I have been talking about the Listening Gap quite a bit, realizing that there are so many facets to it.
There’s a gap between what customers are saying and what organizations are doing reactively or proactively based on that feedback.
There’s a gap between what employees are noticing and saying about their own experience and what leaders are or are not doing about it.
There’s a gap between what survey results say and what customers specifically want, which might be as simple as “don’t make me work so hard as your customer” or a feeling like “ah, I know what I’m going to get when I walk into this store or go to this website”.
There’s a gap between what managers and team members get access to – I mean data, insights, strategic direction, and why certain things were or were not prioritized.
Executives make decisions constantly without informing anyone else why they made those decisions. Were the decisions mission-aligned? Values-aligned? A revenue play? A calculated risk? Reacting to fears or pressure to use AI? When those decisions are made at the top of the house without the “why”, leaders are left wondering how they should make decisions in their leadership seat and how to advise their team members to make decisions.
And this is exactly where the Listening Gap starts to widen — because when employees don’t understand the “why,” they can’t possibly translate it into how they show up for customers. That internal misalignment becomes an external experience problem every single time.
Bain & Company found that while 80% of executives believe their company delivers a superior customer experience, only 8% of customers agree. That delta is the Listening Gap in its purest form.
I spoke with Shep Hyken on his podcast last week, and we talked about the Listening Gap in the lens of customer experience: very few leaders know the current landscape of how their customers are feeling across their full experience with the brand – whether they’re staying, going, engaging, referring – and very few know the same about their employees.
As Shep often writes, “Customers don’t need you to be perfect. They need you to be predictably good.” That predictability is what tells them you’re actually listening.
I believe this is “fixable”. By fixable I mean, we can move the needle by getting more brand and mission aligned through a clear brand promise -- or mission statement or north star. Call it whatever fits the culture, but a statement that explains who you are as a brand and how you will show up for your customers and employees is critical. My advice to Shep’s listeners was to take that statement and check in all the drawers, cabinets, and under the rug to see if you’re doing this.
For example: A medical device company was patient-centric and empathetic wanting to show up for their patients in a way that met them where they were. Most patients had comorbidities. Most had shocking side effects from other medications they were on, leading to stress, difficulty, and thoughts of suicide. The company knew this, and took the time with me to map out the entire patient journey and indicate how to show up across every touchpoint and interaction to help make learning about the device clear, to make the prescription process easy by working directly with the doctors and specialists, to navigating insurance for the patients, to setting up regular phone calls with the patients, providing gentle reminders for them to charge their device, and being a go-to resource for them.
I interviewed patients and heard “This changed my life. I want to tell everyone about this. How can I do this? Please tell me how I can get involved. This is a start-up. I need this company to succeed so we can keep using this device forever.” They shared that they felt supported every step of the way.
This company was thoughtful, deliberate, and careful about designing each interaction from start to forever for these patients. They did this by not letting the Listening Gap get too big. They were aligned from the Board and C-Suite all the way to every employee who had a sense of belief and belonging, knowing how to show up, why decisions are being made, and what their role is. This took championing, which I’ll get into in another article.
The Listening Gap is multi-faceted, and it exists everywhere, but whether it stays a pinhole or becomes a chasm is up to leadership and their willingness to look inward and move towards better alignment and listening.