpa.org/grow-your-knowledge/whatiscx#:%7E:text=introduction%20to%20CX.-,Customer%20Experience%20(CX),customers%20have%20of%20an%20organization
Desai, H. P. (2014). Business models for inclusiveness. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 157,
353–362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2014.11.039
Flores, F. (1993). Innovation by listening carefully to customers. Long Range Planning, 26(3), 95–102.
https://doi.org/10.1016/0024-6301(93)90011-4
Holt, S., Marques, J., Hu, J., & Wood, A. (2017). Cultivating empathy: New perspectives on educating business leaders. Journal of Values-Based Leadership, 10(1), 4–8. https://doi.org/10.22543/0733.101.1173
Janssen, O. (2005). The joint impact of perceived influence and supervisor supportiveness on employee innovative behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 78(4), 573–579. https://doi.org/
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Markey, R., Reichheld, F., & Dullweber, A. (2014, August1). Closing the customer feedback loop. Harvard
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McCrudden, C. (2007). Buying social justice. Equality, Government Procurement, and Legal Change.
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Pantano, E., & Corvello, V. (2013). The impact of experience on companies’ reactions to negative comments
on social networks. Journal of Direct, Data and Digital Marketing Practice, 14(3), 214–223. https://doi.org/
10.1057/dddmp.2013.3
Sormanen, N., & Dutton, W. H. (2015). The role of social media in societal change: Cases in Finland of fifth
estate activity on Facebook. Social Media + Society, 1(2), https://doi.org/205630511561278. https://doi.org/
10.1177/2056305115612782
Tsai, W. (2001). Knowledge transfer in intraorganizational networks: Effects of network position and absorptive capacity on business unit innovation and performance. Academy of Management Journal, 44(5),
996–1004. https://doi.org/10.5465/3069443
Zairi, M. (2000). Managing customer dissatisfaction through effective complaints management systems. The
TQM Magazine, 12(5), 331–337. https://doi.org/10.1108/09544780010341932
https://doi.org/10.4135/9781529619447
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