18 Things You Should Do If You Want to Retire Early

Written by: Matthew Phillips | The last words of the email stood out the most. “… the thing is … we are deaf.” This is how the prospective client closed her message to me in 2017.

When I agreed to meet with the woman and her husband, I was feeling uncertain about how to best communicate with them. To prepare, I added captions to my usual video presentation. But halfway through, I realized the couple was completely overwhelmed with the financial vocabulary I was using, which was entirely new to them. Improvising, I pulled up a blank Word document and started typing which allowed us to converse back and forth. I felt completely inadequate and regretted not preparing more, but did my best to connect with the couple.

To my surprise, the meeting concluded with the wife rejecting my handshake and instead grabbing onto me tightly as she began to cry. “Matthew, thank you for what you have done,” she said. “We have sat with five advisors, and none have come close to helping us like you have. I know we have missed out on financial opportunities because we are deaf.”

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When Jeff Bezos started Amazon — originally called Cadabra — he announced, “Our goal is to be earth’s most customer-centric company.” Today Jeff Bezos calls it “customer obsession.”

As I explored why customer focus is the primary driver of many of the world’s most successful companies, I was thinking about conversations I had over the past year with CEOs who through customer-centric models are leading their industries. What I found is the key to a world-class customer experience really starts with your own culture. Below are direct quotes from 10 CEOs whose companies are leaders of service in their industry.

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