Passion and Proving the Numbers Are Key to Beyon’s CX Success

Zacher, what's been the secret to your success at Beyond?

Well, Adam, patience and passion.

Hello, I'm Adam Durrell and I'm the host of the Account Experience podcast. And you'll feel a regular at the Account Experience Podcast. You'll know that in every episode I like to catch up with inspiring industry leaders or thinkers who then get to share their best practice on how to develop your own account experience and customer experience program. And you know, I'm always curious to see customer experience varies around the world. This diversity helps global program managers to understand the subtleties of how local experiences compare with regional, the global perspective. And if, like me, you're a fan of this sort of thing, you'll really enjoy the different voices that we bring to you on these podcasts. And especially today, it's no exception. Today's company is Beyond. It's a technology group that's been born in Bahrain and its name, I guess, describes how it reaches out to the region and beyond. You see what they did with the name there and they've been a customer case client for many years. We'll get to the company in a moment because today I welcome Zahra Eid, who's the Customer Experience Manager at Beyond. She's got such a wealth of experience in driving customer satisfaction growth and also long term customer relationships. And I've had the pleasure of working with her for several years. And my experience with Zafra is that she's really good in the way that she works across functions and that's a best skill, by the way, and winning the collaboration. So I think we're in for a treat today. Welcome Zahra, how are you today?

Fine, I'm good. How are you, Adam?

Oh, I'm feeling really good and delighted that we've been able to catch up after all this time. Zara, as I said, I've been following you for some time here and I've noticed the way that you are able to get companies, the various departments in your company to collaborate with each other. Like I said, I think it's a rare skill. So I'm going to try and dive into that today. But first I'd love to hear about your background. Can you tell us about yourself?

Yeah, sure. First of all, thank you, Adam, for introducing me for a very lovely introduction. Just to give a very brief intro about my background. I started my career and research with one of the research powerhouses, which is Thomson Reuters. I spent six years of my career knowledge within the company, which opened my enthusiasm towards all types of research. I dig deep more into project management in my academic field by gaining my Master's from City University of London in project management, finance and risk. I believe that the combination of the education that I get, the experience that I had in the research field as well as the genuine passion for enhancing the customer experience landed me in this role in Bitelco first, which is now known as Beyond Company. I started my career with Bichelco in the telecommunication domain where I've been joined the company as a customer experience research professional in order to transform the journey of how the company using their program in customer experience in 2020 and moving forward until today 2024 in a very transformative and digital journey I would say which I believe that in support of what the company was aiming to go forward, as you mentioned, beyond the scope, they're able together to get the program from where it was in its traditional form to where it is today and it's a very digital and interactive model.

Well, we'll pick up on those details. Firstly first of all thanks for the introduction to understand that and to tell us about your research background. But now perhaps you can introduce a little bit about beyond for people tell us, you know, can you characterize the services that it offers and the size of the organization?

Yes, sure. So the company started as a traditional telecommunication company and with the hype of all of the mergers and acquisition worldwide as well as the hype that's going with all the telecommunication company to become a digital provider which is obvious as we have a very, I would say deep understanding of customers and a very, very high volume of data which is the rare coin today. So the company decided to expand their businesses to other customers and beyond even the country as just to let the listeners to know that the telco company was operating only in Bahrain with some outbound international investments in other countries, we started to first out roll out some models from Batelco to be like a separate vertical. First of all we divided the Telecommunication which becomes as Patelco Telecommunications and then we have three international operations which are the international OPCOs and investments and then we started going beyond the current vertical which is the telecommunication which is one we started the beyond money. Within the financial vertical we have the beyond cyber. Within the cyber business we have the Bio solutions which provide ICT solutions and digital tech savvy solutions. And the last one which has joined in the new establishment which is BioConnect. It is a very unique business model that will provide like a digital identity and digital storage as well as the digital box.

That's it. That's really interesting. I mean, you know, I've worked with telco companies for many years and I think they've often been struggling certainly in recent years to break away from the sort of the commodity of just selling minutes or SMSs. But that's an amazing and very diverse portfolio the company's coming up with. Really in the digital realm.

Yeah, it's indeed like in my role now for four years, I feel the difference from where we are and where we are today, even among the population, among the community, the society, you would feel the difference that Vitelco has brought into the market as the first company taking initiative to more from a traditional telco to a transformative digital provider.

