00:04
Ciaran
Hello and welcome to Customer Friendship Conversations, the show where we bring you the latest trends, tools, and insights into delivering customer experience as it’s meant to be. I’m Ciaran Nolan, and I lead relationship management for Dixa. We’re celebrating things here at Dixa today because on this episode, I’m talking to Benedikt Pines. He’s the customer experience lead at celebrate company. They are a business developing and producing digital services and stationery products that allow you to celebrate any special event, from a birthday to anniversary to having your first baby. Based out of Germany and operating across Europe, their mission is to turn meaningful moments into lasting memories. When it comes to a special day, you want to make sure everything goes right. That means that customer friendship is especially important for celebrate. So how do you manage to ensure that everyone has a customer experience worth celebrating?
00:53
Ciaran
Benedikt has all the answers. Benedikt. Welcome to Customer Friendship Conversations. Thank you very much for joining us.
01:03
Benedikt
Hi, Ciaran. Thank you very much for having me.
01:05
Ciaran
So, Benedikt, you’re joining us from the lovely city of Munich today. So why don’t you introduce yourself to our listeners and tell us a bit about you?
01:13
Benedikt
Of course. Yes, I’m in Munich and yeah, so my name is Benedikt. I’m with celebrate company for more than seven years now. Back then, I started as a loyal marketing manager. Four and a half years ago, I got the opportunity to change within the company into the service unit, and since then, I’m Head of Service and responsible for all the different brands we have at celebrate. And that’s what I do at celebrate, together with many colleagues. So we are, in total, more than 500 employees at celebrate so far.
01:45
Ciaran
And why don’t you tell us a little bit about celebrate? So I know a lot about you guys, having visited your wonderful offices and met a lot of your team, but why don’t you let our listeners know a little bit about celebrate and what you guys do as a company?
01:58
Benedikt
Actually, the mission of celebrate is turning meaningful moments into lasting memories. So that’s what we want to do and want to achieve. And we do this with a couple of brands which are part of the parent brand, celebrate. So it’s kartenmacherei in the German-speaking markets. It’s faireparterie and Rosemood especially in the French-speaking markets. So we are market leader for individualized and high-quality print products, especially for private events of our customers, wedding invitations, but also birth announcement cards. And we also, have during especially the Christmas season, sell a lot of photo products like photo books or photo calendars. So that is what we do. And we do this in, I would say, a very unique way compared to our competitors. So, as I mentioned, with a high quality approach, we always want to have the latest design trends in our cards, and it’s highly customizable by our customers.
02:58
Benedikt
The customers can choose the design, they can choose the paper, the format, they can add their own text, their own pictures, so what they want. So that in the end, it’s really a unique product customized by our customers.
03:11
Ciaran
Having seen a lot of your products – being very lucky to do so – I can definitely attest that they are very high quality and really lovely to look at. I particularly like the birth announcement cards. I thought they were really nice and a lovely tradition, it seems, in the market you’re working within. So, Benedikt, customer experience for a company that does customization – and customization really seems at the heart of what you do. What does that look like in your business? Like, what does your team sizes look like? How do you approach customer experience in celebrate?
03:44
Benedikt
So, when we are talking about the service unit, so in total, with all the different brands, we have about 120 employees who are working in the different parts of service. And when I talk about service, it’s not only customer service, it’s also order checking and it’s also design service. I would say we do a lot to ensure that the customer gets the perfect product. This means that the whole customer journey – of course, the customer customizes product, then he orders it and then we jump in and we take over. And this is done by the order checking team. And that’s something what we really celebrate distinguish between – to other brands. Because this is something we do in a very high quality, something we do for free and we do not charge it. So we take care that there’s no spelling mistake in the card, there’s no grammar mistake, that the picture looks good when we send it to the printing destination.
04:44
Benedikt
So this is done by order checking. And that’s something we do 50% manual and the other 50% are meanwhile automized. So we build our own AI and this is checking all the orders we have and improves it. And if there’s something wrong, then we send it to a human employee and the one is checking it and ensures that the customer gets the right and perfect product.
