Manufacturers Should Drive Demand, Not Just Satisfaction, Says Jim Tincher, CCXP

In a recent LinkedIn post, Jim Tincher, CCXP discusses a critical shift in focus for manufacturing companies: moving beyond mere customer satisfaction surveys to actively driving demand through growth-oriented strategies. Tincher, a recognized expert in customer experience, argues that teams solely focused on running satisfaction surveys are often at risk of elimination, while those that identify and nurture growth potential are more integral to a company’s success.

Tincher shared an anecdote about a recent project where he designed an operating model for a large manufacturer. The executive’s request was not to improve customer feelings, but to enable his team to identify customers with expansion potential and create experiences to unlock that growth. This highlights a strategic divergence many businesses face.

“Most manufacturers have a team that runs satisfaction surveys. Very few have a team that drives demand. And the ones stuck running surveys tend to get eliminated.”

The Peril of Survey-Centric Teams

Tincher emphasizes that a team’s primary function dictates its long-term viability. In his view, organizations that invest resources solely into measuring satisfaction without a corresponding strategy to leverage that data for growth are missing a crucial opportunity. This approach, he suggests, leaves these teams vulnerable during corporate restructuring.

Measuring What Matters for Growth

The core of Tincher’s argument rests on the idea that traditional satisfaction metrics, like Net Promoter Score (NPS), may not be the best predictors of business expansion. Drawing on his research across nearly 10,000 manufacturing customers, he found a more significant indicator for growth.

“In our research across nearly 10,000 manufacturing customers, NPS did not predict growth. Feeling valued did—a 46-point swing in intent to expand the relationship.”

This finding suggests that customers who feel genuinely valued are far more likely to deepen their engagement and investment with a supplier. This sentiment of being valued, Tincher posits, is a more potent driver of revenue and expansion than a simple score measuring satisfaction.

Defining a True Growth Function

Tincher challenges businesses to re-evaluate how they define and measure the success of their customer-facing teams. He posits that a true growth function must be able to provide actionable insights directly to the C-suite, particularly the CFO.

“If your team cannot show the CFO which customers are about to leave and why, you do not have a growth function. You have a team waiting for the next reorg.”

According to Tincher, the ability to proactively identify at-risk customers and articulate the reasons for their potential departure is a key differentiator. This predictive capability, coupled with strategies to retain and grow these relationships, is what constitutes a valuable growth function. Without it, a team may be seen as a cost center rather than a revenue driver, making it susceptible to cuts when financial pressures mount or strategic priorities shift.

By shifting the focus from retrospective satisfaction measurement to proactive demand generation and risk identification, Tincher argues that manufacturers can build more resilient and valuable customer relationships, ultimately driving sustainable business growth.