A featured contribution from Leadership Perspectives: a curated forum reserved for leaders nominated by our subscribers and vetted by the Construction Tech Review Advisory Board.
Winc Australia
From Friction to Function: How Winc Turned Customer Feedback into Business Growth
Cara Pring
At Winc, we used to believe our website reflected the best of our brand—modern, clean, and well-designed. But when we truly listened to our customers, we heard a different story. They weren’t interested in sleek visuals – they just wanted to print their cart, save an order and get on with their day. Some didn’t know how to ‘print screen’. Others had no idea a heart icon meant ‘favourites’.
And despite our impressive resumes —from banks, airlines and global tech giants—we quickly realised we didn’t actually know what it was like to buy workplace supplies for a business. We needed to speak to our customers for that.
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When we combine data, empathy, and action, we can solve the problems that really matter to our customers - and drive results that matter to the business
So we made a deliberate shift—from being design-led to function-focused. We prioritised clarity, simplicity, and ease of use. And the impact was immediate. Customer satisfaction scores jumped over 20 points, landing at a consistent 94%+.
But the real transformation began when we took this customer-first mindset and scaled it beyond the website.
Embedding Customer Feedback Across the Business
That website redesign became the catalyst for something bigger: a company-wide commitment to embedding the voice of the customer in everything we do. We formalised our voice of the Customer program—but more importantly, we made it truly cross-functional. Teams from IT, CX, Supply Chain and beyond now work side by side to identify, investigate and action improvement opportunities.
Take delivery complaints, for example. Each one is traced end to end—from the warehouse and product to the route and driver—to uncover the root cause. We don’t just apologise; we advise customers exactly how the issue is being fixed. At the same time, we look for systemic problems and make changes to prevent them from recurring. This level of rigour applies across all feedback—no stone is left unturned, and every customer is contacted.
One standout example came from a recurring pain point in our delivery experience. Customers were frequently contacting us, confused and frustrated that their orders hadn’t arrived in full—only to later discover items were still in transit with third-party couriers. Our tracking page simply wasn’t giving them the clarity they needed.
Together, our CX, digital, and supply chain teams dug into the issue. On the back end, we uncovered integration gaps that meant third-party courier data wasn’t being pulled through reliably. On the front end, the interface lacked clear communication around partial deliveries.
So we tackled both. We resolved the technical issues to ensure real-time courier data flowed correctly and redesigned the tracking experience to show delivery statuses more transparently. The result? Fewer inbound calls, fewer complaints, and a smoother customer experience that’s delivered real productivity gains.
The results speak for themselves: our Net Promoter Score (NPS) now frequently sits in the 70s, rivalling some of the world’s most beloved brands.
But this was more than a metric shift. It was proof that when you act on what customers tell you, they reward you with loyalty.
The Commercial Impact
Customer metrics are important—but what often gets overlooked is how they directly connect to commercial outcomes. For us, the link was clear:
• Online conversion and average order values increased. When we made it easier for customers to transact, they naturally bought more.
• Inbound contact volume dropped by 40%, allowing us to halve the size of our call centre team over two years— entirely through natural attrition.
And here’s something you don’t hear every day: our contact centre attrition rate is under 10%. That’s a third of the Australian average. Employee engagement is at an all-time high. Why? Because happy customers mean fewer angry calls, less friction, and a greater sense of pride in the work we do.
A Different Way to Grow
I’ve worked in businesses where the pursuit of new customers came at the cost of existing ones. But what we’ve proven at Winc is this: obsessing over your current customers isn’t just good CX, it’s great business.
Retention improves. Sales increase. Productivity skyrockets. And your tech team stops dreading every update cycle.
Why This Matters for Tech Leaders
None of this would have been possible without strong collaboration between our business and IT teams. Too often, digital transformation is treated as a tech project rather than a customer one. But when IT is engaged from the beginning—aligned to customer goals and responsive to feedback—the outcomes are far more powerful.
Customer-centricity should be part of every roadmap, every sprint, every platform update. It’s not just about improving interfaces; it’s about removing friction wherever it exists—online, offline, or behind the scenes. When we combine data, empathy, and action, we can solve the problems that really matter to our customers and drive results that matter to the business.
At Winc, we’ve seen what’s possible when technology and customer experience move in lockstep. And dare I say it—we even managed to make selling workplace supplies sexy.