I think it's really interesting. The change of name I guess was really part of that to Bion, you know, going for this, I really like that. So why don't we dive a little bit deeper into this? Now I'm going to ask you how, what is the importance of a customer experience in the value proposition of beyond and is it the same in every vertical that you deal with or tell us a little bit about how you characterize the objectives that you're aiming at?

Yes. So first of all, as I'm sitting at the corporate level, at the Beyond Growth and no longer in just one vertical, which is Bitelco, so the ultimate goal of the customer experience program in beyond is to create value for both the customers and the company itself by delivering an outstanding experience that drive customer satisfaction, loyalty and business growth. It's all about creating positive and memorable experiences for all our customers through their interactions with all the company's touchpoints. Being with a telecom provider or with a financial provider or with a B2B providers such as in Bio, Cyber Solutions and Connect, we managed to closely look at the customer satisfaction across all of that verticals as well as we are considering it as a key KPI for our non financial performance which is reported to the management and reported to the board as part of our company's bonus KPIs. So we are taking it very seriously at all levels and how do you see?

So let's talk a little bit about that evolution. So let's go the way that you've transformed this because I remember when we first started working it was well, SMS is going out to customers and now it's a much more digital framework that you're looking at. So how has your sense of experience changed over that period of time?

Yeah, so this is a bit of a lengthy, I would say story in mine in this aspect. Since I joined the company from I would say a research and advisory environment. It was very difficult to me to click in with many stakeholders who spent their life, mostly 14, 15 years within the telecommunications sectors and in the same framework. So the first thing that I struggled with is the stakeholders and management buy in, which was really where we worked on it roughly for one year, one long year to reach to a stage that just to convince the management to move out from a traditional research platform that tackles really a very small sample from the population without any actioning when we get the responses. So first of all, we spent one long year just to analyze the current situation where I handed over the program on a very traditional market research platform and then trying to suggest to the management the new framework which is utilizing the digital platforms in order to have a wider reach to our customer base, to have a wider reach to our verticals being it B2C and B2B and not only to consider this program as a numeric value or a reporting matrix rather than we should consider it and transform it to a program that consider continuous improvements, a change management and impact to our customers to really increase our satisfaction in a real world rather than a metric and a numeric value. And therefore we started looking for new technologies where we come across the borders to partner with customer, engage and utilize the technology in order to approach the customer's nag, to collect the feedback, to analyze the feedback and to action it at the end and provide actionable insights to the management. And just to get back to the way that you've mentioned, when we started our digital journey, we started it in a very, I would say, niche kind of implementation where we have to get back again to collect the feedback through SMSs, which we struggle also a lot because in our population the mindset was another struggle to us. Our community are not used to responding to surveys and they are not used to receive the communication anymore through SMSs, which is mostly now we are depending on WhatsApp or like in a very speedy interaction by the customers within the touchpoint. So we shifted, we started with SMSs and emails to our B2C and B2B customers. And then we gradually and smoothly moved from one mode of interaction to a better mode of interaction. And we are still making some enhancements year on year. We started with SMS and emails and now we are able to collect feedback instantly from the customers whenever they are interacting with a specific touch point. So just an example that if you are visiting today any shops, any Batelco shops in all across Bahrain, whenever you are visiting the branch, you would receive A thank you message within it. We would ask you instantly to evaluate the shop experience, to evaluate the interaction with the staff as well as to give the customer the chance to write to their feedback, which we are getting a lot of insights afterwards whenever we are receiving the feedbacks in terms of analyzing it in terms of action against, in terms of closing the loops or calling back the customers. If you really feel unsatisfied or unhappy.

I'm going to drill into that a little bit more. I love this story. Okay, so we've touched on here the technology. I think technology is less important in many ways than how you do the change process. So I'm going to pick up on something you said. So you said when you started out there, you know, they had research in the business and you brought in this concept of really doing something with the feedback and actually taking actions on it. In my experience that's really a hard culture shift to do in a business, especially in a telco. So how did you manage to persuade people to come to the hey, we need to get back to customers, we need to involve them in this and take actions on it. What did you do?

