Why Your Business Has A Listening Gap™
In this episode of Reblutionize Your Marketing with AI, REBL Risty sits down with Natalie K. Jackson, founder of Crescent Consultancy, to talk about how businesses can close the “listening gap™” between customers, employees, and leadership.
Natalie shares how organizations of any size can use listening architecture, customer journey mapping, and clearer communication to improve retention, referrals, onboarding, and overall customer experience.
This episode of Reblutionize Podcast with REBL Risty discusses the following:
Key Takeaways
Listening architecture helps leaders understand what is happening across the entire customer and employee experience, not just within individual departments.
Businesses often already know where the friction points are, but they need a structured way to prioritize and act on them.
Customer experience work is not only for large organizations.
Solopreneurs, small teams, and growing businesses can benefit from listening more intentionally.
Retention, loyalty, referrals, and onboarding are critical moments that companies often overlook after the sale is made.
Journey mapping can reveal dozens of improvement opportunities and help teams decide what to fix first based on effort, impact, and ownership.
About:
Natalie K. Jackson is a customer experience strategist and the founder of Crescent Consultancy. She serves on the 2026 U.S. Customer Experience Professional Association (CXPA).
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View the full transcript as Natalie and REBL discuss the Listening Gap.
0:00
Hello. Hello. Welcome to revolutionize
0:02
your marketing with AI. And I'm here
0:05
today with Natalie Jackson who's a
0:07
fellow provisor member and marketer. And
0:11
we are going to talk about what she's
0:12
doing to help businesses better
0:15
integrate experiences and listening and
0:18
building teams buing teams I should say
0:21
together. So welcome Natalie. Thank you
0:23
for joining us.
0:24
Thank you for having me. Happy to be
0:26
here.
0:27
You're welcome. Of course. if you don't
0:29
mind for my audience just telling them a
0:31
little bit about who you are and what
0:33
you do.
0:34
Of course. Yep. So, Natalie Jackson. I
0:36
started up Crescent Consultancy a couple
0:38
of years ago focused on bringing
0:41
endtoend customer and employee employee
0:44
experiences um to organizations all
0:47
different sizes. Uh and I have learned
0:50
that very much listening is a huge part
0:53
of that and I'm sure we'll get into that
0:54
today. Um, but my goal is to make the
0:57
discipline of customer experience or CX
1:00
completely approachable and something
1:01
that any organization can kind of start
1:03
on and start to see improvements right
1:05
away.
1:06
Yeah. Tell us a little bit like how did
1:08
you get into this?
1:09
Yeah. [laughter] Yeah. Well, I started
1:11
out in project management and consulting
1:14
like early in my career and through that
1:17
I lived through some very large
1:18
transformations in big global
1:20
organizations and I started to piece
1:22
together those ingredients. Uh and then
1:25
fast forward maybe about seven years ago
1:28
I had the aha that oh wait customer
1:30
experience and employee experience it's
1:32
a discipline there are functions there's
1:34
a way to do this. So that I think was my
1:38
little launchpad to go and start
1:40
figuring out what I'm interested in and
1:42
how I want to help organizations do
1:44
that. Um, so I was able to do that at my
1:46
last consulting firm. Learned a lot. So
1:48
grateful for that and got to develop my
1:50
own perspective on how to bring this
1:51
forward.
1:53
Awesome. I love it. So yes, we're going
1:56
to kind of get into the listening gap as
1:59
you call it.
2:02
Maybe before we do jump right in, when
2:04
you are working with companies, why what
2:08
signals that they need to bring someone
2:10
like you in?
2:11
Yeah, I mean that I love that question
2:14
because like this work, it's so as I
2:17
said, it's like accessible and
2:18
intuitive, but it's complex at the same
2:20
time, right? But whenever an a leader or
2:23
a team is feeling like there's a little
2:25
extra friction in one area, it's not
2:27
working so great. those who know that
2:29
somebody like me can kind of drop in and
2:31
help with that. I get those calls. So,
2:34
recently, well, I guess about last year,
2:36
and we've carried on since, onboarding
2:38
is something that surfaced in a in a
2:40
customer client survey they put out um
2:43
to assess how engagement's going. So I
2:45
notice onboarding is a moment when
2:47
organizations have built up by
2:49
acquisition and they realize that the
2:51
cultures are a little bit off and the
2:53
systems are different and employees are
2:54
showing up differently and therefore the
2:56
customers, clients, patients are feeling
2:58
something different, right? Um yeah, so
3:01
it's and then those who want to grow is
3:03
another, you know, good moment. We know
3:06
growing by retention and referrals is a
3:10
lot less expensive than acquiring new in
3:12
most cases. So, this is a great way to
3:15
show up consistently across across um
3:18
your the whole journey.
