Bugaboo

About Bugaboo

 

Bugaboo is a Dutch mobility company headquartered in Amsterdam with offices around the globe. Founded in 1999 by designer Max Barenbrug and physician Eduard Zanen, Bugaboo is a premium brand in strollers and pushchairs known for innovation and cutting-edge design. The company’s aim is to provide products that inspire people to get out and explore the world. 

 

The Challenge

 

As a premium brand, Bugaboo aims to deliver complete satisfaction to its customers, even when contacting customer services to ask a question or report a fault. Bugaboo had recently implemented a dashboard that provided a closed feedback loop for product performance issues relating to repairs servicing. This had delivered improvements in customer service, as well as influencing product design and engineering.

The experience had made Dirk Westdijk, Global Customer Services Manager at Bugaboo realize that more could be achieved if this closed loop approach could also incorporate feedback from customers on what they were thinking and feeling after having had direct contact with Bugaboo. He explained: “I realized what we wanted was to have an end-to-end customer experience analysis dashboard. At the starting point, we only had feedback on the quality of the product in the market, but not what our customers were experiencing.”

 

The Solution

 

Dirk Westdijk contacted Blauw Research, an independent research company, with an idea to design a custom customer feedback program. He explains: “Blauw is one of the most innovative and professional marketing research companies in our country. Bugaboo is a premium brand, and when it does something, it looks to the best.”

​

Blauw was able to show Bugaboo a new Voice of the Customer platform with a closed-loop feedback capability it was developing in partnership with the software provider Dapresy that would provide the kind of evidence-based springboard for change that he was seeking. It did not necessitate software development or customization to achieve. It offered flexibility in the questions that could be asked, and the ability to change them whenever needed. It delivered this as a series of easy-to-follow dashboards, and had a built-in capability to create action-oriented emails. Bugaboo seized the opportunity to become one of its earliest adopters. 

​

“The co-operation with Blauw went very smoothly,” Dirk recalls. “When I wanted a question changed or to see the dashboard in a different way, that was followed up quickly and gave me the feeling that communication between Blauw and Dapresy was working pretty well.” The initial implementation was achieved in less than three months. 

​

Feedback delivered by the system has been deliberately focused on taking actions. These actions are identified both through the dashboard views and also in automatically-triggered email alerts directed to the relevant employee.

​

Dirk reports: “It is becoming more and more embedded in our organisation. There has been a huge positive impact. For some, initially, it was a bit of a shock to learn a customer was not always happy with what they had said. But it holds up a mirror of reality for them, and it is really helping them to grow their skill set.”'

​

The introduction of the customer feedback survey coincided with a new training initiative across the customer service teams that focused on improving skills and becoming more action-oriented. Several questions were included in the survey to evaluate specific development goals, such as listening skills. Making these indicators available on the dashboard has provided positive reinforcement for customer service staff and allowed managers to monitor and fine-tune the delivery of their change program. 

​

From the beginning, Dirk’s ambition was that the system should reach out to the rest of the company. He states: “My goal is to start listening to end-consumers at every level in this organisation.” The next stage of his work will bring the voice of the customer to other divions within the organisation, such as marketing, design and product development, as well as to the CEOs of each of Bugaboo’s international divisions to provide each with a customer overview for their local market. 

​

Though the program is still in its early days, it is already starting to facilitate broader organisational change. A meta-analysis of the feedback revealed deficiencies in the customer support and ‘FAQ’ area of the company’s website which were not keeping up with the kinds of questions customers were asking. As a result, responsibility for managing what had previously been a marketing function was transferred to Customer Services, to allow them to expand the content and update it on a more regular basis.

Asked what a product-oriented company can gain from a Voice of the Customer program, Dirk says: “We are a mobility company that brings innovation to the market through our products, but that does not mean that the only innovation is in our products. Internally, through our people and our organisation, we also have to innovate and grow, and that is what is happening – we have started up a whole learning and development tool which has been an eye-opener in allowing us to learn and develop.”

​

Outcomes Achieved

​

• A closed-loop listening and Voice of the Customer program implemented, closely modelled around both operational improvements and wider business goals.

• Taking a mixed-vendor approach involving a consulting firm and a software provider has allowed for a fast-track implementation.

• Individual attention to customer call resolution is leading to a more consistent experience for consumers at all touch-points with the brand. 

• Targeted follow-up to customers is improving customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

• Customer-facing staff now more aware of the actual impact of their work on customers, and more confident in their work as a result.

• The company as a whole now has more understanding of its customers and their perceptions of it as a brand. 

• The program is now starting to influence both operational and organisational change, allowing this product-manufacturing organisation to get closer to its customers, and innovate internally too.