CX Network, one of the global leaders in premium content for customer experience professionals, recently announced the winners of the 2021 CX Elite Awards at InMoment’s Experience Forum.
The CX Awards 2021 is a celebration of outstanding CX achievements over the past year.
In this exclusive interview, we catch up with Anders Normann, senior director of customer experience at DSV Panalpina, in reaction to the award win.
CX Network: For years our research studies have found introducing a customer-centric culture stands as one of the toughest CX challenges. How did you embark on building a customer-first focus at DSV Panalpina?
Anders Normann: When I joined DSV Panalpina, I spent quite a bit of time tapping into the local leaders as well as those at the commercial level in our organization. I spoke them to grasp the existing state-of-play at DSV Panalpina, so I could nurture our CX program into that and leverage the existing culture. There were already had some parts of the company that were quite customer-centric, but in other parts I could see that it would be a challenge.
At the base level, on average an organization understands that customers pay their salaries, but you need to explore what this means on a day-to-day level, and try to mould the CX program around that.
CX: As part of your customer-centric culture, you introduced a global VOC program. What tips would you give to companies looking to implement a similar program?
AN: You need to find those ambassadors in the organization, that is key. Some people suggest getting the CEO mandate and then basically steamrolling the organization, but I would heavily advise not to do that.
The value of a CX program only comes with the amount of years it has been adopted and lived-out in an organization. So while it is nice to have the CEO mandate, having the local leaders is absolutely key.
After this, you have to deal with any pushback you may get. We targeted our implementation program towards stakeholders that enthusiastic about being involved. Go to where there is an interest, and where you face opposition or resistance, save those battles for later. You want to build momentum in the early days, and you achieve that by collaborating closely with the employees who want to work with you.
In essence, find the ambassadors, find the ones that want to work with you, go to those first and wait until your program has momentum before you tackle the sceptics.
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CX: Research has suggested that over half of companies operate with data siloes in place. When implementing this program, how did you combat data and tech silos?
AN: To combat data silos, we built our CX program around our CRM system. We still have some regional branches that are not fully on-boarded to our CRM system and we have always said, ‘if you are not on the global system, you cannot access the perks that come with it.’
In a previous role, a very swift CX rollout came to a sudden halt because of a data silo issue. It is vital to collaborate with individuals close to the data issues holding back projects, so you can work out how to build a structure around the data so you have access to it. You need encourage people to share, rather than bringing the stick to force people into it.
CX: As part of your customer-centric initiative, you created a precise picture of your customers. Our readers have admitted they struggle to understand customers’ digital behavior. Can you provide any tips for decoding consumers’ digital behavior to improve customer retention?
AN: For us, decoding data and getting insights is all about having text analytics in place. Currently, we run the text analytics engine, as we needed something that could run in real time.
Using this we have been able to build CX momentum, as we supply customer insights to the digital team and they prioritize enhancements based on that customer feedback.
We have been using a relational method, instead of a single touchpoint. Through this, we are able to supply our digital team with very detailed insights to streamline the route to actioning the data so it can benefit our customers.
As a CX professional, you always need to consider how you can bring the voice of the customer into the dialogue. It makes sense to leverage customer feedback to fast-track needed improvements.