When have you seen force or friction impact a company’s ability to grow?

[mbarba]

Revenue Operations, or RevOps, is integral to taking an inbound approach to business and speeding up your company’s flywheel.

Why are those important? Let’s define terms first:

• Inbound is a method of attracting, engaging, and delighting people to grow a business that provides value and builds trust.
• The flywheel is a model adapted by HubSpot to explain the momentum you gain when you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience. Rather than thinking of your business as a funnel, with leads coming in at the top and customers coming out at the bottom, think about your business as a circle — as a flywheel.

When thinking about how to spin your company’s flywheel faster with RevOps, there are two important concepts to keep in mind:

1. Force is what allows your business to scale by spinning your flywheel faster and faster. This looks like when your customer has a great customer experience and tells their friends and colleagues about it.
2. Friction is what grinds your business to a halt, if not addressed. This is when your company provides your customers with a bad customer experience, and they also tell their friends and colleagues about it. In turn, this slows down your flywheel.

Here’s what I’d love to hear:

1. Share a time when you had an amazing customer experience and you saw a company grow faster and faster because of their wonderful customer care.
2. Share a time when you had a poor customer experience (please don’t name names or organizations) and how you saw that type of poor care affect their business.

[HFERNANDEZ6]

My positive customer service experience when I purchased an app for my business management was excellent. From the moment I saw their proposal, I was drawn to it, and they continued to refine and confirm that it was exactly what I was looking for. They sent me numerous resources and testimonials, making the purchase process very practical and self-service; I didn't depend on anyone else to complete it. On the other hand, I had a bad experience purchasing a concert ticket in another country. The event met my expectations, and they consistently provided helpful information, leading me to decide to buy the ticket. Later, due to personal reasons, I was unable to attend. I contacted them through the channels they indicated for situations like this, but they never responded. What does this mean for me regarding future purchases through that platform? It was a bad experience, and I wouldn't buy from them again or recommend them.

[Talia123]

Amazing Customer Experience
I worked with a medical equipment company that always responded quickly, followed up consistently, and made sure every issue was fully resolved. They were proactive and easy to work with. Because of their excellent customer care, more people recommended them, and their business grew quickly through trust and referrals.

Poor Customer Experience
I also dealt with a company that was slow to respond and hard to reach. Communication was unclear and follow-up was inconsistent. Over time, customers quietly stopped using their services, and it was clear their poor customer care affected their growth and reputation.

[JBaars]

One great customer experience I’ve had was with a software provider that made onboarding extremely smooth. Clear communication, proactive support, and fast response times made everything effortless. Because of that experience, I recommended them to colleagues and peers. You could clearly see how their strong customer focus created word-of-mouth growth, that’s real “force” in a flywheel.

On the other hand, I’ve experienced situations where communication was slow and unclear, especially when issues occurred. Having to follow up multiple times created frustration and reduced trust. In those cases, I was less likely to recommend the company, and that kind of friction clearly slows growth.

For me, this shows how closely customer experience and revenue growth are connected, especially in service-driven industries like logistics and fulfilment.

[Uomajemite]

1. when I had an amazing customer service - I wanted to get my nails done so I booked my appointment. I've had experience with other nail techs so I wanted to try this one. The tech nail was so friendly, offered me refreshments because I came from a long distance, made me so comfortable, gave me rooms for communication and made me feel free to make adjustments to my nail design. I clocked all those and. She's been my nail tech for 2 years now. I also don't even waste any time to tell people about her . 
2. so this brand wanted to do a discount sales and I was anticipating. They made the announcements and me and other people were eager to purchase from the website. Then finally the Dday came and website was down from the beginning of the sales, to the last day. Eventually we even forgot about it . They kept apologizing but somehowww had to forget about that brand

[JosephM]

Positive Experience

I once bought from a small online shop that had very good customer care. They made the entire experience feel thoughtful. I stayed a loyal customer, and over time I saw their business grow quickly because people kept recommending them. Great service clearly fueled their progress.

[jawwad]

1. I'd been a client successs manager for my client and had helped them with solving deep technical issues, which resulted in stability and better throughputs for their mobile wallet. It ended up scaling the platform and enabling the client to increase revenue.

2. Similarly, due to lack of product management support, our solution provider was unable to solve the client's production environment issues, which lead to platform instability and a poor customer experience.

