10 Years of CX Success From a One-Page Strategy with Wolters Kluwer

Hello, welcome to the Account Experience podcast. My name is Adam Durrell and I'm sitting here in Amsterdam and I'm joined by another Adam from the other side of the world. Hello, Adam Ramshaw. How are you doing?

I'm really doing well, Adam. Very well indeed. From literally the other side of the world. So you're in Sydney, Australia.

Well, I love having two Adams on the call. Of course, it's great because when we have a guest, it's like people are going to have problems tearing spot. But you and I've known each other for I, I think probably 10 years, right?

Easily 10 years. Very easily 10 years.

Everyone that's listening. Adam is the proprietor and founder of Genro and that's a consulting firm based out in Sydney, Australia. He's done sterling work on CX over the years. In fact, if you go and have a look at his website, genre.com au there's plenty of stuff there that's really good to understand benchmarking and how to read nps. I definitely recommend you do that. And of course, Adam, we've been working on Customer Gauge for almost that time.

Right.

Pretty much the whole time. That's how we started talking to each other.

So what's on your mind at the moment? What are some of the things that you're seeing in the marketplace in Australia?

Seeing some real changes in the B2B space. So people are really focusing now more on account management, more on the customer retention side of the process. Looking at a bit broader. So it's the. The net promoter programs really are looking at two sides. Long term continuous improvement, but also quick turnaround, closing the loop quickly looking at also the whole account rather than just individual people within the account. Where do the different people sit in the account? What's important to them? What's their role? And so looking at the whole account. So it's really split now between this long term continuous improvement, which is still important of course, but also looking at short term retention and proactively talking to customers.

Yeah, we really see the change also in that it's really sort of monetization comes into this. People start thinking of multiple people in the business. Yeah, I think it's an exciting time actually. Think things coming along now. Today we've got a really special guest that's come along, someone that you've been working with for a long time in Australia. And this is a company that has a global reach. But we're going to talk about the Asia Pacific part of it today. And this is Wolters Klua. And they are a global provider of professional information, software and services, primarily to legal, accounting and business professionals. And I'm really fascinated to hear how the company has been using Net promoter and customer experience to differentiate themselves. And today we're really delighted to welcome Janine Scott, who's the director of Operations for Water Schools at Asia Pacific. Janine, how are you doing? Thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me. Hi, Adam and Adam.

Hey, so, first thing, how has, you know, how's the impact of this program been? You've been in the business for a number of years, so how has, you know, have you seen the program evolving in Waterslip?

Yeah, I have been in the business for a number of years and I guess when we first started this, it was probably around a decade ago that we started with an initial NPS play. So I was part of the strategic Program team at the time and we were looking at implementing nps, just gathering some of that voice of the customer intel and I guess operationalising that within our organization. And then if I think about where we are now, sort of a decade on, we've taken those foundations of listening to the customer and bring them into our business and sort of formed them into a broader customer experience strategy. So I guess if you think about, you know, the NPS principles itself, the inner loop, the outer loop, we're really trying to embody a more rounded customer experience strategy, with NPS always being one of the pillars at the foundation and core of our success, I guess.

How is it, you know, taken to the heart of the company, do you think, after 10 years, it's really part of the DNA of the organization?

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's. People in our organization are so passionate and I'll give you a bit of a story. This year we wanted to revamp it. We wanted to, coming off the back of the COVID 19 year that everybody's had, we wanted to take a slightly different approach and build up some new teams focused around what customer experience looks like as we go forward into the future with some of the obvious changes in the industry. And that team is so passionate, you can see that right to their core that there's everyone's turning up for meetings, everyone's doing the work on top of their day jobs. They will still put in the effort and go above and beyond to be part of the group because they definitely believe customers are at the heart of what makes us tick.

Janine, I remember you telling me a story a while ago where the change in the organisation through the launch process was super interesting. Because at the start you were really pushing the process and I know you were driving the change management. And then over time it evolved. So instead of you pushing it, the rest of the organization was pulling along, pulling you along in the process, which I thought was a really interesting change. What do you think was the big driver behind that? How did you drive that change?