3:21
There are many other use cases, but
3:22
those are I think the main ones. It's
3:24
like something's we feel a little
3:26
clunkiness and we're starting to to feel
3:28
the pull from that.
3:30
Yeah. Yeah. And is this something you
3:32
think is obvious or do companies like
3:36
when they feel this pain they know it or
3:39
Well, I mean it's I love that too
3:40
because I I think yes, but that's what
3:44
I've been exploring is like I feel like
3:46
there's a different way that we could be
3:47
talking about this. So I mean I feel
3:50
like if you ask a lot of leaders and
3:52
teams in any department or organization,
3:55
do you know of anything that's not
3:57
working today? Or what are the three
3:59
things that your customers or clients
4:01
have been asking for? Like they can
4:04
pretty much say or if your systems are
4:06
working a certain way or if you have a
4:08
CRM, what's not working? They have a
4:10
backlog, a list of things that they want
4:12
to improve probably or they have
4:14
projects that they're doing each year. I
4:16
think I just like to sort of reorganize
4:18
those things and sort how do those
4:20
affect the customer uh when you're
4:22
choosing and prioritizing. Um sometimes
4:26
they're obvious. We're getting a bunch
4:27
of calls. We're getting a bunch of
4:28
emails on a topic, right? We feel like
4:30
we put a product out too soon or we knew
4:33
that we brought in too much inventory
4:35
and now we send it out because we were
4:36
so excited with this V2 but it's not
4:39
working so great. So there like there
4:40
are those specific situations for sure.
4:43
Yeah. Yeah.
4:46
Great. Well, let's jump into our topic
4:49
for today. Yeah. Um the listening
4:52
architecture that you've created and how
4:55
you're helping companies today. I'd love
4:58
to maybe just first tell us a little bit
5:00
about that that concept and why you're
5:03
using it to help companies.
5:05
Yeah. Yeah. Well, the term listening
5:09
architecture is really a way for leaders
5:13
to sort of lift above all of the
5:15
departments and functions and think
5:18
completely crossf functionally. So we
5:20
can say we're doing so great here in
5:22
marketing or we're doing so great in
5:23
operations, but do we actually know
5:25
what's happening across everything and
5:28
are we listening to the data that we're
5:30
getting and the insights from that? Are
5:32
we listening to employees? Are we
5:34
listening to our customers on a regular
5:36
basis, not like we did a survey six
5:38
months ago and now we're finally making
5:39
changes? Um, but listening, the way that
5:42
I'll define it is across everything,
5:44
right? And then from there, what are you
5:47
doing with what you're hearing? And
5:49
that's when you can kind [clears throat]
5:49
of get to the next level. But I just
5:51
think that's missing because we get
5:53
stuck in the silos that we live in and
5:55
stuck in the departments that we're in.
5:57
And we might care very much and be very
5:59
skilled and know how to do that and do
6:02
that so well and report that up to
6:04
executives in the board, but it very
6:06
rarely is threaded together in a way to
6:09
be able to make change together.
6:11
Yeah. You know, it was interesting to me
6:13
because I was at an event like a
6:15
networking kind of like a forum style
6:17
event last night and one of the
6:19
gentlemen um was talking about, you
6:22
know, they've seen a real down tick in
6:24
their business because they do very
6:26
high-end custom um uh what would you
6:30
call it? Like you know, your TV and
6:33
sound systems and and movie theater
6:35
rooms and all that stuff. And you know,
6:38
one of the first thoughts, and somebody
6:39
else said it before me, it was like,
6:40
"Well, have you tapped into your current
6:42
customer base? Have you talked to them?
6:43
Like, what are they doing?" And it
6:45
seemed so obvious, but you're right.
6:47
Like it was like right in front of him.
6:49
He's like, "Oh, yeah. I guess I should,
6:51
you know, ask them what they're
6:54
I mean, he has a smaller team." But
6:56
maybe tell us like how do you get a team
6:59
to start listening? How does that really
7:02
work?
