By Tycho Ferrigni · July 16, 2025 · 2 min read
About a month ago, we shared a quick review of the article “Why is Customer Service So Bad? Because It’s Profitable” (link). In short, it highlighted how some companies seem to get away with ignoring poor customer experiences— largely because the short-term economics sometimes reward it.
At the opposite end of the spectrum lies a far more sustainable and customer-centric strategy: experience-led growth.
In a compelling paper from McKinsey, “Experience-led Growth: A New Way to Create Value” (link), they break down how companies that prioritize the customer journey — and actively work to reduce friction — drive significantly higher revenue growth.
The article provides several excellent case studies, including examples from a mobile telecom operator and a global logistics company. The strategies they used to elevate customer experience include:
- Capturing real-time Voice of the Customer metrics and aligning the entire organization around them.
- Designing processes that benefit their customers’ customers, not just their own.
- Offering automatic product replacement when service is needed — no hassle, no delays.
- Simplifying the customer journey, reducing 20 customer journey variants to just one well thought-out path.
One quote from the article that has really stuck with me: “It’s amazing the things you can do when you shut up and listen to your customers.” …so simple and yet so powerful. Listening to your customers on where there is friction allows you to make tactical improvements in customer journey. It’s also possible to introduce structural changes that transform your entire operation.
Yes, these improvements may come with costs. But they also deliver outsized returns — especially when you consider long-term customer loyalty.
Take a look at Exhibit 1 in the McKinsey article. It shows that companies leading in Net Promoter Score (NPS) see nearly 2x the revenue growth over a six-year period compared to laggards. That’s not a rounding error. It’s a strategy worth betting on.
Customer experience is not just about satisfaction — it’s about sustainable growth. Companies that invest in it now will benefit from stronger retention, higher lifetime value, and compounding returns over time.