[wh10990]

1. The beginning stages of a large online market is where I experienced some of the best customer service in my lifetime. Finding unique items, simplification of placing an order, fast delivery, and customer returns simplifed allowed the organization to become one of the largest platforms today. They removed friction at every stage of purchasing. If there were customer order issues (quality, timing, wrong order, late, etc) they resolved the issues quickly and with customer satisfaction in mind. 
2. Poor customer service experience occured at a local upscale furniture store. Shopping for a new couch that fit the size of my apartment was challenging as my options were limited due to space. The poor customer service occurred when the sales associate assumed what I could and couldn't afford, did not want to show me options that may work for my home, and brushed me off in general, no discovery questions were asked regarding whether or not I am looking for any other furniture for my home. As a result they lost a valuable customer, I went to their competitor and was able to furnish my entire apartment based off their customer service and the prices were within the same range as the place I had initially shopped. Easily lost $10k, and any residual sales I make for other home furnishings though infrequent still adds $$ to that sale, plus I always refer people to this furniture store vs the original.

[santiagosalazar]

I once switched to a fintech app that made onboarding seamless, responded to inquiries within minutes via chat, and proactively sent tips to help me get more value from the product—I ended up recommending it to at least ten friends, and within a year I saw them expand to new markets, clearly fueled by word-of-mouth from delighted users. On the other hand, I experienced a telecom provider that took weeks to resolve a billing error, transferred me between departments repeatedly, and never followed up—I eventually churned along with several people I knew, and later noticed they struggled with public complaints and stagnant growth, showing how poor customer care creates friction that slows the flywheel instead of spinning it faster.

[SLiu8]

Hi Mary and everyone!

Share a time when you had an amazing customer experience and you saw a company grow faster and faster because of their wonderful customer care:

I guess a good example here is actually Trader Joe's, i know this is an offline experience but most online companies ive engaged with did not impress me with their growths or customer care. trader joe's is known for their customer care and attention to detailed therefore garnered a cult-following customer base. myself included!

Share a time when you had a poor customer experience (please don’t name names or organizations) and how you saw that type of poor care affect their business.

This happens often than we think, unfortunately this happened in the previous companies that i worked, the companies operations diminished, customer base unsatisfied and revenue decrease due to mis-management, in the end resulted mass employee layoffs. the companies only cared about new customer acquisition yet failed to implement strong retention, failed to listen to their customers have to say, middle managers were all having an ego competition, hired very wrong upper management who didn't care about the companies rather just their big pay checks. 

[REvangelista4]

When a agent contineously updating the progress of the concerns making more efforts to give feedbacks to the customer like in the promotional ads and for some reason I observed with the other company didnt have consistency from the Ads to actual services.

[Migø]

MIssalignmen of content between the website, the actual product and sales piches for example. Long response times when meetings booked. 

[Luka-Ilic]

The Customer Experiences with the highest positive Valence are created through communities, by bonding with customers and helping customers bond with other customers and employees. Google Cloud often promotes Events, Summits, Hackatons and the likes to bring their customers together and generate brand sentiment. These events might create brand awareness and consideration for some, while it fosters brand loyalty for the many who already work with the brand. Even hosting and marketing webinars is a great way to generate "community", as webinars are delicious in education and social in nature, bringing people together in some way.

A force of friction that leads to a negative customer experience is when a company has a low barrier entry into their product through self-service, but hasn't got the capacity to deal with customer queries in an efficient manner since the sales force and customer service teams are flooded with tickets, unable to attend all customers and needing to prioritise. One way to overcome this issue is to enable AI driven consultations through agentic support, feeding good data and processes to the machine. Perhaps even offering a "code reviewer" that is able to help solve implementation issues through advice to the user.

[FJaimesGomez]

At a car rental service company, when something went wrong during a trip, the company often offered credits to the customer instead of turning the situation into a heavy or confrontational process. That simple action helped reduce frustration, rebuild trust, and made customers feel supported. In many cases, it led to higher loyalty and repeat usage. From a Flywheel perspective, this created real “force” by transforming a negative moment into a reason for customers to stay.

On the other hand, at a marketplace service company, there was a promotion that wasn’t clearly explained upfront. Customers were told the service had a promotional price, but it wasn’t always clarified that if certain standard conditions were not met, the final cost would be the promotional price plus an additional full-service fee. When customers received a much higher charge than expected, it caused confusion and frustration, often resulting in cancellation requests.

This lack of clarity introduced friction into the Flywheel. The problem wasn’t the pricing itself, but the misalignment between marketing, sales, and customer expectations, which ultimately slowed growth instead of supporting it.