05:14
Ciaran
Yeah, a really excellent approach to customer experience because I know myself here in the UK, I’ve made purchases in the past and it’s arrived looking very much like how I’d like it not to look. So that is something I think is really admirable, but also something that you’ve, as a business, really approached as a differentiator which is really good to hear.
05:37
Benedikt
Absolutely. And to make it even better, then we also have the design service team. So that’s the second part and it’s also part of the, I would say, order checking process. But if there’s a customer, for example, who doesn’t find the right product in our shop, which is not that easy because we have more than 1 million possible combinations of paper, format, design, whatever. So then this team is there to help the customer and to individualize it even more. So for example, if there’s a color not offered in the shop the customer wants to have there we have a lot of graphists who change the color or change the design or whatever, that the customer in the end is happy and gets the product he or she wants. And that’s our approach to really deliver an exceptional product and not something which is where you just make some clicks and then it’s done.
06:26
Benedikt
So that’s not our approach.
06:28
Ciaran
It really shows to me that as a business, instead of just always being focused on the bottom line and financials, that if you make that investment upfront and ensure that your customers are always having a high level experience that you’re going to have return customers. And is that something that you as a business look at? Do you look at customers repurchasing? Do you look at customers’ feedback? And how do you track things like that to ensure that you’re doing all this amazing work in the middle which sometimes the customer might not even see, but then that results in obviously a very positive experience. How do you measure that?
07:05
Benedikt
So yeah, first of all, you’re totally right. So the customer doesn’t see what’s happening in the background, but that’s actually not, of course, on purpose. So for the customer it should be an effortless seamless experience. So he or she orders the card and then it’s delivered in the best possible way. So that’s the approach. You’re right and how do we measure it? So therefore we have a lot of different metrics we are using. So the classical one is the NPS, just to figure out what’s the feeling of the customer and are they willing to refer us to their friends and family, et cetera. And that’s something we do on a general perspective. So across different steps within the customer journey. So also at the checkout for example, or after delivery, but we also measuring a CSAT score if a customer gets in touch with service. So there we have every email in the next weeks, a month hopefully on the phone as well measuring a CSAT.
08:09
Benedikt
So how satisfied is the customer with the conversation he or she had with us? But next to that we are also looking into the customer effort score which is also very, very interesting metric from my point of view. And this is something we want to figure out and at least make some testings in the next month or so to see is there a correlation between a good score and the retention rate of our customers? Because what we figure out is definitely that the NPS is not a factor in terms of customer loyalty. So that’s completely disconnected, at least in our customer base. That’s why we want to test the customer effort score as well.
08:50
Ciaran
Why don’t you give us a little bit of a what is the customer effort score?
08:54
Benedikt
It’s a metric from one to five. So how easy it was to get your request solved or to see how effortless it was for the customer to get the problem solved or to get the consultant the customer wants to have. And the hypothesis behind the customer effort score is the more effortless it is for the customer, the higher the likelihood that the customer returns and will get in touch or will with the company again or at least will buy another product in the future as well. Of course, you can optimize a lot of parts within the customer journey to make it easier for the customer, in our case, to find the right design, the right product and to customize it. But also to get the answer on the request you have to the customer service team way faster and maybe also in a better quality.
09:47
Ciaran
I’m also a big fan of the customer effort score and I’m guessing it’s been some of the paperwork we’ve worked over and back on and some books I know are big on the customer reference score as well. So if any of our listeners are interested in learning more, just reach out to me directly and I’d be happy to send on some information around it because I, too, believe it’s a really good metric to keep track of. Because, I guess for you, Benedikt, as a business, this could be me making a complete assumption here, but you really do want returning customers, like every company. But you would have returning customers because maybe your customers get engaged, or maybe they buy their first house, then they get married, then they maybe have their first child, then they have birthdays, then they have those kids that they had. They get married.