Yeah, sure. So at first when I get hold of the program I get to analyze all of the reports that were generated by the random market research which is surveying random population without even knowing and having a real interaction with the customers or knowing the background of the customer or any interaction that happened that leads him to share such feedback. And I provided a conclusion saying that without knowing who is this customer and what such customer is like expecting from us, we would never benefit from such information. And then I recommended to listen to the call nugs as well as to read some of our social media responses as well as reading some of our live chat as well interaction. And we've noticed a lot of customers asking about why about like we never get feedback from you, we always responding to some generic research but we never get our complaints being closed. We know it's very difficult to approach you, it's very difficult to reach to the company and to let our voice being heard. So we also listen to many call labs that we feel like this staff are struggling to I would say translating the information to the customer and being able to provide such positive experience. And therefore we come up with like many sessions to all of high level management. So we set workshops with the TMT and senior management team as well to improve to them how if we take small sample and action it how it would improve, let's say number of calls targeting the same call reason or how it would impact, for example, the number of interactions within the live chat. And by then it was easier for us to cascade it down. And by that we are able to come up with a whole framework that suggests to the management to have a CX champions across all functions. So currently I'm sitting on the corporate level and There are some CX champions sitting on the B2C on the B2B and all other verticals.

That's a really good answer, but let me just see. I'm going to play it back to you to make sure I got this. So what you're saying is, is that it was about bringing that voice of customer into the business at the higher levels as well, but also highlighting, look, the customers are saying they're never hearing from us. So I'm guessing that that initiated the actions going back there. And then finally you were able to show by doing small actions where you could improve efficiencies and better customer experience as you went through. I think that's a really good virtuous circle. Did I get that right?

Yes, that's right.

You should feel real, really proud of that. Like I said, this is your superpower about bringing in different departments and working with each other. But when you break it down like that, it seems very simple. But I think maybe that's your project management background that allowed you to do it.

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This is so that's really good. I really understand about how you manage to get people to overcome their fear. Fear of feedback. But can we drill into some of the other things that you learned about it? Were there any particular things that you learned from your customer experience that made a change that you're really proud of in the business?

Let me think about it. Yeah. So there are many success stories, to be honest. Once we started the customer experience program in its new form, just I would consider two examples that I want to shed light on because they really made a very positive transformation in the business. So with the transformation and the announcement of the new branding to the company, which is beyond which happened in 2022, by end of 2022, in the internal setup, I would say it was very proud moment for me to see that one of the key initiatives and key slogans for the company is deliver beyond excellence and deliver beyond excellence. It's exactly touching the base of the customer experience. So we have always to deliver beyond our excellence to attract our customers and to please our customers. And I delivered many several workshops in alignment with HBAR initiatives just to let all of the employees within the company understand well how we are doing and handling and managing the customer experience program internally and how we are encouraging all of this stuff across the company, not only the frontliners, to always deliver beyond excellence. So this was from internal setup, from external setup for long years the tra, which is the telecommunication provider, it was there in the business. However, we never seen any research coming from a regulator side shedding the light on customer experience. Just in 2023, last year they have issued a dedicated report touching based on the customer experience, which is a comparative analysis of all of the providers within the country, which are just the three providers. And it was very proud moment to us to be named as the best CX provider in the telecommunication domain in Bahfran. And we created a very huge marketing out of home campaign advertising that petelco got the first place and named as the best CX telecom provider into the country.

Congratulations. I didn't even know that. I'm proud that we're part of that. That's great. But congratulations to you for doing that. By the way. I see the way that you run your program and I have the benefit of looking across many hundreds of programs and I can definitely say that yours is one of the best run programs I've seen. So I can really attest to that. And to be honest, I also think beyond customers must also be Lucky because to have such a great management on that. Well, let's just go a little bit. I'm just going to talk a little bit about process now. You've got this great background in research and project management so I'm getting you in the area of giving tips to people at the moment. So how do you make sure that your program runs really efficiently? Is there anything you can pass on to other CX managers out there?

Just be passionate. I would say being passionate and being that kind. I would say having a very hard skills in project management really would help you to run the business in a smooth manner. For me, handling the program as I mentioned from corporate level with a hand of support in each department makes my program move faster and makes it also being recognized from the management in a more appreciative manner. So always make sure to have this stakeholders and management buy in. Make sure to deliver the key matrix to the management that attracts them at first because as you know management are always talks numbers. So if you were able to provide this flourishing locks of the matrix then you would be attracting them to dig deep more into the program and expanding it across the company. So by that I was able to expand the program within the company to have its roots across all of the departments from like having great support from our IT which requires a lot of integrations with many source systems to collect the feedback, to analyze the feedback, to visualize the feedback as well as from our operational department to make sure that all our customers are being heard, being listened to and analyzing such feedback as well from different perspectives and from different angles also help us to flourish this program.

