Can you be customer centric without being employee friendly?

In his book Customer Mania, Ken Blanchard emphasizes that a customer strategy needs to be about "customer AND employees". So do most other thought leaders on this topic.

I do believe that an organization incapable of taking care of its employee's satisfaction is equally lost in addressing its customer's satisfaction. This is especially true of services organizations where a multitude of interactions between employees & customers constitute the customer engagement. In such firms, being employee focused is a great way of setting an example about how customers need to be taken care of.

The question is - is the above thesis inapplicable for product companies? Can an organization with a fantabulous product afford to depend on its products & compromise on the product's creators? And still expect long term success?