10:34
Ciaran
And you’re obviously at every important point or could be at every important point in a family’s life.
10:43
Benedikt
Yeah, exactly. So that’s definitely the overall and the long-term goal to make the customers as loyal as possible. When I look back in the past, we are always very good in acquiring new customers, but we always struggled a little bit in retaining them and bringing them from one personal event to the next one. And, therefore, we internally improved our way. We are structured, we hired a CRM manager and we improved the whole business about retaining customers. And this is something we do of course from a marketing perspective, but also on a product perspective because not everyone who marries will have a child one or two years later. So it’s always a small percentage of people who are having this. It’s more that we want to brighten our portfolio, the product portfolio and that’s why we also are looking deep into photobooks for example, which is something which is high.
11:43
Benedikt
Retaining makes the customer really loyal if you do it right. And there of course we also want to distinguish offering not just the simple photo book, it should also be with the same approach with a high quality, very easy customizable and that’s if we do this, then of course I’m pretty optimistic then we will also have more loyal customers in the future.
12:08
Ciaran
And this is something here at Dixa we’re really seeing in the market and our direct consumer customer base is: there’s an even deeper understanding now that acquiring a customer is a lot harder than maintaining the customer. But also acquiring a customer costs a lot more than having to retain the customer. So it’s just smart business. So I think as we’re moving away from the growth at all costs type approach that businesses looked at, we’re personally and even me in the SaaS industry, we’re seeing that retaining and growing customers comes at a lower cost. And when we look at key metrics like customer acquisition, cost cap maintaining, that is something that a lot of businesses are hyper, hyper focused on, which is obviously excellent. You mentioned earlier you moved from marketing into customer experience. What was the similar roles? What was there that made you want to make that move?
13:02
Ciaran
Having – knowing you now for – I think I’ve known you for close to two years, now. You are definitely one of our most data-literate customers, with a huge focus on data but also a huge focus on experience. What led you to go from marketing to customer experience?
13:18
Benedikt
It’s not a completely different area of expertise. I think it’s very strong, heavily connected, so marketing and also customer experience and the whole customer service area. So of course it was a change I always was fascinated about. To fulfill the needs and wants of the customers, to make them happy. And back then I got the opportunity to, as I said, to switch into the service team. Yeah, it was also quite challenging time at the end of 2018 and especially in the beginning of 2019 when I make the switch. Because, back then, to be honest, service was more the fifth wheel in the company. And then we had a really bad Christmas season. So you have to know Christmas and the whole holiday season is a very important one for us because we sell a lot of Christmas cards, a lot of photo products and a lot of things went wrong at that time.
14:16
Benedikt
So we had many delays in the production. We had a huge backlog in the service team because of that and it was a disaster to be honest. But on the other hand, it was kind of a tipping point within the company because, at this time, we had a backlog of 2,000, 3,000 mails – what was, at this time, quite a lot. Today we wouldn’t worry about it, but back then it was really huge and everyone in the company switched to the service team for two weeks before Christmas and tries to support everyone who was able to speak German. And this was a time when everyone recognized, “OK” – how important service actually is for the company and especially for the customer, because, as a customer, the service rep is the most important person in the whole company because that’s the one who is resolving your issue or your request.
15:13
Benedikt
And that was something what was experienced by many people back then and that was the beginning of the change of the mindset within the whole company to see how important service is. And that was great. And I saw this personally as also an opportunity to try to support this change within the company and to change the whole service approach for the better in the end. And that was very challenging and quite interesting the more you dive into the whole service or a customer experience topic because there are so many opportunities and it makes fun. That was why I changed.
15:51
Ciaran
And I’m guessing you mentioned a period there that was quite challenging and that seemed to be a real turning point for the business. What would you say is unique in customer experience in an organization that specializes in celebrating and gifting? Because I’m guessing it’s pretty emotional. I’d imagine what the people are ordering – they are more emotional purchases than buying a generic birthday card in a high street store or train station. And, as well as that, I guess sometimes maybe you’re messaging directly to the recipient on behalf of somebody else. What unique things do you have to factor in there?