I mean, I think it's a team that drives change in any organization. And I think if you can connect with people by running your program in a transparent way, that's the first thing. We step started off the program always being completely open and transparent with our all employees across the business about what we were doing, how our score was trending, the good comments, the bad comments, the in between comments. But we really started making sure any rock we would turn it over, we would look at it, we would address it as a business and then we would also celebrate success when we achieved great things off the back of that, then we celebrate as a team. And I think that that's certainly the thing that inspires and motivates people to then bring to life something that takes on a bit of an energy of its own and rises up organically. And it's interesting because there have been times when the momentum ebbs and flows. We've kept a pretty good cadence, but there have been times when it ebbs and flows. And I'll still get people that will contact me and say, hey, where's the customer information? Where's the survey results? We need to see what's happening. Can you still share those? So yes, really interesting that we, we got the foundation right because it was all encompassing and it came from the right place of actually wanting to fix things that weren't working and double down on things that were.

And coming back to Adam's point, you know, was there, was there a specific customer customer story that springs to mind about something that changed the business?

There's so many over the years. There's a bit of an archive that we have in our mind, but there's one that I've talked about with Adam quite extensively over the years, or there's a couple actually. But there was one specifically where we started to get quite polarised NPS scores around our research platform. We were struggling to understand there was a sea of people who were absolute advocates and then some who were saying it's not really meeting my needs. When you dug a little bit under the data, you start to realize because they're two completely different customer Personas and their use case is completely different. And at that point we did make a little bit of a pivot in our technology so that what we were, how the platform was being served up to those clients could be different. And for those that needed a slightly different interface, a little bit easier to use, we developed a new product. For those that wanted something with deeper research options, we still had that in that category as well. So that's one of the interesting stories around using that data and really digging into what's driving the different components.

I'd like to ask a follow up on that if that's okay. Because when we first were in contact with you all those years ago, you seem to be very much kind of like a book business, very much publishing paper. I'm guessing that the business has evolved quite a bit and I wonder if you can tell me a little bit about how that's happened in your world.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I guess customers drive digital transformation and they wanted that information online, they wanted it digitally. So we certainly have moved a lot of our content that you would find typically either in printed subscriptions or books that exists in online platforms now. And we do have, you know, obviously still people that are interested in the physical hard copy, but a lot of people like the freedom that a research platform will give them. And then we've, you know, moved into software space, software acquisition over those years as well that tucks in neatly with our, with our research platforms for the customers. So certainly a different organization along this journey than what it was then. And I do think what's helped us to do that digital transformation in a way that's satisfying the customer is back to that, listening. Well, what do they actually need if we're going to make a digital transformation? Maybe it isn't one size fits all or maybe there's is some customization and let's get that right if we really want to optimize the digital experience.

So you were able to listen to what the customers wanted over the time and embed that into the products and just to, you know, to make sure that they were able to get the information that they needed, I guess.

Yeah. And I mean, hey, we're still doing that, we're still doing that today. Always still lifting the bar. But I'm very pleased to say all these years on and those platforms and those new digital solutions are absolutely industry award winning. This year alone we've bagged quite a number of industry awards for those products that we've delivered to our customers, which is pretty exciting, right? To say this came out of what our customers told us they wanted and then to get that recognition is pretty phenomenal for the people involved.

That's amazing because if I think about the businesses, you know, the businesses that you serve, the legal companies, I mean, they're not known for being, how can I put this? Speedy to change. But I'm guessing that, you know, so you have to bring them along carefully to react to that. I'm guessing, right?

Yeah, absolutely. We've got to walk the same road as our customers do. Walk alongside them and where they go, we go.

Oh, that's great.

I really love that story about the diving into that piece of data and finding those two different essentially customer segments because it's, it's, it really gives you an understanding that sometimes the answers aren't on the surface and sometimes you're confused by what, what data is coming through. But if you step back or step, I'm not sure whether step back or step closer and look at a bit more closely like there are, there are game changing opportunities. This is not just about improving the improving customer loyalty. It's about driving more customers and whole new industries and market segments. So I love that story. That's why I always bring it up when we're talking about this stuff. I do have a question though, just to go back to a question to something you talked about on transparency. Data transparency is something that we at general and I know customer guides always push, like tell everybody everything. Did you, when you first started out and even now do you have, are there concerns in the organization about that level of transparency of data? Because I know you're a super advocate of having everybody know everything. Are there concerns? Have you had to kind of get over that stuff?

Look, obviously what we're sharing is the information as it pertains to how we can improve our products and services. If we're not going to continue to be transparent, then we don't evolve as a business. We obviously make sure we keep our customer information always secure. But the themes and the drivers and where they need us to, to change and lift. Yeah, no. Our organization is internally still quite an open book about that sort of thing. And we will continue to be because as I said, how do you change, grow, evolve, continue to do some of the great things we've done unless we're going to be honest with ourselves about where we need to improve.

