[CX Industry Voices] Interview with Banu Cinar

What if the best digital experience didn’t start with digital at all? Start with the pain point. Then let technology follow.

Putting customers first sounds simple. Making it happen inside a large, complex organization is another story. Our Top 150 CX Influencers in Europe brings together leaders who know how to do it, and CX Industry Voices gives them the floor to share their journey, their approach and what they see coming next.

For this interview, we talked with Banu Cinar, Head of CX Design at Jaguar Land Rover. Her CX journey began ten years ago at Allianz Insurance, helping shift a process-centric culture toward a customer-centric mindset. Today, she’s embedding human-centered design into how JLR shapes experiences for its luxury brands.

We explored Banu’s path into CX Design, why digital doesn’t automatically mean great experience, and how organizations can turn customer insight into change, faster.

Here’s what she shared.

My CX journey began at Allianz Insurance around 10 years ago, where I helped shift a process-centric culture towards a more customer-centric mindset. I mapped my first customer journey around renewal, exploring where we could fix pain points, improve experiences or innovate. 

I remember speaking with over 100 colleagues, bringing together their expertise, perspectives and feedback to truly understand the end-to-end experience. That was where I first learned and practised CX Design, and I was hooked. Since then, I’ve become a passionate advocate for the discipline, continually developing my craft as a designer and CX leader. 

Working across large, complex organisations and different industries has given me the opportunity to apply human-centred design to diverse challenges, always connecting customer needs, colleague insight and business outcomes.

For me, humanising customer experience in an increasingly digital world starts with recognising that digital is an incredibly important channel, but it is not the only channel through which our clients experience a brand.

I often say, just because something is digital doesn’t automatically make it a great experience. Client expectations and behaviours are evolving incredibly quickly, accelerated by new technology and the experiences clients encounter outside our own industry. For large, complex organisations, keeping pace can be challenging. Change can be delayed by internal complexity, solutions may not fully meet evolving client expectations, and what we deliver may no longer represent a truly best-in-class experience.

This is where CX Design and human-centred design become critical. To keep digital relevant, intuitive and human, we need to continuously challenge ourselves and ensure the client remains at the centre of every decision, whether we are fixing an existing problem, improving an experience or creating something entirely new.

For me, that starts with one simple but powerful question: “What is the CX pain point we are trying to solve?”

When we begin there, rather than with the technology or solution, we have a much better chance of designing experiences around real human needs, while ensuring digital works seamlessly alongside physical and human interactions.

I believe the biggest CX trend shaping the future of our industry is that our clients’ expectations are increasingly being defined outside the automotive sector. Brands such as Amazon and Apple continue to set benchmarks through simplicity, connected experiences, personalisation and the evolving use of AI and automation.

As clients adopt AI more meaningfully in their everyday lives, I believe their expectations of brands will accelerate. They will expect faster responses, greater personalisation, less effort and experiences that understand their context across channels. For luxury automotive, this means we are no longer simply benchmarked against other car manufacturers. Clients compare their experience with us against the best experiences they receive anywhere.

Another significant shift is the growing focus on value. Technology makes it easier than ever for clients to research, compare and question what they are receiving before committing to a product or service. In luxury, value is not simply about price. It is about whether the overall experience, product quality, service, convenience and emotional connection justify that investment.

The opportunity for CX Design is therefore significant. AI and automation can create speed and simplicity, but we must ensure they solve genuine client needs rather than introduce technology for technology’s sake.

The organisations that lead will be those that continuously listen, anticipate changing behaviours and seamlessly connect digital, physical and human channels. Ultimately, best-in-class CX will be defined by how intelligently technology enhances the human experience, not by the technology itself.

In my humble opinion, many organisations already have significant amounts of customer insight. The challenge is often turning that insight into meaningful change quickly enough. Customer expectations are moving fast, so organisations need to develop more agile change management alongside strong customer-centric and human-centred design capabilities.

For me, this means bringing the customer into decision-making from the very beginning, not asking for the customer perspective once the direction or solution has already been decided. Start with the pain point, understand the human need behind it, and use that understanding to determine where to fix, improve or innovate.

It is equally important to be value-driven. Organisations can easily become absorbed by internal complexity, technology, processes and competing priorities. CX Design can help simplify that complexity by continually asking: What value will this create for the customer, and will they recognise that value?

The experience itself should also feel simple, relevant and increasingly personalised. Customers should not have to understand how complicated an organisation is behind the scenes.

Ultimately, improving CX is not about creating more processes around the customer. It is about creating the organisational capability to listen, decide and act faster, while keeping human needs at the centre. When agile change and customer-centric design work together, organisations can respond to evolving expectations with greater clarity, relevance and purpose.