Marketing teams are trained to obsess over beginnings. Awareness, first click, lead capture, onboarding, welcome flows, first purchase. Those moments matter. But a July 2 CMSWire article makes an uncomfortable point that many brands still underweight: the end of the experience often defines what people remember most.
The article uses Zurich Insurance’s bereavement-support service to show how a brand can design an ending with empathy and operational clarity rather than leaving people alone with forms, delays, and generic service scripts. That specific case sits in insurance, but the management lesson travels far beyond it. Endings happen everywhere: cancellations, returns, complaints, account closures, failed renewals, charge disputes, post-project wrap-ups, and handoffs after a service problem.
What changed
CMSWire highlights the idea of “endineering,” the deliberate design of how a customer relationship closes or reaches a difficult final stage. The Zurich example matters because it treats that last phase as a product and service-design problem, not merely a support queue. The company reportedly combines human care managers with digital tools and process support to reduce the administrative burden facing grieving families.
That may sound like a niche service story. It is not. It is a signal that the most emotionally loaded moments in a journey are becoming a competitive differentiator. When the category is stressful, expensive, or trust-sensitive, the final impression can outweigh months of brand advertising.
Why CMOs and operators should care
Source References
That is why journey endings deserve a budget, an owner, and a KPI. Not because empathy sounds good in a deck, but because poorly handled endings quietly destroy the economics that acquisition reporting often claims to improve.