7:02
That's a perfect example. It's that it's
7:05
like do you know? Yeah. Have you asked?
7:08
That's I I think that's a great one,
7:10
right? And I think it depends on the
7:13
size of the organization. So you say,
7:14
well, that's a small team. I recently
7:17
just rolled off of engagement with a
7:19
single financial advisor who's ready to
7:21
scale, who has an assistant and a
7:23
fantastic, very loyal client base. but
7:26
she realized she didn't have a third
7:28
party like somebody who can drop in and
7:30
do those types of interviews to listen
7:32
to then put the systems in place. So I
7:35
it is I think a moment to say what am I
7:38
comfortable with? What are my goals?
7:40
What are my pain points? In that
7:42
particular example like let's say the
7:44
small to midsize business referrals are
7:48
so much of it a lot of the time
7:50
depending on the offering. So I mean I
7:52
think you teed it up beautifully. I was
7:54
able to come in and do a whole bunch of
7:56
interviews and learn and it validated in
7:58
this case what she already knew. She's
8:00
showing up really really well with trust
8:03
but perhaps the cultivation of those
8:05
referrals wasn't there. If somebody
8:07
gives a referral let's put a system in
8:09
place to follow up to check in to do
8:11
this to see where it leads to track the
8:13
metrics. So even that is a really good
8:17
spot. And then secondly, one of the
8:19
things that I ask often even in just a
8:23
just a you know in a conversation is
8:25
well do you know what your brand
8:27
promises?
8:28
And sometimes you know people will say
8:32
yes and sometimes we'll say no. We have
8:34
a mission and when I ask about the brand
8:37
promise it's what are you promising to
8:38
consistently deliver to your customers
8:40
and hopefully your employees.
8:42
That's missing. We can translate that.
8:44
It can be called like the experiential
8:46
north star or other things. The name
8:48
almost doesn't matter, but what are you
8:50
promising? And if you know that and then
8:52
you can click down and say, well, now
8:54
that we know kind of how we want to show
8:55
up, do we understand what our customers
8:57
are feeling across the whole journey? Do
8:59
you know what that whole journey is? So,
9:01
it's kind it's kind of more
9:02
conversational upfront. Um, and then you
9:05
can enter into some of those interviews
9:06
and then get really deep into the work
9:08
and find those friction points.
9:10
Yeah. Yeah. No, and thanks for
9:12
clarifying that it could even be a solo
9:14
prneur or, you know, a twoperson team
9:18
that it doesn't have to be a large team.
9:21
Uh, [laughter]
9:22
no, anyone can do this work. Yeah.
9:25
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, besides kind
9:27
of the obvious, you know, sometimes it's
9:30
hard when you you're are in the
9:32
day-to-day to see like what's kind of
9:35
right in front of your face. Where else
9:37
do you see um leaders or owners getting
9:42
stuck? Like where are they getting
9:44
stuck?
9:45
I think that would be a fun conversation
9:47
to take kind of your world and sort of
9:49
the world because if you think about the
9:50
journey, it's across like the sales
9:52
funnel is the first part of it, right? A
9:55
customer learns about you, they consider
9:57
maybe joining or buying or subscribing,
9:59
whatever it is, and then they join. And
10:02
so that moment of when they join is
10:04
super critical. It's like they're really
10:05
in, they're committed. What do you do
10:08
after that? And I think I've noticed
10:10
that so much of the emphasis is let's
10:12
get more sales, let's track revenue,
10:14
let's do this, but less about okay,
10:18
great. now that they're in, how are we
10:19
being thoughtful and strategic and
10:21
careful and personalized about staying
10:22
in touch with everybody and not even to
10:25
upsell just to keep that trust and
10:28
engagement going and I feel like when I
10:30
ask teams and sometimes at very large
10:33
enterprises and you know midsize is do
10:35
you know what your retention metrics are
10:37
and maybe one person in a room of 20
10:40
knows do you know if if you have loyalty
10:43
like NPS net promoter score is a common
10:45
one right for loyalty we know if you
10:48
have, you know, what your NPS score is
10:50
and maybe two people would be like,
10:51
well, I think last month it was reported
10:53
at uh 15 or whatever. Uh, and so I
10:56
noticed that not always is like that
10:59
salesunnel connected to everything else
11:01
once you get that acquire that customer
11:04
or client or patient, right? But then
11:07
also very few people in the organization
11:09
are given access to that kind of data
11:12
and I don't understand why. And so it's
11:14
kind of fun to have those conversations
11:16
like is that hurting anything? You don't
11:18
have to give everything, but shouldn't
11:20
we all know if we're retaining customers
11:22
and what we could be doing more?
