The Invisible Friction Points Weakening Manufacturer Customer Experience

For years, manufacturers have competed on product quality, operational efficiency, and price. Our current environment of supply chain volatility, talent shortages, and the elevated customer expectations in the “experience economy” means CX is, in many ways, the new QC. Why is customer experience the new quality control? Because customer experience, even (in many ways especially) in sectors like manufacturing that have historically thought more about product than experience, yields customer retention and profit. Customers are more loyal to people than to products. To relationships over transactions.

Statistics bear this out. In 2024, organizations identified as “customer-obsessed,” reported “41% faster revenue growth, 49% faster profit growth, and 51% better customer retention” over “non-customer-obsessed organizations.” Manufacturers who are retaining key accounts and winning new business understand customer experience (CX) is a core success strategy.

You Can’t Fix What You Don’t Know

If this is true, then, you would assume customer experience earns executive priority and that, across departments, there is both a unified understanding that “everyone holds a CX job” and experiences are universally seamless. At the very least, you would assume, if there are breaks in customer experience, leaders know where they are, how they happened, and how to resolve them. But, you know what people say about assumptions…

The fact that we have seen in our work with manufacturers is they do not know where their customer experience is breaking down. But they feel the results of the breakdown, nonetheless. That comes in the form of churn, escalations, inconsistent communication, and frustrated teams. All real problems. All symptoms of a more fundamental problem: lack of knowledge of, fundamentally, lack of visibility to the root causes of the customer experience fractures.

That’s why the most important first step – the surest route the quick wins competitive manufacturing businesses need – is not the full CX strategy. The first, the most essential, step, is the Experience Review. For manufacturing executives, the Experience Review provides a clear, objective assessment of your actual digital and physical customer experience. It identifies your highest‑impact problems. And it offers a prioritized roadmap to help you fix those specific problems that harm customer experience. The work of reviewing experience, when led by an unbiased third party, using an expert lens and evidence-backed CX best practices, is the fastest, lowest‑risk way to understand what actually drives your customer dissatisfaction (not what you assume), and to identify where your business is losing revenue.

Painpoints Manufacturers Can No Longer Ignore

Here is what we have to report. Across B2B industrial firms, contract manufacturers, OEMs, and aftermarket service providers, we uncover the same issues over and over again. How many sound familiar?

“We find out about problems too late.”

Most manufacturers lack structured Voice of Customer systems. As a result, issues surface only when a contract is at risk, or a customer has already decided to leave.

This is an important painpoint to address because it is a leading cause of attrition and reputational risk. In our reviews for manufacturers who come to us with this problem, either when they are at risk of losing a major customer, or suffering that loss, we find that, in the absence of feedback, the company misses where an issue originated. Once we are able to find that out, it is time to focus on building customer listening systems that will surface problems early.

“Sales overpromises. Ops underdelivers. Everyone is pulling in different directions.”

Siloed teams create inconsistent experiences that customers feel immediately.

This is another common reveal from our experience reviews. We have found that fragments in the customer journey, misaligned handoffs, and operational friction destroy trust and deplete revenue. We solve for siloes in a variety of ways, many of which we have discussed in previous articles. What’s important at this early stage of customer experience improvement and quick wins, is to articulate what the problem is, and where it lies. Batching solutions before a deep dive like an overall experience review can result in further fragmentation and, again, reputational risk.

“We can’t give customers accurate delivery updates.”

Over the past few years, supply chain strain has exposed communication gaps. Customers don’t expect perfection. But they do expect transparency.

A comprehensive review of experience will reveal to you where communication breaks down and how to redesign workflows so customers receive timely, proactive updates. It will reveal whether you are inundating your customers with information they don’t need while withholding information they do need. Or whether they understand and can reasonably act upon what you are telling them.

“The wrong people are leaving.”

Employees don’t adopt new tools or processes when they don’t understand the “why.” Morale drops, turnover spikes, and customer experience suffers.

A good experience review can reveal the internal culture and training gaps that prevent your teams form delivering a consistent, repeatable, recognizable customer-centric experience.

“A new competitor is taking our business.”

Manufacturers are losing deals not necessarily because your product quality is low, but because your competitors are easier to work with.

This is where the impartiality of a third party experience review offers some of the highest value. For executives, you are often too close to your own products, processes, and people. Something I certainly understand as a CEO. The benefit of inviting someone who has not built the experience to evaluate the experience can open your eyes to opportunity and value that you were not able to see from your view in the trenches. Our clients are often most excited when we show them where their experience lags behind competitors, and what improvements create immediate differentiation.

Why Reviewing Your Experience is the Most Important First Step

Manufacturers often jump straight into CX strategy, training, or technology investments. This is why many companies sour on consultants. They go too big, too soon. Without understanding the root causes of their customer frustration, specific to their environment, needs, limitations, budgets and other concerns, those investments fail.

So, this year, start small. Before launching large-scale customer experience strategy projects, and before investing in new technology designed to solve problems you assume you have, rather than those you know you have, take a real pulse on what is really happening on your watch. Seek a clear diagnosis to identify experience breaks along your customer journey, then prioritize what to fix first. Get visibility to revenue leakage and churn risks. Align across sales, operations and service. And develop a solid business case for your customer experience investment, grounded in data and aimed toward an achievable goal.

But, don’t forget to set yourself up for quick wins. These build momentum, facilitate internal buy-in, and help to shore you and your teams up as you continue on the journey of continuous customer experience improvement.

Having worked with manufacturers for over half our time in business, we understand that the complexities you encounter require a strong foundation. Transformation improves experience and yields your return on investment, but before you dive into that transformational work, you deserve to know what you are paying for. You deserve to see, through the lens of your customers, and through the lens of those of us who safeguard experience for the benefit  of your customers and your business, exactly what you are giving your customers now, and how you can generate improvements for them, and for you.

What Do Experience Improvements Look Like, in the Short-Term?

What we are seeing in the field is measurable impact that extends beyond issues resolution. In the context of an experience review, and the quick wins it brings about, we have noted fewer escalations and “surprise” customer issues. We see more accurate forecasting and communication and higher retention of high-value accounts.

Internally, reviewing the existing experience and recommending next steps for CX improvement results in stronger cross‑functional alignment and more clear expectations for frontline teams (a driver of employee satisfaction). Ultimately, road mapping next steps for CX, when recommendations are driven by real information about your actual current-state experience, accelerates the ROI of customer experience.

The Bottom Line for Manufacturing Executives

Before you invest in customer experience strategy, training, or technology, learn where your real problems are. Consider starting with an Experience Review with a goal to reduce churn, improve customer trust, and build a more resilient business.

These reviews can result in hard conversations. Clarity often does that. If you are  ready to pull back the curtain on your assumptions about the health of your business, learn what is actually driving customer dissatisfaction, and where your biggest improvement opportunities live, we are ready to help you take your first, most powerful step. Schedule a time to talk directly with us.