Hey, one of the things I want to lean into, Janine, is about running a program that over years. It's great because it gives you this chance to, you know, to see how the evolution is working. And you know, we call it longitudinal business, see how trends are going. But you, I believe you've had some changes of leadership. So I'm curious because we, you know, in all the research that we do, we know that the leader of the company sets the tone for the customer experience program. If the leader is not engaged, these things never work. So how do you keep up something like organizational momentum to do this? I'm really curious about that.

Yeah, that is something that I get asked a lot. I think one of the key things about any program that you're trying to drive is you've got to get support from the top and that really makes a difference in terms of what you can achieve. I've been lucky that although we've had some leadership changes over the years, been very lucky with the type of leaders that I've been able to approach and talk to about customer experience and the customer experience program and that they've all been on board. You know, it doesn't take me more than a five or ten minute conversation to sell them the dream and they're on board, but I always start there. So whether it's my direct report, whether it's changing leadership for the business, whichever layer, I make it my mission to connect with that person, talk to them about the program, talk to them about where I think we can take it and really get their support and buy. And as I said, I've been very lucky that we've had great leaders and even today that I've still got that support from my whole executive team to take it forward in the business.

Yeah, I've also seen the leaders that you have. I mean, they're prepared to do videos and really talk about this. I think that you're setting a very good example from the top. So I know all the support comes from underneath that. So it's all your work, probably. And the leaders take credit. But he looks like you're unified as an organization.

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So you'd be motivating your chief executive or your leaders to do that. How do you motivate the operational folks in your business, the people at the front edge? Because getting feedback from customers is hard and it can be painful. How do you keep the program relevant and live?

Really good question. And I think it comes back to that point we talked about a few moments ago around the transparency, you know, the type of information that we're sharing and the type of focus. It's never used as in any negative way. It's always used in that manner of how do we improve? Here's the information. What do we do differently next time? And so I think when it's not, you know, it's not used, it's used with the right intent. It's used to drive real, real improvement forward and the individual Employees that work for us can see benefit to the customers. It's not hard to continue to drive momentum when there's such a positive aura around what you're trying to do and.

How are you driving that. Do you have targets for closing the loop or response rates?

Janine not targets as such, but we certainly know we've experimented with response rates over the years. So we certainly know where we get the best, best response rate from our customers is to land the NPS at the point of use. Right. That was probably one of the key learnings early on that we do have both. So we do email our customers, we do ask them for NPS information. It comes back that way. But then really embedding it into our product where the customers are using it point in time gives us a lot of richer information to start with. Because at that moment in time, whatever I'm using, I can provide some commentary on that boosts the response rate as well. So we got quite, we've quite an extraordinary response rate somewhere up around 30% response rate inside the product. And that's, that's pretty phenomenal. So it's a big, big pool of customers that tell us where they need some tweaks.

Let me drill into that a little bit more. So that's, that's 30% of response from within the product itself. And you're also sending out email and other methods. I think, I think you call it push and pull. Can you give a little bit more color to how you look at the two sorts of responses you get?

Yeah. So when we say push and pull, I maybe would define it slightly differently and say we've got one area which is our service, our sales, our support teams, and we send customers after interactions and touch points. We're sending them out surveys, so it's in the customer's inbox. I think we've all seen that that's a tougher way to gather feedback and is growing to be more and more of a tougher way where we land it in the product itself. We also get a little bit more of a product flavor so it'll pop up within the program that they're using and allow them to provide some feedback. So we really do then get both product and platform and service and support feedback as to two very distinct streams, which makes them more actionable.

Julian that's really fascinating. I mean, I'm personally really interested in this as we move to digital products and many of our other clients have this as well. I'm interested in understanding how things are asked like in cycle or out of cycle, if you know what I mean. You know, if you're using a product does get us being asked for feedback get in the way of being used. Is that a better way of doing it or is it, is it better to get people out of cycle like an email in their inbox so than more reflective. I'd love to hear your views on that.

I would say it depends on the customer. I'd say there's definitely a preference with some to still get it in email. However, the way that I would respond to that is the majority of us are looking at like think about the world that we're living in today, the digital world we're living in today. We're looking at integrated solutions, we're looking at in app features. This is just how we've gotten used to doing, to living our life really. So. So if you're starting to embed that stuff within the workflow or in application, definitely more likely to get an engaged response. Certainly what I'm finding is that the comments are richer, they're more related to what they're doing at that point in time. If you're sending something out as an email, the issue that you will always have to contend with, even if you're working in an organization where you can send that email out in real time, the issue you're going to have is that the response may not be real time.

True.