[KCorrales24]

I have experienced great customer service with companies where support was fast, clear, and proactive. When a team takes the time to explain things, follows up, and makes the process easy, it builds trust and makes you want to recommend them to others. I’ve seen how this kind of experience creates positive word of mouth and helps a company grow naturally because customers feel valued and supported.

On the other hand, I’ve also had poor customer experiences where responses were slow, information was confusing, or I had to repeat the same issue multiple times. In those cases, it not only caused frustration, but it also made me lose confidence in the company. I noticed that this kind of experience often leads people to stop using the service and share negative feedback, which clearly slows down a company’s growth.

[AEdet]

So I'll give both experiences using two companies I had dealings with as a customer. Let's call the first company "A" and the other company "B".

They are both Marketing firms that help customers get Prospects and also call agents who would work for them.

With company "A"  I encountered so much delay anytime i would want to reach out for a question or post sales advice, different teams had conflicting information as regards certain processes, which would often leave me confused. I would develop an affinity for a particular staff and the next time i call-in i would be informed that the staff was let go and a new person would be assisting me with any concerns i might have.
These inconsistencies were frequently discussed amongst customers.
I watched this company shrink into oblivion due to these prolonged inconsistencies. 

I got in contact with Company "B" and my experience was the opposite. Timely response, Excellent post sale service, employee turn over was almost non-existent. I watched this company not only grow but scale, and today they are ranked on various marketing forums as one of the most reliable companies, having a customer success rate of close to 100%.  I am actually still a customer of company "B" till date, and all my friends have become customers as well.

[AMahoney]

A recent example that stood out to me was during the Verizon outage. While it was a major inconvenience, Verizon responded quickly. Within 24 hours, they apologized, acknowledged the issue, and proactively communicated that impacted customers would receive a $20 bill credit. Shortly after, I received instructions on how to apply the credit, and I was able to complete the process in less than a day. Every organization will face unexpected issues—it’s inevitable—but what matters is how they communicate and remediate. Verizon’s quick response, empathy, and ease of resolution reinforced trust and the type of customer care that strengthens loyalty.

On the other hand, I’ve had disappointing experiences with a well‑known online retailer whose order processing can take weeks. Their website doesn’t provide any information about processing or shipping timelines, and checking order status requires multiple steps only to land on a vague “in progress” page with no estimated delivery date. This isn’t a specialty product—similar items can be purchased from other retailers and received within days. Consumers today expect at least some level of transparency, even if shipping isn’t next‑day. If a product will take longer than the typical 7–10 business days, that should be clearly communicated upfront. Instead, the lack of information and the need for repeated follow‑up—with no meaningful updates—has completely eroded trust. It’s the kind of experience that drives customers away, myself included, and makes it unlikely I’d ever purchase from them again.

[ScottyCPT]

I think today, convenience is everything. How quicky do you get your product, how easy is it to engage with a company providing the product or service. That single experieince to engage, find, order and get it delivered quickly is the foundational force a company needs. A simple example of this is ordering good coffee beans from a small supplier who go out of their way to make sure the beans arrive on time and where the owner takes a personal interest in making sure you have a great experience receiving them. On. the reverse a local long standing and well known tech retailer sold me a poor quality product which created an immediate and poor reflection on my expectations of the brand. This was compounded by the fact that I couldn;t provide a review of the product=mistrust, a poor returns experience and no follow up about the return.

[BTAŞAN]

I had a really bad customer experience with a restaurant which provides meal service in a digital food service platform. When I look at the comments I realized they don't pay enough attention to improve customer success and rather than seeing it as a long journey they focus on just short term goals and thus after initial purchase, they mismanage the relationships and don't take the feedbacks into consideration. Eventually, I noticed that that restaurant withdrawn the platform shortly.   On the other hand , I was enrolled in a gym and I was really satisfied because they were providing a quality customer experience. They were always updating their mobile app, which makes customers know about opportunities or services seamlessly. Also when I reach them to give a feedback or any issue , they were always trying to solve the issue and prioritize the customer satisfaction. In a short time, this gym has became popular in the town with effects of word of mouth and quality services.

[JAbu]

Force - deploying a heat map in the customer account to better undertstand where customers where gravitating to get support with their product and doubling down on those areas to drive impact

Friction - utilizing an outdated, manual CRM tool to deploy campaings. Employees facing painpoints with CRM tool, specifically with errors - thus diluting time to get campaign to market and high propensity to erros in meeting the customer.

[Tony_Alvarez]

This happened to me in my last job. They had not only one, but TWO legacy CRMs totally useless. Even with those two CRMs, we had to keep records in Excel.