11:24
Shouldn't we all know if we have
11:25
loyalty? And I mean there are plenty of
11:27
other metrics, right, from every stage,
11:29
but just as an example, I think it's the
11:31
disconnect across and then sharing of
11:34
information so people know what to do
11:36
with it.
11:37
Yeah, I think that's a great example
11:39
like net promoter score. Why wouldn't
11:41
you be sharing that across the
11:43
organization?
11:45
Um, and I guess we can sit here and say
11:47
that's so obvious. [laughter]
11:48
Of course,
11:50
profile in your CRM, but not everybody
11:52
has to [laughter] pick that up, right?
11:54
Yeah.
11:55
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how how are you
11:58
seeing it? Obviously, silo and then
12:00
people aren't really communicating. Is
12:02
it affecting like the marketing team's
12:05
effectiveness for example, and how is it
12:08
affecting that?
12:09
Yeah. Yeah. in that lens. You know, I
12:12
have had worked with quite a few
12:15
marketing teams and sometimes they own
12:19
CX formally or informally. They own that
12:21
customer experience which translates
12:23
into the employee experience too, but
12:26
they're not always I guess there are a
12:27
couple different answers, but they're
12:29
not always given access to
12:32
make changes throughout those other
12:34
stages or those other functions. So if
12:36
we say we want to sell white glove and
12:39
we're going to talk about it because we
12:40
believe this, this is who we are. If the
12:43
delivery is not consistent like that
12:45
later, you know, that's a challenge. And
12:47
then who does that come back down on?
12:49
Sometimes that might come back down on
12:51
the marketing organization or the
12:53
marketing department who was selling
12:56
what you know advertising, sharing,
12:58
storytelling, you know, putting
13:00
campaigns out there that are meant to
13:03
highlight the successes and then we find
13:05
friction later because it's not
13:06
consistent or teams aren't open to it
13:08
yet.
13:09
Yeah. I think it's, you know, when I do
13:13
think about marketing and sales
13:14
specifically, it's a very common we work
13:18
in silos. we're not talking to each
13:19
other. And let's face it, sales is
13:21
usually much more connected and in front
13:23
of the customer. And then if you're not
13:25
getting that feedback and data,
13:27
marketing's over here saying this one
13:28
thing, but sales is getting a feedback
13:31
that it's no, that's not their problem.
13:33
It's this, but it's not getting Yeah.
13:35
communicated across.
13:37
It's true. And then there are workflows
13:39
that are built because I I firmly
13:41
believe everyone wants to do their job
13:42
very well and they want to see their
13:44
company succeed regardless of their
13:46
role. So, it's never that. But I you
13:48
know recently it was pretty large
13:50
organization adjusting their approach to
13:53
sales and marketing and the marketing
13:55
flow like we mapped it out touch point
13:57
by touch point. The marketing flow had
14:00
automation. It was pretty well
14:01
structured. They get back into an engine
14:04
to get newsletters and other things like
14:06
it was pretty kind of linear and thought
14:08
out from those different time markers.
14:11
And then you translate that to, for
14:13
example, like in this case, like a
14:15
third-party recruiter who's doing
14:17
something different from marketing, but
14:18
you kind of want that to feel similar as
14:20
you're talking to potential customers,
14:22
clients, whoever you're bringing on. Uh,
14:25
and the the amount of differences were
14:28
remarkable. So, it's kind of like who
14:30
else is talking to the customer and what
14:32
else might they be doing, saying,
14:34
promising, trying to deliver on. And so
14:37
I feel like it's a little it's a little
14:38
bit of, you know, both things, right?
14:41
We're gonna keep setting something up to
14:42
try to get organization and structure.
14:44
Um, anyhow, yes, definitely what you
14:47
said. I agree with I see it.
14:49
Right.
14:51
Well, so I guess if a leader wants to
14:55
stop guessing and they really want to
14:57
implement this listening architecture,
15:00
um, obviously working with you, but what
15:03
does that look like?
