6 August 2025
October 20, 2025
Business Pulse: October 2025
What does it take to be customer obsessed?
By Julie Rynski
Being customer obsessed doesn’t mean giving your customers everything they ask for.
As Nick Palumbo, founder of Gelato Messina noted at the inaugural NAB Business Summit, his business listens to its customers – but judiciously.
“You can’t pivot to every whim, because customers only see the surface. They don’t see the complexity behind the product and the business," Nick told his audience.
This isn’t to suggest that customer complaints aren’t taken seriously at Messina. If one person complains, the assumption is there are 30 to 40 other people who felt the same way but didn’t bother speaking up.
“We make sure every complaint is met with a real human response – someone on the other end who listens and nurtures the customer through it," Nick says.
It's this thoughtful approach that guides the business’s customer experience.
As Nick explains, it’s the sum of the parts – not just the gelato, or the music, or the service, or the ambience, but how everything works together.
“A customer shouldn’t walk out thinking, ‘I loved the gelato’ or ‘I loved the shop design’. They should leave thinking, ‘I don’t know why – I just love the place’. That’s what matters,”
Customer obsession at Messina also shows up in a willingness to build a distinctive online profile.
There have been times polarising posts have created an issue but the team accepts this as the price of authenticity.
“Many businesses are very fearful of taking risks, but we’ve embraced having a distinct voice,” Nick says.
He sites a quote by Jane Wurwand, founder of Dermalogica. “You’ve got to be prepared to annoy 80% of people if it means 20% are obsessed. If 100% feel indifferent that’s a problem because they won’t really care at all. Ultimately you’ll end up mediocre.”
“That really resonates with us,” Nick says. “What’s beautiful is when someone does get offended, often our loyal customers step in to defend us. That loyalty reinforces that we’re getting it right more often than we’re getting it wrong.”
Behind the numbers
What does it take to be customer obsessed? For Gelato Messina it's about exceeding customer expectations – while not saying yes to everything. Its results speak for themselves. The highly successful gelateria churned out 1.7 million kg of gelato in a year, with a whopping 400,000 kg of pureed fruit and nuts and other treats mixed in. That’s a win-win for Gelato Messina, and its customers.
Finding strength in service
Research from NAB shows cash flow and profitability are front of mind for Australian businesses right now due to economic uncertainty. While one in two are cutting costs and negotiating better supplier terms to free up cash, many are investing in customer service to assist future profitability. 29% of businesses plan to invest in new training and people, while 27% intend to enhance customer communications and management.
Sometimes businesses go to extraordinary lengths. Like the time fine dining restaurant Eleven Madison Park turned itself into a beach – sand and all – for a couple whose honeymoon to Hawaii had been cancelled. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to take your own customer experience to the next level, here are my three picks for this month.
📖 Read Destination Moon by Kate Reid and find out how the engineer-turned-baker came to open Lune – the croissanterie that makes some of the best croissants in the world, according to The New York Times.
🎧 Listen to Radical Customer Obsession with consumer futurist Amanda Stevens and learn more about the link between the employee experience and customer experience.
🎧 Listen to NAB Morning Call's Podcast with Andrew Irvine, NAB Group CEO, on customer trust and the year ahead.