And that lag adds quite a bit to the sentiment.

Yeah.

Because you know yourself a few hours have gone by and then all of a sudden I reply to the email. What I think about the experience I was having at that time is diluted.

Yeah, I think it's really interesting. I mean I see we see this in our, in other organizations where the economic buyer, the specifier is not necessarily the one that's using the software. So I think, you know, what we need to do is we need to make sure that we, we look at both areas of customer people. You know, it's like the decision makers and the users and you need to take that feedback. It could be different. Both of those are decisions.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's true. Right. Anything that's in platform, in product is going to capture more from your end users.

Yeah. So you get more product feedback and then other people do. I do, I get the economic benefits of this and you know, but both are equally important in a business like yours where you've, you're looking for the subscription to carry on over the years.

Yeah, 100%.

What I really love to hear there was you talking about never using data in the wrong way as well. Just want to hark back to that from a couple of minutes ago because that's so important to keeping people engaged long term, keeping staff engaged long term. As soon as you start using the data in a vindictive or negative way, it just shuts down the whole process. So it's so good to hear that. I've got a question. You've got a few years of experience in this now. You've seen what worked. The question is, if you look back at the start, what would you either what would you do differently or what would you advise somebody starting a program now to really focus on? What do you think are the key elements to get it up and running successfully?

Key elements is this is not something we would do differently because we got this right in the beginning, and that was really support from the top about the vision that we had to drive a better world for our customers. So I think that's always the right place to start. Where I think what we would do differently now is you need some data science behind it to really make it work. I think what we learned after a few years was we had lots of data. Deciphering that, interpreting it, analyzing it to really get to that gold is tricky. So you do need to make an investment in data and how you're going to use it. And the biggest piece of advice that I'd give anybody is you have to find a way to connect it to the bottom line, the top line. So you have to find a way to connect it in the business in a way that's meaningful, because that's the language of business success. We want to deliver a great experience, experience for our customers, but we want to know that what we're doing is actually making an impact to their lives and also to ours. So are we seeing that they're enjoying our product and they're buying more? Are we seeing that they're referring us? And let's track that in a measurable way, because at the end of the day, we're all in this to run a business that means making our customers happy. And that also means the business is successful when our customers are satisfied in that way.

That's outstanding. Just the link back to dollars is something that just works because then you know what the value is like. I'm really glad to hear that. That's excellent. I'll hand back to you.

So what's next for your program? What's the next frontier that you're looking to go through?

So we put together A new team. This year, we've taken it that next level. We've really started to expand in customer experience thinking. So we've put together five pillars that represent customer experience success. Each of those pillars has a leader and they're organically working toward the series of initiatives. So taking it sort of the next step from what we've got so far into what does it mean for us as a brand to actually drive this forward to the next iteration. So we've got a number of great things coming in that space, both across our products, which hopefully we'll get to showcase in the upcoming Customer experience Day. So there's some new product, new development that's coming down the line. Again, customer driven. But I think where the really exciting thing is, we've got a communication stream that are connecting this internally and externally for our customers and working closely with a brand pillar. And that's really exciting to actually be in a position to take what we know, what we love, what we are passionate about, and explain that to our teams and to our customers in a way that's meaningful. And that's something that we're working on as well. So what's next is notch it up. Be the best.

I love it. That's really good. I mean, I think if you're a Wolters Kluwer customer, you should feel really confident that the company's listening to your feedback and acting on it. I think it's a great story, Jeanine. Now you've been on the journey for some time. I think you've got some of the best experience out there. If there's one tip that you would give for people going on their B2B journey, what would it be?

The one tip that I would say is there's something called a strategy on a page concept. I love it. You've got to start with a strategy. You've got to start with where you're going. You've really got to paint the picture for people. But don't make that strategy on a page. The thing you stick in your drawer, it's living, it's breathing, it's gotta come out every time. And I think if you can keep that document alive, it's really the key to success. Cause it's your blueprint.

That's a great. Have you got an example you'd be able to post on the page and then I will send people to it?

Yeah. I don't think there's anything particularly sensitive in the strategy on a page that we've got. You'd be happy to share that.

Oh, I think that's fantastic. And that's really what we're trying to do in the Account Experience podcast. We're trying to open source some of the best practice in B2B customer experience, and I think that would be something you'd really be able to give to the community and all the listeners. Thank you so much for that, Janine. What a great way to end our podcast today. Adam Ramshaw from General Australia, thank you for joining us. Once again, thank you, Janine, for joining us. Really appreciate your time today. Catch you soon on the Account Experience podcast.