Stop Trying To Fix CSAT. Build A Frontline That Drives It.

What The Home Depot CX Strategy Gets Right

Customer experience (CX) leaders continue to chase higher satisfaction scores. Tools are updated, dashboards refined, and quality protocols expanded. Yet CSAT remains stubborn.

The issue? Most solutions focus on measurement rather than on what truly shapes customer experience: the behavior and capability of frontline employees.

A recent signal of what actually improves customer experience came from the Home Depot Q1 earnings call. Senior EVP Ann-Marie Campbell didn’t talk about new tech or process tweaks. She focused on people:

“It is clear that as we invest more broadly in our associates, including through tools and education, we continue to see record retention rates, better engagement, and improved customer service.”

This is how you move CSAT. Develop the people who shape the customer experience every day.

The Real CX Engine Is Hiding In Plain Sight

CX performance is shaped in real-time interactions, like when a frontline employee calms a frustrated customer, solves a complex issue, or brings clarity in a moment of confusion.

Yet the teams responsible for these outcomes often receive the least development. They’re expected to deliver consistent, high-quality service without sustained support in the skills that actually drive it, including emotional intelligence, communication, and judgment.

When CSAT dips, it is natural to look for process or tech enhancements. But more often, the gap lies in the human system behind it.

What Top Brands Are Doing Differently To Boost CSAT

Companies that lead in customer experience are improving satisfaction by investing directly in the people who deliver it. Let’s take a look:

Home Depot

On its latest earnings call, Home Depot credited customer service and retention improvements to broader investments in associate development. “Our amazing associates continue to go above and beyond to serve our customers regardless of the external environment,” said Campbell.

Costco

Costco’s customer experience is rooted in team stability and internal growth. In 2024, 85% of warehouse manager promotions went to employees who started in hourly roles. That kind of mobility – and the trust it builds – helps Costco retain talent and deliver consistent service across locations.

Apple

Apple retail teams are trained to deliver highly personalized service, especially during major product launches. Associates are expected to guide conversations, surface customer needs, and create a consistent in-store experience. That approach supports Apple’s 93% customer retention rate and signals that trust is being built where it matters most: at the front line.

Delta Air Lines

Delta's customer experience strategy also shows its commitment to frontline development. The airline invested significantly in training programs emphasizing interpersonal skills to ensure employees can deliver personalized and responsive service. This focus on human interaction contributed to Delta ranking among the top performers in customer satisfaction in the 2025 J.D. Power Airline Satisfaction Study.

Disney

Disney’s guest experience is anchored in a simple but powerful idea: every employee, at every level, is responsible for how customers feel. That clarity shows up in how “cast members” are trained. Rather than following rigid scripts, they learn consistent expectations around service, tone, and ownership. Disney’s frontline teams are developed to act purposefully in every interaction, making the experience seamless across roles, departments, and locations.

As former CEO Michael Eisner wrote in Work in Progress, “A brand is a living entity — and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.”

Why Most CSAT Fixes Don’t Work

Companies like Home Depot, Costco, Delta, and Disney are winning customer loyalty by investing in the people who shape the experience. Instead of chasing the latest CX tool, they’re building the capabilities that move the needle on trust, loyalty, and satisfaction.

So why do so many organizations still struggle to improve CX? Because when customer experience scores dip, the instinct is to optimize the process, not the people. The response often sounds like this:

• Let’s add a new CSAT question.
• We need to tighten our QA criteria.
• Maybe a new script will help.

These reactions are understandable, but the corresponding solutions rarely change what matters most: what your frontline does in moments that shape the customer’s perception.

CSAT doesn’t improve because of better measurement. It improves because your frontline gets better at meeting customer needs in real time. And that won’t happen through checklists and compliance alone.

Why The Typical CSAT Playbook Falls Short

1. Over-indexing on tools instead of talent: Dashboards and data are only valuable if your people know how to turn insight into action. Without capability-building frontline development, more tools just add noise.

2. Chasing consistency through control: Scripts and workflows can only take you so far. True consistency comes from frontline teams delivering with judgment and not just adherence.

3. Treating CX like a monitoring challenge instead of a development opportunity: More auditing isn’t the answer. What’s needed is better empowerment of frontline team members and leaders, so they can assess the situation and act appropriately.

Fixing CSAT Starts With The Right Question

Too many CX initiatives start with the wrong question: How do we raise the score?

Focusing on the quantitative target is a natural impulse, but this approach keeps teams focused on outputs rather than inputs. On optics, rather than operational readiness.

The better question is: What capabilities do our frontline teams need to earn trust at scale?

When you reframe CSAT as an outcome of systems and skills instead of a standalone initiative, you spotlight what matters: the human factors that shape customer experience in real time. This shift opens the door to a more durable, scalable solution that centers on equipping people instead of just auditing performance.

When frontline teams get the development they need, they will:

• Handle ambiguity confidently: Navigating unexpected questions, process gaps, and customer emotions without freezing or deflecting.
• Communicate clearly under pressure: Delivering clarity and compliance, even when the environment is fast-paced or challenging.
• Respond with emotional intelligence: Sensing customer needs, adjusting tone, and de-escalating effectively.
• Take action without needing escalation: Exercising judgment and ownership in the moment, reducing friction for both the customer and the team.

Skills like communication, emotional intelligence, and confident decision-making are strategic capabilities built through consistent development, peer modeling, and frontline leadership focused on coaching. Organizations delivering strong CX invest in growing these capabilities across their frontline teams.

What Building A CSAT-Driving Frontline Means For Ops Leaders

CSAT and NPS are signals. They reflect how well your teams perform and whether your systems set them up to succeed. However, when scores drop, the real question is not what changed or needs to change in the process. Customer-focused ops leaders focus their CSAT improvements on developing their frontline team members to respond with clarity, empathy, and confidence in the moments that matter.

Strong tools can support your frontline. But only strong frontline capabilities create consistent, high-quality service across shifts, teams, and geographies.

Ready To Strengthen The People Behind Your CX Scores?

Pathstream helps operations leaders build frontline capability where it matters most — in the real-time interactions that shape customer satisfaction. Develop the communication, judgment, and emotional intelligence skills that drive loyalty, not just metrics.

We offer the only off-the-clock solution that supports your business priorities and KPIs. Plus, it’s fully covered by your existing tuition assistance benefit. Backed by top-tier universities, our programs are tailored to customer contact roles and proven to improve retention. Schedule a demo to learn more.