16:26
Benedikt
It’s the product itself, so it’s emotional and it’s also kind of very sensitive in some points. So you have a lot of happy moments, like a wedding, you have a happy moment when there’s a newborn and you want to celebrate. The downside is also to have very sad moments. So we are thinking about the whole mourning category we also have in our portfolio. So this means that people who are very sad – so, get in touch with us and want to have a product because a loved one dies. And this means that we really have to be empathic, that we really try to make a very easy and seamless experience for the customer because everything what the customer doesn’t want at this point is to have trouble or whatever. So we need to really deliver and to be as supportive as possible. And that’s, I think, what is very unique in our industry and this is also why we have a very strong team behind, that is dealing with all these challenges every day and switching from positive to negative feelings.
17:38
Benedikt
So that’s, I would say, quite challenging. Absolutely, yes.
17:41
Ciaran
Super, super interesting. Benedikt, and out of interest, how do you support and prepare your team to have those difficult conversations or those conversations that maybe they’d rather not have but are super important to have?
17:55
Benedikt
So to make it even better, we just have done a reorganization within the teams to support this even more. So in the past we always had a couple of people who were dealing with trainings and coachings next to their daily business stuff in their customer service job, which they have every day. And we’ve seen that the focus was not big enough on this topic, so we wanted to improve it. And that’s why we builded a separate quality team within the service unit which now takes care of especially these things to figure out. So what do we need for which target group, for which kind of customer? And also to provide training sessions, training on the job, things like that. But there to be honest, we are right in the beginning to really have this, how we call it internally. So this enabling team which is dealing with internal coaching, but also with other stuff like setting up the whole knowledge base, also to provide all the information to everyone at the right time when the information is needed, and a lot of other different things.
19:07
Benedikt
So, for us internally, it was a huge step to have some people who are really focusing on improving the way we communicate with the customer and also to improve the way we do service.
19:18
Ciaran
Yeah, I love that. And I think for our listeners, I would definitely recommend checking out any of our podcasts around pet care. They’re organizations that really are also having to really lead and adopt empathy in difficult times for pet owners, for example. So it’s something that personally I didn’t really think of when I was working with a lot of these customers until it was brought to my attention. So this is super interesting. Benedikt, you mentioned that you’re organizing your team, your knowledge base, your quality assurance. There’s tons going on there at celebrate, as always, and that kind of leads me to a natural question: how did you come about partnering with Dixa?
19:56
Benedikt
Yeah, we are partnering with Dixa now for two and a half years. And back then we had many tools and to be honest, we had not the best tools at this time. And we have nearly one tool for every channel. And, next to that, we have our own shop system, our order checking tool. So it was quite overwhelming for everyone who was dealing with a service job within celebrate. So that was the reason why we looked for a tool which combines all the different channels we have and where we want to communicate with our customers. And of course a kind of software where we have, also, transparency about all the data because data for us is very important to be able to optimize and to develop our service, as I mentioned before. So that were the two main reasons why we wanted to change something.
20:50
Benedikt
And then we had a look at the whole market. So we talked to a lot of competitors of Dixa back then, and everyone we had a demo with – nearly everyone – and everyone said, “OK, that’s our tool, so it works. And now, here, you can sign”. So that was the approach of the others – and, with Dixa, it was completely the opposite. Dixa, we had to wait a long time to see the first demo in Dixa, but this was on purpose because Dixa started to really – in the beginning – to understand our business, understand our needs and processes. And after asking a lot of questions and handing over a lot of information to Dixa came up with the first demo. And then they really showed how their tool would work with our needs. So based on our needs – and that was really impressive and that was one of the main reasons why we chose, in the end, Dixa – because we like the approach, we like the mindset of how the people thinking and working at Dixa and, for us at least, it’s really a good fit.