15:04
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yes, it's
15:07
great to bring in somebody who's
15:09
affiliated with or certified with a
15:12
customer experience professional
15:14
association, the CXPA. Yes. But that's
15:17
where I say like I believe that this
15:18
work, it's it's approachable to say,
15:21
let's just pressure test again, what
15:23
what are we saying that we're going to
15:26
deliver to our customers? What is that?
15:27
You don't even have to call it a brand
15:29
promise, but what is that? What's our
15:31
north star? what's the thing that we're
15:32
all supposed to be, you know, marching
15:35
towards is that in our strategic plan?
15:37
So even just that pressure test and then
15:40
similarly let me just sit in my
15:42
customer's shoes for a minute and say
15:43
what might they be experiencing when
15:46
they learn about us, decide to join,
15:48
stick around and hopefully refer us.
15:49
like even starting there is something
15:52
but if you go a step you know further
15:54
and you start to think you know how can
15:56
I make a change or boost my maturity in
15:59
this space and make sure employees know
16:00
what to do that's when the kinds of
16:03
facilitated exercises like journey
16:05
mapping you know become really important
16:07
and I think that has some like misnomers
16:10
about what it is right it's not only for
16:13
product although that's useful it's not
16:15
meant to be a thing that we stick up on
16:16
a wall after a day together it's meant
16:19
to be iter erative. It's meant to help
16:21
people get along
16:22
and it's meant to highlight how we
16:24
measure both the you know that customer
16:27
experience, employee experience and how
16:29
just how we're doing through each of
16:31
them. So that facilitate facilitated
16:34
exercise it surfaces so many points of
16:37
friction, so many ideas and then that
16:40
turns into oh right we knew that these
16:43
were pain points but now we know where
16:44
they live in the journey and we know who
16:46
owns this. So then we can work on it
16:48
hopefully together, but we can work on
16:50
it, whatever that is. Um, it could be
16:53
like this form is really clunky and it
16:54
takes so long to fill out, right? Things
16:57
like that. It could be we're not
16:59
reporting enough together in within our
17:01
teams. We need to change that. It could
17:03
be we don't have good communication to
17:05
our customer. I mean, there's so many
17:06
things like on average I see about 80
17:09
opportunities that come out during
17:10
journey mapping. And then from there,
17:12
well, yeah, it's it's a lot. I think the
17:15
minimum I saw was 47 and that was
17:17
through like a pretty mature
17:19
organization who was like revisiting and
17:21
refining and refining um as they put
17:24
some things in place. But once you have
17:26
that list, that opportunity list, I have
17:28
um a client of mine who believes very
17:31
much in this work says like that's what
17:32
I need. That's the goal. Now we know
17:34
what to go do because they're p like
17:36
they're categorized by that journey
17:38
stage. They have an owner and they've
17:40
been prioritized. So it's like you're if
17:42
you've seen you know like emp uh effort
17:45
and impact kind of quadrant you can be
17:47
like great now I know what to do first
17:49
and I can revisit these things later.
17:51
It's sort of quick to action when you
17:53
have somebody coming in and facilitating
17:54
and getting you to that place so you'll
17:56
know what to go do.
17:58
Yeah. I love it. [laughter]
18:01
[gasps]
18:03
Well now this has been fun. I I've
18:06
really enjoyed getting to know you. I
18:08
think that you are in a unique niche and
18:10
I love the listening architecture and
18:12
and trying to fill that gap because it
18:14
is probably to if you really think about
18:17
it one of the number one reasons teams
18:21
struggle and department struggle or even
18:24
a small team of two struggle it's
18:26
communication. It's always about
18:28
communication. Yeah,
18:30
it absolutely is. And then the more you
18:33
can kind of get kind of get off of our
18:36
plates so that we can focus and do more
18:38
communicating given the work that you
18:39
do, right? That's a lot of what comes
18:41
out of it, I think is it helps us all
18:44
start to be a little bit more deliberate
18:45
about what we're trying to do together,
18:47
right?
18:47
Yeah, 100%. Well, thank you so much,
18:51
Natalie. If somebody did want to get a
18:53
hold of you, learn more about how they
18:55
could work with you, what's the best way
18:56
for them to do that?
18:57
Of course. Yeah, the website is the
18:59
19:02
My email's on there. They can schedule
19:04
on there. You know, I'm completely
19:06
available there and on LinkedIn.
19:08
Okay, awesome. Well, we'll find you
19:10
there. Yeah.
19:11
Thanks, Natalie, for your time. Thanks
19:12
so much for having