‘The Second Customer Nobody is Measuring’, by Lindsey Watson
Most CX leaders have one customer. Lindsey Watson has two.
In this thought-provoking piece, Women in CX Inner Circle member and CX Director at Host & Stay, Lindsey shares what it’s like to lead Customer Experience in holiday lets, where she works for both property owners and guests, and they don’t always want the same thing.
Drawing on her experience of building the CX function while the business grew from a few hundred properties to over a thousand, Lindsey explains why this tension is the structure of the business, not a series of judgement calls. Businesses that get it right design for it on purpose by mapping both journeys, deciding the crossing points in advance, and measuring both customers.
She also shares how one simple question, asked out loud whenever a change is planned for one customer, has already changed the conversations she's been having for years.
This article is a timely reminder that the work often starts with naming what everyone can feel but nobody has said out loud. If you’re the person who can see both sides, it’s also a call to back yourself and say it out loud.
The Second Customer Nobody is Measuring
Most CX leaders have one customer. I have two.
And honestly? Once I properly accepted that their needs compete, it changed how I think about everything.
I lead Customer Experience in holiday lets. On one side are our property owners, people who've trusted us with something that's often their home, their business or their retirement plan. On the other side are our guests, people who've saved up for a week away, packed the car, driven for hours and arrived with a picture in their head of exactly how it's going to feel.
I work for both of them. And they do not always want the same thing.
The Tension Nobody Puts On The Org Chart
Here's what it looks like day to day.
An owner wants the best possible nightly rate. A guest wants value.
An owner wants their property treated like a home. A guest wants it to feel like a hotel.
An owner wants firm terms. A guest wants flexibility when life gets in the way.
Nobody in that list is wrong, and that's exactly what makes it hard!
In a one-customer business, when something goes wrong you know whose side you're on. In a two-customer business, you're holding two promises at once and every decision you make for one of them lands on the other in one way or another.
For a while I treated that as a series of judgement calls. Handle this one well, then the next, then the next.
What I've come to understand is that it isn't a series of situations at all. It's the structure of the business.
We sit between two groups of people who need each other but never actually meet, and our whole job is to make that relationship work for both of them.
Once you see it that way, you can't unsee it.
Why I Love This Problem
I'll be honest, when I first put a name to this, it felt like a weight, and in fact it somehow felt like a bigger responsibility. Then it started to feel like the most interesting problem to solve.
Because I don't think the businesses that get this right are the ones that pick a side. I think they're the ones that design for the tension on purpose.
That means mapping both journeys separately, then looking for the crossing points, the exact moments where a decision for one customer lands on the other. If I take cancellations as an example, an owner wants certainty whereas a guest wants a way out when something hasn't quite gone to plan. Leave that to the front-line teams, and you'll get a different answer every time. Decide it in advance, and both customers get a consistent experience, even when it isn't the answer they hoped for.
It means deciding those crossing points before they happen, so nobody is improvising at nine o'clock on a Friday night in peak season!
And it means measuring both. That might sound obvious. But I'd bet most two-sided businesses measure the customer who pays and hope the other one is fine. I can think back to plenty of times when the focus has landed on whoever generates the most revenue.
I'm not writing this as someone who has finished. I'm writing it as someone in the middle of it. Someone who has always known we have two customers but never called it out as clearly as I have writing this down.
I'm working towards owners having their own journey, their own moments of truth and their own voice in the room and the same for the guest side of things. Some of that is in place. Some of it isn't perfected yet.
What has already changed is the question. Whenever we look at changing something for one customer, we now ask out loud what it means for the other. That single question costs nothing, and it has changed conversations I've been having for years.
Not one customer and a stakeholder. Two customers. Full stop.
“I'm working towards owners having their own journey, their own moments of truth and their own voice in the room and the same for the guest side of things. Some of that is in place. Some of it isn't perfected yet.”
You Probably Have Two Customers Too
This isn't a holiday-let story.
Recruitment has candidates and clients.
Marketplaces have buyers and sellers.
Franchisors have franchisees and end customers.
Anyone in B2B2C has a partner and the partner's customer, and the partner's customer is the one who never signed your contract but decides whether it renews.
So, ask yourself three things.
Who are my two customers?
Where do their needs cross?
When I look at my dashboard, whose experience am I actually measuring and whose am I just assuming?
If you can answer all three, you're ahead of most people in the industry. If you can't - you might have just found the most valuable piece of work on your desk!
Why This Matters for Women In CX
I started out 15 years ago answering phones in an insurance call centre. No obvious career path - wedding and events manager, sales manager and various other roles along the way.
Four years ago, I stepped into a brand-new Head of Customer Experience role and built the function while the business scaled from a few hundred properties to over a thousand. The biggest thing I've learned in that time? The most powerful move you can make is to name the thing everyone can feel, but nobody has said out loud.
The two-customer tension is one of those things. Everyone in a business like mine feels it every day. Naming it as a design problem rather than a daily challenge is already changing how I lead, how my team prioritises and how we talk to the rest of the business.
And I don't think you have to have it solved before you're allowed to talk about it. I think naming it is where the work starts!
So, if you're the person in your organisation who can see both sides, the one who's spent years translating between people who never quite meet, don't treat that as quiet background work. Shout it out for what it is.
It's the job. It's the whole job. Back yourself and say it out loud – everyone else is likely already thinking about it (or at least aware of it) and just hasn’t said it in a direct way before.
That's what I'm doing here. And if you're serving two customers too, I'd really like to know how you're handling it - because I'm still figuring out my full version.
Keep the Conversation Going
Lindsey's article shows that you don't need to have it all solved before you start talking about it; naming the tension is where the work begins.
When CX leaders ask who their two customers are, where their needs cross and whose experience they're actually measuring, the conversations inside a business start to change.
These are the conversations we're passionate about inside the WiCX Inner Circle.
Through expert-led webinars, member discussions, live podcasts, and collaborative learning, we bring together women who are exploring how AI, technology, and design are reshaping the future of customer experience.
If you'd like to continue the conversation around serving two customers and designing CX for two-sided businesses, you can join the WiCX Inner Circle waitlist today.