CX

Interview with James Boyden: brewing a great customer experience at De’Longhi

James Boyden is Head of CX, Australia/NZ at De’Longhi Group, one of the world’s leading players in the household appliance sector and best known for its coffee machines! Read our exclusive interview with James.

De’Longhi is a brand known for quality appliances. Is quality customer experience equally part of De’Longhi’s brand essence?

De’Longhi is a progressive, future focused business that recognizes the power and value of positive customer experiences and lifetime customer value. I joined the team in early 2023 to help bring to life CX innovation and structural reform that aligns to one of the company’s hallmarks, being ready and anticipating the next challenge to improve day by day.

We recognise the need to continually adapt our approach throughout the customer journey. Demystifying our products and guiding customers through the capabilities and benefits of using them is a key focus. We understand the purchase of domestic appliances is a considered one, from the open box experience to interactions across one or multiple contact points (including a planned and measured approach to AI) and our business partner alliances. We measure our success through the development and retention of our people, our continuous improvement approach, our consumer experience and customer lifetime value.

Can you share any learnings from your transition to a hybrid onshore/offshore service model?

Having managed outsourced support to a number of geographies, I like to take a measured and supportive approach to protect Brand and Technical IP as well as the people involved. We assessed a number of locations and offerings, with Fiji our destination of choice. We quickly identified the cultural alignment with Australia/NZ, knowledge, understanding and strong competence of the resources and dared to dream!

Find a trusted offshore partner

Following consultation domestically and globally, we engaged with the Fiji team to launch a closed trial that included limited training, scenario-based responses and broad knowledge of products and customers. We extended the closed trial to a limited segment of customers over a 3-month period and moved all first-level inquiries to their new home in Suva during our Christmas peak.

Critical to our success was patience to allow speed to competence, the right environment (including travel to and work, incentives and a passion for our Brands) and a partner that nurtures the resources whilst always focusing on business continuity and potential attrition. One other key learning was the scheduled deployment of new contact channels and call types. We found by compartmentalizing new activities and tools, we were able to achieve stronger outcomes whilst reducing the risk of agent burnout.

Face-to-face visits are paramount but technology keeps our domestic team close to the operation ensuring quality assurance, training and adherence to the SLA’s. The flexibility of the team has allowed us to exploit out-of-hours work and support channels.

To what extent is “proactive” engagement part of your CX strategy?

Proactive engagement is important to our short and long term strategy for De’Longhi. Our customers are time poor and expect flexible support whilst watching the clock on their initial interaction. We are deploying both manual (personal) and automated proactive communications to update and respond to customer contacts but there are some dependencies on the digital transformation projects.

Which technologies are high on your agenda this year?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a format we are comfortable with is our high priority. We continue our due diligence in this area, listen and discuss with peers and hope our offering will add to our tool kit in a very positive manner.

What is the KPI you track most closely and why?

VoC programs and Net Promoter Score is a consistent metric in our business but we recognize the changing online landscape and rich dialogue customers are exposed to and comment within requires a broader metric than survey based CX. We are active in the Social Media space as well as customer reviews. Inevitably, our gaze is shifting to sentiment and our agility to pivot and respond from a product or process perspective.

Last updated on: September 5, 2024