Yeah, so I think you were very modest at the beginning of that. You said yes, I'm. It's passion that counts by the way. I think it's really important. But it is in my opinion your ability to really take the numbers and present them to upper management. I think that really helps get your program taken seriously. I think that's the lesson for other customer experience people is passion alone won't do it. You've got to know your metrics and you've got to be able to say if we do this, I believe this will happen. Let's test it and then come back and do it. And I think that's what I really see in your program which is as I said, it's quite rare. The evidence that shows how you've been improving your customer experience. Let's think about a little bit in the future now. So where is your program going? You say you're on this Transformation path of business has gone from just being a telco to having many strands of it. So how is your program going to keep track of that and go forward?

Yes, that's really an interesting question because this was the main objective that we were really looking forward for 2024, as long as we have a very stable program. So far from collecting feedback, from analyzing feedbacks, from closing the loop as well. Now we are working to move the program to further steps, I would say from just an actionable kind of a program to a return on investments customer experience driven program. And why am I saying that? In the last two years, after we have a stable environment and stable setup internally we have been targeting the key pillars of the programs which are the high revenue generating and the very high wealthy, I would say accounts with us. So we started with a segment called Adana, which is the VIB and the high wealth network customers. And so this was as you mentioned, the testing stage. So we prepared a very detailed dashboard to the same team where it was making it to us a real model on how to run the customer experience and the transformat from an actionable kind of operational setup to return on investment setup whereby we have looked some customers, they are struggling with their for example product threshold or their product lines and we consider such opportunities as a cross sell upsell initiatives.

Yeah.

At the same time, on an overall scope, as we have talked previously, most of our respondents, I would say 70% of them are promoters. So we were thinking of the second objectives of the ROI initiative this year is to utilize the customer experience in reducing cost, which is reducing the acquisition cost. And how we would go through this is by utilizing the 70% of our respondents who are promoters and referrals programs.

Yes.

By that we would be able to support two objectives of the company which is cutting cost and generating revenues. And this is the aim for us to be honest in 2024.

Wow, beautifully articulated. And it's really interesting to see how you've segmented your customer base. And I'm guessing you probably might want to have different maybe customer experiences from them, but using those promoters. By the way, I love that because so many programs start out as what I call detractor avoidance, which is kind of negative, but really when you shift it to using promoters to bring people in, that's great. And it really feeds into Fred Reichel's story of the earned growth customer. So I really love that. That's really. Well, what a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Look Zara, before we leave, we always like to get a Couple of other things. Can you give one or two tips or people in your position who are running a program? You said before about passion. So is there anything else that you can pass on to somebody who's in your position?

Yes, sure. So first of all, in order to run your customer experience program very smoothly, very efficiently, you have to manage your relationships internally.

Yes, you do.

So I manage a very close relationship with all the support members internally from it, from products, from even operational lines. I wouldn't say like a very friendly kind of relationship, but I really manage it well in terms that I don't let them feel overwhelmed because as you are progress with the program, you would need a huge support from the technology team and a huge support from the close lead teams. So this is the first tip I would say is to maintain your relationship internally. And my second tip is that always be passionate. As I mentioned, read a lot of how the customer experience is improving very high tech savvy companies in the best customer experience companies and trying always to bridge the gaps internally. Don't be shy to highlight the gaps to the management team and to bring up some solutions that would definitely even if you feel that at the first sight you will have that look of are you serious or this is not in our agenda. By time you will get the buy in and be patient.

That's some great tips to pass on. I'm going to close it there, Zakhar, by thanking you for sharing so many great tips to people in your shoes. But also what an interesting story that we have. It's not often that we hear customer experience stories from the Middle East. I love to hear this and I wish you every success in your program and with beyond. I love the way that they're pulling customer experience as part of it and I'm certain you're going to keep succeeding. So thank you so much and thanks for being on the journey with us here today.

Thank you so much, Adam for having me today. I really enjoyed the podcast and I hope that my story will be an inspiring story and empowering all the women within the CX field.

I hope so too. Thanks.

Thank you.