McKinsey has been named a Leader, the highest designation possible, in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Experience Strategy Consulting Practices, Q4 2022 report.
“McKinsey & Company is best known for developing business strategies directly with its clients’ C-suite and board of directors, and it applies this approach to its CX strategy consulting engagements to inspire executive-led, top-down CX transformations,” the report says.
“This recognition is a testament to the distinct way we partner with clients on customer experience strategy—and the impact we create together,” says Victoria Bough, a McKinsey partner who co-leads the Customer Experience Practice for North America.
Our approach involves changing the way leaders have thought about customer experience for decades. “Historically, companies invested in customer experience based on a belief that improvements in customer satisfaction would yield business results,” she says. “But it was always challenging to show the concrete return on their investments during the annual budgeting process.”
What was so rewarding about partnering with this client was that we were able to create solutions that benefitted both their customers and teams. We’re proud of this impact, and humbled that we are also externally recognized.
McKinsey helps clients “flip the script” by first defining the financial outcomes they expect to achieve through their investments in customer experience and then creating the experiences that drive the changes in customer behavior that lead to these financial outcomes. After first working with clients to define their vision, prioritize opportunities through predictive analytics, develop the roadmap, and quantify the financial value of their customer-experience strategy, our colleagues then create cross-functional teams with our clients to dramatically transform the experiences that matter most for clients. Finally, we build capabilities that support those changes within the client’s organization to make them stick for the long term.
“This is a massive shift for our clients, who have been using survey metrics like NPS to measure the impact of their investments for 20 years,” Victoria says. “The widespread adoption of advanced analytics means they can now start with financial objectives like retention and share of wallet and identify the experience drivers that improve these metrics.”
As senior partner Kevin Neher explains, it’s great that companies survey their customers—but relying solely on survey results means organizations are missing the bigger picture. “It’s not enough for customers to just know their customer. They also need to predict how customers are doing—and then act, whether that’s preempting a problem or providing a benefit. In that way, surveys become a much less important input,” he says. “Our approach is grounded in customer understanding using analytics that offer clients a privileged customer experience view that invites action, not just measuring and listening.”
Recently, we brought this experience-led growth approach to customer experience strategy to a leading manufacturer that provides both B2B and B2C products and services. Despite a rich history in user-centered products, the organization hadn’t made customer experience a core part of their operating strategy.
Together, our global team worked with the client to create a compelling vision for customer experience, inspired by their customers and employees; set clear priorities, backed by data and extensive research from 8,000 customers on what matters most to them; and develop a grounded value case to build momentum for future efforts. Our work allowed our clients to reduce the time required to resolve customer issues—from 7+ days to 1-2 days. Elsewhere, the organization saw a 13% increase in net sales.
“What was so rewarding about partnering with this client was that we were able to create solutions that benefitted both their customers and teams,” says partner Oliver Ehrlich. “We’re proud of this impact, and humbled that we are also externally recognized as a leader in CX strategy consulting.”