Is Your Company Struggling With Customer Conversion and Retention?

How a Distributor Reduced Customer-Facing Defects by Fixing the "Front Door" 

Executive Summary 

A B2B distributor struggled with customer dissatisfaction driven by post-release defects, rework, and misaligned features. Sales and operations felt the impact downstream, but the root cause was upstream: poor requirements intake. 

Integratz designed and implemented a structured intake framework that stopped incomplete work from entering development. The result was fewer defects, smoother launches, and improved customer confidence. 

The Challenge: Customer Issues That Started Months Earlier 

Customer complaints and churn signals were increasing: 

• Features didn't behave as expected 

• Edge cases were missed 

• Integrations failed in production 

• Fixes required emergency rework 

Internally, teams were firefighting. Requirements arrived through: 

• Emails 

• Verbal conversations 

• Ad-hoc Jira tickets 

• Incomplete meeting notes 

Once work started, gaps emerged late - when fixes were expensive and customer trust was already damaged. 

The Root Cause 

The organization had no quality gate at intake. 

Incomplete, ambiguous work entered development, forcing teams to: 

• Make assumptions 

• Discover issues mid-build 

• Rework features after release 

Every downstream customer issue could be traced back to unclear or missing requirements. 

The Results 

• 100% of ERP and digital initiatives passed intake 

• Dramatic reduction in post-release defects 

• Minimal customer-facing issues

• Improved trust between business, IT, and customers

• Faster delivery because rework disappeared

Customer conversion improved because launches were smoother. Retention improved because customers experienced fewer surprises.

The Integratz Approach: Engineering Clarity Up Front

Integratz implemented a requirements intake framework focused on preventing defects before they happen.

Mandatory fields ensured completeness:

• Business justification

• Functional workflows

• Acceptance criteria

• Integration points

• Error handling

• Success metrics

Incomplete submissions were rejected.

Every request required approval from:

• Business/PMO

• Architecture

• Delivery teams

No approvals, no development.

A single source of truth housed:

• In-flight requests

• Approved backlog

• Historical decisions

• Jira automation enforced compliance

• Stakeholders trained on how to submit high-quality requests

Key Takeaway

Customer retention problems often don't start with customers. They start with allowing unclear work into your system.