3 collaborative ways to drive great customer experience

Many will agree that engagement and connectivity within the organization are key for a future-proof company. This was again made clear a week ago at the Marketing Momentum in Schelle: a congrestival on marketing, digital transformation, e-commerce and much more. After attending several sessions set up by both technology and service providers, this message was brought from two different perspectives: one with a focus on employees and one with a focus on data, but both with the same end goal of offering a great customer experience.

Bringing employees together

One of the keynote speakers was Wouter Torfs, CEO of Schoenen Torfs. This Belgian shoe retailer won the Best employer of the year award for the 6th time in 2015 and stated the following: “Happy employees make happy customers“.
Torfs believes in the reinforcing effect of happy employees, happy customers and a sustainable and successful business. This belief is translated in several HR keys within the company such as co-creation and appreciation. Instead of a traditional command-and-control hierarchy, the CEO believes in a bottom-up approach, where the employees’ opinion and input are as important as any’s. Twice a year, over 500 employees come together to share their thoughts and co-create insights that can be used throughout the entire company. Not only are they encouraged to collaborate and co-create, they are also very much appreciated for it. According to Wouter Torfs, this type of involvement and appreciation is extremely important, as it gives employees – or internal clients as he sometimes likes to call them – a sense of empowerment and motivation, leading to increased customer centricity and satisfaction.

Bringing data together

Next to involving and bringing together employees as a recipe for success, bringing data together can also lead to an increased collaboration and empowerment within a company, leading to a higher customer satisfaction at the client side. Simon Walker, Director of Innovation at Stibo Systems, a global leader in Master Data Management Solutions (MDM), talked about preparing a business for digital transformation by providing a way of bringing together relevant data throughout the company.
Most companies have an enormous amount of data and quantified information in different departments, whether in operations, sales or marketing. However, this data often remains fragmented. According to Walker, having a centralized data system that everyone within the company can access, allows for a more holistic understanding and enables faster decision-making among all departments. In the end, this aggregated pool of relevant information can be used to improve customer relationships and customer satisfaction.

Bringing insights together

It is no coincident that these two speakers in particular drew my attention, as here at InSites Consulting, we also strongly believe in empowerment and collaboration as key factors to successful change. According to Tom De Ruyck, global expert in consumer & employee collaboration, companies need to strive for a 360° collaboration between employees, employers and consumers. This will not only lead to empowered employees and an increased consumer understanding in all layers of the company; this synergy will also generate new insights that are essential in becoming a consumer-centric company. To facilitate this, InSites Consulting has developed the Insight Activation Studio, which allows for different stakeholders within a company to share knowledge and insights and take action together.
Interested in a demo of our Insight Activation Studio? Talk to [email protected].

You might also be interested in

Millennial making purchase on smartphone

To Amazon, or not to Amazon?

Written by Lucy Hampson

Discover why understanding consumer needs is vital to create truly customer-centric experiences.

Hand holding heart

Capitec wins Best Digital Bank – SITEisfaction® 2022

Written by Anneri Venter / Sasha Jugdav / Bronwyn Penny / Luzelle van Niekerk

Customer data from this year’s SITEisfaction® results indicate that Capitec has claimed the top spot as South Africa’s Best Digital Bank. Read on to discover more results!

Human experiences at the heart of healthcare

Written by Laura Hunt / Sarah Van Oerle

Together with Philips Healthcare, we designed a truly human-centric piece of research, adopting a holistic approach towards understanding people’s healthcare experiences. Read on to discover the key learnings from this collaboration.