These companies excel because they don't spend time and energy building formal business cases in order to justify every dollar spent on customer-centric initiatives

American Express overhauled its customer care employee training program and now spends 70% of the time focused on skills such as actively listening, assessing customers' moods, and helping customers understand the value of their relationship with the company. All that time and effort has paid off as customer spending increased, attrition decreased, and customers who learn about their card benefits and features from customer care employees show an average increase of more than 10% in advocacy.