Imagine owning and managing a diverse portfolio of commercial properties. Those spanning office, laboratory, retail and coworking spaces. Just as the Covid pandemic hits, it brings with it the greatest change in working practices for decades. This includes working properties being hit hard.
How would you ensure that your core offerings remain relevant? How do you ensure you make the right investments to support the future of hybrid working?
These were the challenges faced by Bruntwood, one of the UK’s leading providers of commercial workspaces. Their Voice of the Customer (VoC) Programme won the Gold Award at UK CXA 22 for the best use of customer insight and feedback.
Its answer was to:
- Create a customer centric voice of the customer programme
- Invest in the right technology platforms to collect, collate, and analyse insights from a diverse range of users through a wide range of channels
- Act intentionally on customer feedback through a structured employee engagement programme
- Set clear improvement targets and objectively measure results against these targets
- Evolve its voice of the customer programme to engage customers in future business transformation projects
Creating a customer centric VoC programme
Bruntwood had always considered itself to be a customer-focused organisation. However, the role of work offices in people’s lives had changed forever. A new, more effective way of collecting customer feedback had become a business imperative.
With such a diverse customer base, Bruntwood set out to build an innovative, accessible voice of customer programme. The insights gained at each stage of the programme would be delivered at two strategic levels:
- To enable the business to understand and meet the current and future needs of existing and prospective customers
- To develop a continuous improvement culture to continually raise the level of customer satisfaction
Bruntwood built its new VoC programme from the ground up in four stages:
Delivering a winning VoC programme
A winning VoC programme requires more than the correct technical set-up and an ongoing development plan. It also needs employee engagement at all levels of the business to shape and sustain it.
“Our people have a huge amount of knowledge. The success of our programme doesn’t just lie with having tailored surveys but also how our teams use customer insights to drive improved performance. That’s why we undertook a large-scale engagement approach which saw colleagues from across the eight stages of the customer journey come together to share their thoughts on how we could create the programme.”
– Sophie Dakin, Bruntwood’s VoC Lead
Bruntwood used visualisation boards to capture best practice survey examples before building their own storyboards with internal teams – using business drivers to fill in the required content. Finally, the teams agreed on how insights would be reported and used across the business and which customer centric measures would be tracked to evaluate success.
This early engagement approach ensured that Bruntwood’s CX team could be confident at the outset. Colleagues and leaders would not only engage with the VoC programme, but use the insights gained to drive continuous improvements in customer satisfaction.
The other critical component for a successful VoC programme is of course customer engagement. Bruntwood’s property portfolio is diverse spanning scientific laboratories, offices, retail premises and co-working spaces.
Setting an omnichannel approach to collecting customer insights
Its customer base also reflects this diversity. Paying customers can range from freelancers renting meeting spaces, to large corporates with long term leases.
There are over 50,000 individuals using Bruntwood properties, each with different needs. To reach all of these users, Bruntwood adopted a multi-dimensional, omni-channel approach to collecting customer insights.
Surveys were built to obtain customer feedback using email, QR codes, CATI, digital channels and in-person meetings. The surveys themselves are also tailored to the intended recipient – specifically, whether the respondent is a key decision-maker or a building user.
Finally, customer feedback is fully integrated into Bruntwood’s CRM system so that employees can run reports and see insights. The new omnichannel approach with purpose-driven questions connected to business improvement programmes. This resulted in both increased survey response rates and a wider spectrum of insights.
Measures of success
Bruntwood broke its customer journey down into eight distinct stages that cover a complex B2B relationship. This lasts, on average, seven and half years – generating over £75,000 during this timeframe.
For each journey stage bespoke, omnichannel surveys were developed targeting both decision-makers and users. The surveys were designed to gather both qualitative and quantitative data.
At each journey stage both a primary and a secondary KPI were set as shown in the schematic below:
The results have so far exceeded expectations.
Firstly, survey response rates have been between 17% and 30% (versus a target of 15%). Additionally, 75% of survey responses have included meaningful and actionable verbatims.
Secondly, CSAT, CES and NPS scores have all recorded above target scores and compare favourably with industry averages.
Building on success
Bruntwood’s Voice of the Customer Programme won the Gold Award at UK CXA 22 for the best use of customer insight and feedback. For the first time in Bruntwood’s history it now has robust CX metrics, and continuing improvements in customer and employee experience over a sustained period of time.
Importantly, the customer insights team is now viewed as a critical business function with a direct involvement in strategy. Moreover, almost all Bruntwood employees now have at least one CX based objective and colleagues proactively seek out customer feedback to drive further improvements. However, Hayley Molloy and her Customer Experience Team are not resting on their laurels.
The Bruntwood leadership team have recently signed off on a 2-year plan that includes these exciting new developments:
- CX insights management across all transformation projects
- CX VoC by segment, by preference and by individual needs
- Proactive consultation and prioritisation of research topics and activity (both delivered internally and via external partners)
- Strategic customer forums to engage with customers at key stages of transformation projects
Bruntwood recognise that the VoC programme must continually evolve to capture deeper insights. The programme must use emerging technologies in the most effective way.