21:59
Ciaran
And really interesting to hear about the amount of information that Dixa may have asked for upfront. But as you say, that is, from our side, very purposeful. We do not want to be seen in the market as just another player. If we can understand our customer and understand what they’re looking to achieve, it helps us to rule. Like, “OK, we’re the best partner for this”, or actually, “We might not be the right partner for what you’re looking to do, but perhaps, maybe we can help you change your approach to get the results that XYZ customer are getting”. Or perhaps, “Maybe it’s just not right for us right now because nobody wants to be in a situation where things aren’t working out”. So really good to hear how you came to partner with us, which is great. And from a perspective of I know that you are an individual as well as your own team and your executives who are very much at the cutting edge of what’s happening in the market, what’s happening in the world.
22:52
Ciaran
So what’s next for customer experience at celebrate?
22:55
Benedikt
So in the beginning, I told you that we have a lot of different brands within celebrate company and one still pretty new brand is Rosemood. So we acquired Rosemood. It was one of our biggest competitors – especially in France. So in the beginning of last year, and currently we are still in the integration phase of Rosemood to connect it with all the things we already had at kartenmacherei and in faireparterie – especially in France. And so this means that we want to build a unique and a service unit within celebrate so that we have an aligned tool set, that we have aligned processes, that we also have the possibility to be more flexible, being more scalable with combining all the different teams to one unique service unit. And that’s our main goal we are working on currently. And we are quite convinced that if we manage to do this, then we would be able to scale and improve quality at the same time.
23:59
Benedikt
Because a lot of people say, “Hey, that doesn’t work”, being more efficient and also, at the same time, have a higher quality. But we are quite confident that we’re able to make this happen because we have so many good people and we just need to combine them even more. And then we can jump between different brands, we can ensure a higher availability, better response times, because we have then a big pool of people who are able to support where we need them and where we can add the biggest value to the customer. That’s what we are working on and therefore we need to at first align, as I said, the tools and processes. But that’s very important to keep the individual brand’s identity for the customers because also Rosemood and faireparterie in France, for example, is known in a different way or has different brand values, so to say.
24:56
Ciaran
And what challenges do you see – foresee I should say – in maintaining that same level of customer experiences? Because, you’ve said, you know, people who might doubt might say, “Well, it’s going to be hard to do that”, but you’re confident that you can. So how are you planning for that and what challenges do you plan to overcome?
25:14
Benedikt
Yeah, it’s also part of the reorganization I talked about. So really to have a clear focus. So what we’ve learned in the past always was the goal to give everyone in the team the possibility to work on projects or to develop things. And we figured out that this makes things sometimes more complicated because when the workload is high, we always had a lack of capacity in terms of working on the developing topics. And so that was the reason, or one reason why we introduced a new structure and building a dedicated team who will now really take care of it. And I’m quite confident that we are having a clear focus within the team, increasing step by step the quality within. The teams learn from each other. So that’s also very important because we have, in all the different brands and teams we currently have, we have so much experience about the last years and to get it sorted and to work with it and then learn out of it and share this within the unit, so that’s, I think, the base for all the improvements we want to have.
26:26
Ciaran
What recent industry trends are you most excited about at celebrate? There’s a lot happening. What are you excited about adopting in the business?
26:33
Benedikt
So AI is everywhere at the moment, so that’s also a huge trend for us. We are looking in also together with Dixa. So that’s something what we can use and will use in the future even more in our order checking process, which I described in the beginning. That’s for sure. Then we can – we’ll be able to even automate more or higher the whole order checking process to make it more accurate and to increase the quality as well. But also, that’s why I think we are able to increase efficiency as well – by keeping or increasing quality at the same time, because I totally convinced that we need the people we have on board in the future as well. But we can use AI to support them and to make things even easier and to provide a better customer experience in the end so that everyone is – yes, have the best tools at hand and have got the best technical support we can offer to everyone in the team and, in the end, to the customer.
