McKinsey & CompanyA retail client was facing rising costs driven by increasingly complex packaging and needed to identify ways to reduce spend without eroding customer perception or satisfaction. I was tasked with leading the customer sentiment work stream within this design-to-value initiative, responsible for pinpointing which packaging components customers felt had room for improvement and could be redesigned or re-sourced, then presenting actionable recommendations to senior client stakeholders.
To ground the analysis in real customer feedback, I designed and led a focus group study across 30+ customers, mapping pain points across the full purchasing journey. I then aligned these identified friction points with the broader cost reduction targets, ensuring that any recommended changes would simultaneously address customer dissatisfaction and unlock savings opportunities — rather than treating cost-cutting and customer experience as competing priorities.
The recommendations I developed directly informed the redesign of several key packaging components, cutting added annual costs while proactively resolving the pain points customers had flagged. This work was set to roll out across approximately 4,000 store locations, giving the client a scalable path to reduce costs at a broad, systemic level while strengthening rather than compromising the customer experience.
