Negative customer experiences in manufacturing rarely arise from a lack of technology. Much more often, the cause is fragmented system landscapes, organisational silos and a lack of end-to-end visibility of the customer journey. We highlight the four structural challenges we encounter most frequently in projects with manufacturing companies.
In brief
System landscapes: IT landscapes that have grown over many years create inconsistent touchpoints and media breaks for customers.
Organisational silos: Sales, service, marketing and IT each optimise their own channels, but no one is responsible for the overall experience.
Lack of customer insight: Companies have transaction data, but little systematic knowledge about how customers actually experience their products and services.
Where the real problems lie
In many manufacturing companies, negative customer experiences are not caused by a lack of technology, but by inconsistent touchpoints, media breaks and unclear responsibilities along the customer journey. The following structural challenges are widespread in the industry and systematically hinder the development of positive customer experiences.
Fragmented IT and system landscapes
IT landscapes that have grown over many years lead to a multitude of systems, each managing different data. ERP systems, CRM platforms, product information management (PIM), document management systems (DMS) and specialised industry solutions often exist side by side without being fully integrated.
For customers, this means that information is not consistently available, processes require media breaks, and the quality of interaction depends on which system is currently being used. A customer who submits a service request via a customer portal may experience a different level of data quality than when placing an order via the e-commerce shop or contacting sales directly.
What we find during system landscape audits
At Unic, we conduct a system landscape audit at the start of every manufacturing project. In a project with a Swiss component manufacturer (approx. 2,000 employees), we identified 14 different systems that managed customer data – but only two of them were bidirectionally integrated. Customers had to switch media at least once in 6 out of 8 typical interactions (e.g. from the portal to the telephone).
Lack of end-to-end visibility of the customer journey
Many companies are familiar with individual touchpoints, but do not have a comprehensive understanding of the entire customer journey. They know how many visitors their website has, how many orders are received or how many service tickets are processed. What is missing is the connection of these data points to form a holistic picture of how customers perceive the collaboration across all phases.
Without this end-to-end view, optimisations are made that seem sensible when viewed in isolation, but do not improve the overall experience or even make it worse. A faster ordering process is of little use if the subsequent order confirmation remains unclear or delivery information is difficult to access.
Silos between sales, service, marketing and IT
Organisational silos mean that touchpoints are managed by different departments without any overall coordination. Marketing designs the website, sales maintains the CRM, service operates the ticket system, and IT develops the customer portal. Each unit optimises its own key figures, but no one is responsible for the overall experience.
This fragmentation is particularly evident when customers switch between different channels. Information discussed on the phone is not visible in the customer portal. Enquiries made by email are not referenced in the service ticket system. Customers have to explain their concerns multiple times and receive inconsistent information.
How we break down silos in manufacturing organisations at Unic
At Unic, we have developed a proven workshop approach that we call ‘cross-silo journey mapping’. In a two-day workshop, we bring sales, service, marketing and IT together and have them work through the customer journey from the customer's perspective. In a project with a German plant manufacturer, this workshop led to a key insight: sales did not know that service was systematically collecting customer feedback just six months after delivery – and conversely, service did not know what promises sales had made during the acquisition process. The result was a jointly responsible ‘Customer Experience Board,’ which has been meeting quarterly ever since and manages journey responsibility across the board. Customer satisfaction (measured by NPS) rose by 18 points within 12 months.
Low transparency regarding customer needs and usage contexts
Many manufacturing companies have extensive data on transactions, but little systematic knowledge about how customers actually use their products, what information they need in which situations, and what pain points arise in their daily work.
This lack of transparency means that digital solutions are developed without taking actual needs into account. Features that seem logical from a company perspective are not used by customers. Information that is urgently needed is difficult to find. The discrepancy between supply and demand remains unrecognised because there are no systematic feedback loops.
Why we always start with UX research
One of the most common mistakes we see in manufacturing projects is that teams develop solutions based on internal assumptions rather than real customer insights. In a project with an industrial pump manufacturer, all stakeholders agreed that the biggest pain point for customers was the order time for spare parts. Our UX research (contextual interviews with 12 end customers) revealed a different picture: the biggest problem was not the ordering time, but identifying the right spare part. Customers often did not know which part they needed and had to call sales, who in turn had to consult with engineering.
This insight fundamentally changed the scope of the project: instead of optimising the ordering process, we developed a visual spare parts finder that displayed the exploded view based on the machine number and enabled the correct order to be placed with a single click. The average order time fell from 48 hours to less than 10 minutes.
Do you recognise these challenges?
We support manufacturing companies in transforming fragmented customer experiences into consistent digital solutions. Contact us.
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Contact for your Digital Solution
Book an appointmentAre you keen to talk about your next project? We will be happy exchange ideas with you.