27:34
Benedikt
And that’s what counts.
27:36
Ciaran
So we’re on to our quickfire questions. We have three questions and I might throw in a fourth. Benedikt, what do you know now that you wish you’d known at the start of your customer experience journey?
27:49
Benedikt
Yeah, several things pop into my mind. So first of all, I would love to read the book – one book – earlier. So it’s called The Effortless Experience. One of the co-authors was Matt Dixon. So this was, from my point of view – I just read it two years ago and if I would’ve read it four years ago, everything would have been easier from my point of view because it’s a perfect description where you should focus on how you can implement things and that really helps. The other thing is to know more about leadership and about, especially, change management. Everything you change, it can be a simple process, but it can be a whole new tool which you implement or you can reorganize – organize – your whole team structure. It’s all about change and knowing what change means for people. So the colleagues you have in the team, so that’s very important to take them with you on the journey, to communicate a lot and as much as possible.
28:53
Benedikt
And there we make some experience – bad ones, but also very good ones and we learn off of that and so we will hopefully – can do things better in the future.
29:05
Ciaran
How do you measure the success of customer experience at celebrate and customer friendships at celebrate?
29:11
Benedikt
Yeah, like I said, it’s NPS and the CSAT customer satisfaction score. So the two main metrics, but also the customer lifetime value. So that’s very important for us to look at this on a regular basis to see if we improve and are able to increase the customer lifetime value of our customers.
29:33
Ciaran
Given that you’re so good at exceptional customer experience, what is your number one tips for companies and organizations to get to as good as you are?
29:44
Benedikt
Take care of the people. I think if you, as an organization, take care of your team, of your employees, then I’m absolutely sure that they will take care of the customers – of your customers. Yeah. Take them with you on the journey. Ask the team for their needs, for their wishes, listen to the feedback and act on it. And so I think that’s absolutely the baseline to have a good team and in the end to have a really great customer service experience.
30:16
Ciaran
And my final question – and this is a bit of a joke, but I’ll also give a bit of context afterwards for our listeners: does Oktoberfest happen in September or October?
30:27
Benedikt
So it starts in September and ends in the beginning of October, so that’s… always confuses people.
30:37
Ciaran
And the reason Benedikt’s laughing is because their office – your office – is very nicely situated for Oktoberfest. And I was having the great pleasure of visiting Benedikt in Munich last year, and my hotel was super expensive and I was like, “This is really weird. This is not an expensive hotel chain. Like, I don’t really get this”. So anyway, I land. My hotel, I’m like, “What is all this noise? Like, what’s going on?” And it was Oktoberfest. But me being a very, very, very pragmatic thinker and very – boxing things – was like, “Oktoberfest happens in October, not September”. So that was a big learning I had from working with celebrate as well. And are you going to Oktoberfest this year, Benedikt?
31:23
Benedikt
Yeah, of course. So I’m not the heavy user of Oktoberfest, but I like to walk around a little bit.
31:35
Ciaran
Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Customer Friendship Conversations. It was an absolute pleasure to have you. You’re always so insightful, so knowledgeable, always data-driven and always measured. So thank you very much for joining us and I’m looking forward to catching up with you again soon.
31:51
Benedikt
Thank you very much, Ciaran. It was a pleasure for me as well.
31:55
Ciaran
Thanks for listening to today’s episode of Customer Friendship Conversations. If you’ve enjoyed the show, then make sure you’re following us on your podcast platform of choice. It means that you’ll get notified each time we release a new episode, so you won’t miss out on any of the other amazing customer friendship heroes we’ll be showcasing in the coming months. Of course, a rating or review is a huge help to the show, so we always massively appreciate those as well. And if you’re interested in learning more about Customer Friendship, then head to Dixa.com to discover everything you wanted to know about customer experience as it’s meant to be. I’m Ciaran Nolan and another huge “Thank you” to Benedikt for giving us an episode worth celebrating. See you soon.