Case, AAK
“The survey went so deep that it showed us the truth”
Having the customer journey perspective present in the survey made it very clear to us, that all functions in the company impact the customer experience.
Company
AAK
Number of employees
3,900
Industry
Production of plant-based oils
Established
2005
The survey went so deep that it showed us the truth
“People don’t care how much you know, before they know how much you care,” says Jan Lenferink.
”We’ve enjoyed a quite unique performance over the last decade, so when we decided to work even more methodically with the customer experience, we came from an already strong position. But we knew that we could improve,” says Jan Lenferink.
“We needed customers to give us candid feedback. It was about really listening and making our customers part of our improvement process.”
Giving the customers a voice
“When we were about to identify a partner for the survey, we immediately were attracted to the concept put forward by Customer Agency. They did not only talk about the survey. They talked about the entire customer journey, and they clearly had the appetite, mentality, and insight to work very closely with us before, during and after the survey,” says Lenferink.
We addressed the false perception that customer satisfaction is solely an issue for the sales team.
Therefore, we launched the initiative with all departments present, and everybody had their aspect present in the survey before sending it to 2,222 professionals in different functions at the customers.”
Customer-centric leadership
With a response rate of close to 50%, AAK was left with a huge dataset that was sliced and diced and made relevant to each plant, functional area, or territory.
”Customer co-development is a cycle from opportunity to final solution. Operational excellence is a cycle from order to delivery. To be recognised by our customers as a reliable business partner one has to be able to deliver both,” says Jan Lenferink. When AAK recently acquired a new refinery, it was in part a decision matured by the feedback from customers in the survey asking for stronger contingency plans from a trusted partner.
Customer Agency has been a key factor in raising awareness of the fact that our internal relationships are all part of creating the customer experience. That recognition is probably the single most important result from this effort.”
Solution
Analysis of customer readiness, mapping and analysing the customer journey, management tools
Benefits
Focused and more customer-oriented culture, stronger contingency plans, customer perspective in all functions