Christina Garnett

I define customer–brand relationships as systems of trust—helping executive leaders scale growth without creating trust gaps by building durable customer moats through trust-centered CX. I’ve worked across social, customer advocacy, community, and marketing, which means I’ve seen the same customers from every angle. I’ve also seen a consistent pattern: teams doing their jobs well, but in isolation. When customer efforts aren’t designed to work together, customers don’t experience care—they experience fragmentation. Customer–brand relationships don’t fail because teams aren’t trying hard enough. They fail because relationships are managed in pieces instead of designed as a whole. Today, I help organizations transform customer–brand relationships by treating trust as a system, not a sentiment. My work focuses on rebuilding trust, emotional connection, and humanity through intentional CX systems that cut across silos rather than reinforce them. My approach is grounded in two core frameworks: The Customer Hierarchy of Needs Inspired by Maslow but designed for modern customers, this framework explains why most companies stop at functionality and efficiency—and why customers disengage long before churn appears in the data. Trust, emotional safety, and advocacy live higher in the hierarchy, and few organizations design for them. Relational Trust Infrastructure This framework helps teams sense trust erosion early by operationalizing relational signals like customer silence, disengagement, and emotional distance across social, community, marketing, and support—so CX becomes a shared responsibility. I’m a Fractional Chief Customer Officer, CX strategist, and the author of Transforming Customer–Brand Relationships (Kogan Page, 2025). I’ve worked with startups, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies through neuemotion, HubSpot, the Small Business Development Center (SBDC), and ICUC, and my work has been featured in Adweek, Campaign US, Forbes, CMSWire, and HubSpot Academy. If you’re working to repair or strengthen customer–brand relationships, you can reach out here or explore my book below. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1398621323