While you no doubt answered wellness, the reality is that when you look at the typical change programs in a major corporation today, Band-Aids are far more common. But that's hardly surprising given the short-term pressures facing organizations today. Let's reflect on a few examples:

• Those in the financial services industry are still struggling to deal with the rash of new regulation post meltdown. Following a spate of high-profile failures, risk management has taken center stage, while in others there is a hurried review of operating procedures in far-flung corners of the corporation. 
• In virtually all industries, others are trying to respond to hemorrhaging sales statistics. Customers are no longer happy to keep quiet when they get a bad service experience - they tell their friends and followers via Facebook and Twitter. Customer churn is rampant.
• Or is it increased competitive pressures? More and more new entrants are turning up to challenge and disrupt the incumbent business models of many established firms. They don't have the baggage of high-cost business models and 12 layers of management.

The only way your company will differentiate based on customer experience is if the culture of your organization aligns closely with the brand promise to customers. Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh puts it in his blog post entitled “Your Culture Is Your Brand”: “Advertising can only get your brand so far . . . So what’s a company to do if you can’t just buy your way into building the brand you want? In a word: culture. At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff — like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers — will happen naturally on its own.”

When Forrester looks at building a customer-focused culture, we believe firms need some precursors in place, such as a clear strategy and vision, metrics that reflect customer perceptions, and governance mechanisms that set standards and hold people accountable for changes.

Once those are in place, rewards systems are one powerful lever to keep employees focused on what’s important. My colleague Belle Bocal and I identified nine ways that companies use reward systems to build a customer-centric culture.

Celebrate Target Behavior

Many companies make the mistake of trying to tie variable compensation (e.g., bonuses) to customer experience metrics too early. What many firms have learned is that the more informal recognition programs can be even more powerful at moving culture than the compensation metrics.