Influential Women Profiles Ashley Deknes-Razevich: Driving Customer Experience And Operational Excellence

LENEXA, KS, UNITED STATES, August 17, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Manufacturing Leader and Founder of Sunshine Consulting Helps Organizations Strengthen Processes, Communication, and Customer Retention

Lenexa, Kansas — Ashley Deknes-Razevich: Turning 17 Years of Manufacturing Experience into a New Approach to Customer Retention

Lenexa, Kansas — After 17 years working across customer service, operations, and manufacturing, Ashley Deknes-Razevich has learned that one of the biggest opportunities businesses overlook is often sitting right in front of them: the customers they already have.

Throughout her career, Ashley has worked at the intersection of customers, sales, operations, finance, and manufacturing. She has seen firsthand how easily communication gaps, unclear processes, and internal misalignment can create problems that ultimately reach the customer. She has also seen the opposite—what happens when teams communicate well, take ownership, and work together toward a consistent customer experience.

Those experiences have become the foundation for her newest professional venture, Sunshine Consulting, a consulting business focused on helping manufacturing and other organizations strengthen customer retention by improving what happens behind the scenes.

“Customer retention isn’t just about what happens when you have a customer,” Ashley says. “It is about everything you do after you win the business. It is how you communicate, how you handle problems, how your teams work together, and whether the customer can trust that you will do what you say you are going to do.”

From Manufacturing Leadership to Customer Retention
Ashley’s career began in the injection molding industry, where she quickly moved into leadership roles overseeing customer service operations. Over the years, she developed a practical understanding of how closely customer experience is tied to internal operations.

Today, Ashley serves in a management role at SOR Controls Group, leading a team of eight to 10 professionals while working closely with executive leadership and departments throughout the organization. Her position has given her a unique perspective on the challenges that arise when sales, customer service, finance, operations, and manufacturing are not fully aligned.

Rather than viewing customer service as a department that simply responds when something goes wrong, Ashley believes customer experience should be considered a company-wide responsibility.

That philosophy is at the heart of Sunshine Consulting.

Building the Business Behind the Customer Experience
Sunshine Consulting was created to help organizations identify and address the internal issues that can quietly erode customer relationships.

Ashley’s approach begins with a simple premise: you cannot build long-term customer loyalty with a broken internal process.

A company may have an excellent product and a strong sales team, but if information gets lost between departments, responsibilities are unclear, employees do not have the tools they need, or customers receive inconsistent communication, those issues eventually become the customer’s experience.

Sunshine Consulting focuses on uncovering those gaps and helping businesses build more intentional systems around the customer journey.

The work goes beyond identifying problems. Ashley’s goal is to help organizations understand why those problems are happening, determine where the customer experience is being affected, and create practical solutions that employees can actually use.

Her consulting philosophy is rooted in the same approach that has shaped her career: ask questions, understand multiple perspectives, identify the disconnect, and create a solution that works.

Retention Starts Inside the Organization
Ashley believes manufacturing companies in particular are facing a growing challenge.

Customers expect organizations to move quickly, communicate clearly, and resolve problems in real time. At the same time, many companies are operating with processes and communication structures that were never designed for today’s expectations.

That disconnect can be costly.

“When the customer is the first person to discover that your internal departments aren’t communicating, you’ve already lost some of their confidence,” Ashley explains.

For Ashley, customer retention is therefore much more than a sales or marketing initiative. It is an operational strategy.

Strong retention requires clear accountability. It requires employees who understand their role in the customer journey. It requires processes that support consistency. And it requires leadership willing to look honestly at what is happening inside the organization.

That is the space Sunshine Consulting is designed to address.

Creating the “Sunshine” in Difficult Moments
The name Sunshine Consulting reflects something personal about Ashley’s approach to business.

She recognizes that not every customer interaction is easy. Problems happen. Orders get delayed. Communication breaks down. Mistakes are made. Expectations change.

The difference, she believes, is what a company does next.

“The easiest time to have a good relationship with a customer is when everything is going right,” Ashley says. “The real test is what happens when something goes wrong.”

Her philosophy is that difficult moments can either damage a relationship or become opportunities to build trust. Companies that communicate honestly, take ownership, and consistently work toward solutions can often strengthen relationships precisely because of how they handled a challenge.

That belief is reflected in the mission of Sunshine Consulting: helping organizations create the internal foundation necessary to deliver a customer experience that is consistent—not only when business is easy, but especially when it isn’t.

A Career Built on Saying Yes
Ashley’s path to this work was anything but traditional.

Her professional journey began in the restaurant industry, where she learned early that understanding people matters. An opportunity eventually introduced her to an industry she knew little about, and instead of allowing that unfamiliarity to stop her, she said yes.

That decision led to a 15-year career working closely with a CEO and controller and ultimately provided the experience that would shape much of her leadership philosophy.

Along the way, Ashley learned that careers do not always follow the plans people make for themselves. Experience accumulates in unexpected places, and the skills developed through work, family, challenges, and opportunities can become more valuable than any traditional career roadmap.

One of the most lasting lessons came from her mentor, who shared the phrase, “Make the magic happen.”

What began as an inside joke eventually became a framed poster in her mentor’s office. When her mentor retired, she gave the poster to Ashley. It now hangs above Ashley’s desk as a reminder that solutions rarely appear on their own.

Someone has to make them happen.

That mindset has followed Ashley throughout her career—and now into Sunshine Consulting.

Influencing the Next Generation
As a woman working in manufacturing, Ashley hopes her career demonstrates that there is no single path to success.

She encourages young women entering manufacturing to stay curious, ask questions, and resist the idea that they need to know everything before stepping into a new opportunity.

“Experience is more valuable than we give it credit for,” Ashley says.

Her own career is evidence of that belief. She did not follow a perfectly traditional path, but every position, challenge, relationship, and opportunity contributed to the professional she is today.

She also believes effective leadership requires the ability to separate emotion from problem-solving, establish healthy professional boundaries, and understand that different perspectives can all contain part of the truth.

Those lessons have become particularly important as she builds Sunshine Consulting.

Looking Ahead
Ashley sees Sunshine Consulting as the next chapter of a career that has consistently centered on one thing: helping people and businesses work better together.

Her goal is not simply to tell companies that customer retention matters. It is to help them understand what is preventing them from retaining customers—and then help them do something about it.

By combining nearly two decades of manufacturing and operational experience with a deep understanding of customer service and internal business relationships, Ashley is creating a consulting approach that looks beyond the customer-facing surface.

Because, in her view, customer experience is rarely created by one person or one department.

It is created by the entire organization.

And when the organization works better together, customers notice.

Through Sunshine Consulting, Ashley is taking the lessons she has learned throughout her career and turning them into something bigger: a practical framework for helping businesses build stronger internal operations, stronger customer relationships, and ultimately, stronger businesses.

For Ashley, that is what making the magic happen looks like today.

Learn More about Ashley Deknes-Razevich:

Through her Influential Women profile, https://influentialwomen.com/connect/ashley-razevich

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