The LCS Impact Awards

AS Watson Benelux: Making Impact with Improvements

A case of customer satisfaction, employee engagement and impact!

Background

AS Watson Benelux is the company behind iconic brands Kruidvat, Trekpleister and ICI Paris XL. It’s Customer Care department services around 2 million customers through various channels for in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxemburg. With a headcount of around 110 employees, it’s one of the larger departments at AS Watson’s headoffice, the team being spread out over thre sites in The Netherlands, Belgium and Turkey.

Prior to 2021, there were challenges arising in client response times, leading to long waiting times (>10 mins) and low answering rates (<60%). There weren’t many other insightful parameters as data was scattered and KPI’s were only partly tracked in management reports.

Whilst the team was working hard, it was unable to turn the tide. Simultaneously however, from an AS Watson perspective, the importance of good customer experience and satisfaction was becoming increasingly recognized.

Something had to change.

Activity

2021

Halfway 2021 a new phase started. Starting with a reorganization of the team into a new structure that more clearly separated teams by functions, including one team exclusively focussed on continuous improvement. Next to this, reassessment of all roles within the team’s led to clearer role definitions with demarcated responsibilities between them. A new mission; “We ensure that customers feel helped, heard and happy by our accessible service.” was crafted in cocreation with the team. New operating principles were devised committing the team to organize its work to be customer centric, as leans and simple as possible, flexible and scalable, fact based and data driven, and integrated within the rest of the organization.

One of the main objectives was to instil the Lean mindset throughout the department. Not just a change of structure but equally a change of mindset, a change of heart. This included getting used to new roles, ways of working, setting up collaborations, goals and getting focused; not only on output, but also on throughput. The next step was attempting to get data in and getting a clearer view of how the team was doing and where it was going.

2022

The team was starting to get more insights, drew up processes, and created instructions; linking them to the available data. The baseline expanded and the team was starting to determine its gaps, losses and what was influencing its goals. A first group was trained in Lean and the first results of all these new initiatives were starting to show in quick wins that were initially still  internally focused. The baseline was set on data, but also on standard procedures.

2023

More grip on processes led to more control experiencing and less sudden surprises. The first multiple year plan was created, using the OGSM-model, an import-effect matrix to determine quick wins, projects, and stakeholders which lead to an increase of steady answering rates of >80%, client satisfaction >4 (out of 5) and an average waiting time of 1:18 min. Despite these efforts however, there was still a variation when actions went wrong and the team remained reactive on many unexpected incidents. At the same time however, 11 Green belts and 1 black belt certifications were achieved, improvements were happening fatsre and faster and alignment with the complete department was forming.

The new mindset was clearly alive!

2024

The first quarter of 2024 showed consolidation of the big results, lowering variation, and also expanding collaboration within the organization. Other departments are now even actively asking for Customer Care’s data to improve cross-departmental processes.

Next to this, the team evolved from a reactive approach to looking forward. More capable of acting pro-actively, whilst data continues to analyse and determine actions. There are sessions with all employees about each own influences and engagements and each subteam has its own OGSM-framework aligned to the greater goals of the overall department, so really everybody is involved and making impact.

Impact

The largest business-impact was reaching Customer Care’s main goals: An answering rate above 80%, waiting times of less than 2 minutes and a customer satisfaction above 4 out of 5. Regardless of the results, greatest pride can be derived from the change in the people, truly the biggest change. A new mindset, a new way of working and a new approach to the work. Amazing collaborations have arisen, and impact followed.

Although we this transformation is ongoing, there truly are improvements every day and the team is able to set them up and guarantee them which is something thought impossible only 3 years ago.