Leading Customer Centric Change: Lessons from National Express and Beyond

In many organisations, customer teams are asked to drive change while working inside systems that were never really designed around the customer in the first place.

In this session, Vinay Parmar shares practical leadership lessons from his experience at National Express, along with insights drawn from other sectors, to explore what it really takes to build a more customer centric organisation.

Rather than focusing only on service delivery or monthly reporting, this talk looks at how customer insight can be used to shape better decisions across the organisation, from operations and digital, to communications, policy, and leadership.

Through real examples, Vinay will share why metrics such as satisfaction, trust, and retention can highlight that something is happening, but rarely explain why. He will explore the importance of looking beneath the numbers, understanding the emotional drivers of behaviour, and helping organisations ask better questions.

This session is designed for leaders and practitioners who want to move beyond dashboards and become stronger internal influencers, enabling colleagues across the organisation to make decisions that improve experiences, strengthen trust, and build longer term loyalty.

Key Learnings:

• Why customer centricity is about shaping better decisions across the organisation, not just improving service
• How to look beneath metrics such as satisfaction, trust, and retention to understand what is really driving behaviour
• What customer leaders can do to become enablers of change, helping colleagues act on insight rather than simply report it