EROSKI – The Process of change at the contact point with the client

«Changing the way in which we change». Eroski, in a pilot scheme carried out in three shops, has managed to increase client satisfaction from 68% to 83% and so reach leadership in this indicator in the sector. They have also worked with Models of Good Client Treatment and Models of Management (PdV – txokos).

The maximum level of Customer Service is attained when you manage to generate a personal connection with the client, when the client feels grateful and that he has been taken into account; when he feels a person and not a consumer.

These are the moments of truth, whatever the contact the client has with the seller. In retail or in a call centre the moments of truth are multiplied on a daily basis.  At these moments we are risking that the client returns, that he recommends or speaks badly of us.

The key is the personal connection. Being simply correct is not enough because it does not generate a memorable experience.

The usual process is to make the “client journey” and to create protocols of action based on brainy investigations. Having done this one tries to measure the gap between optimal behaviour and what actually is happening. To act on this gap is to act based on scarcity, this to say on what does not work, a technique that can achieve decent results but never extraordinary ones.

In reality, what we are saying to the sellers is : you do not know; I shall teach you; do it this way. It is pure paternalism, when what we want is auto-responsibility in order to act with that which is of most value for any company, namely, the client.

This form of action converts the seller into a sort of retail dummy, assuming a voice of another person and making him feel like a cog in the machinery.

The approach of Madavi is very simple:

“Change the way in which we change”; that is to say, investigate the moments when the client felt grateful, and when the seller felt proud of his own work, in fact, we investigate what we want to achieve. This is acting from abundance, from what does work, instead of from scarcity, from what does not work.

All the sellers are interviewed in couples about a moment when the client felt grateful, a moment of connection with the client, a story of which the seller feels especially proud.

All sellers have some story, which meets these two requisites. We inquire into what the seller did, what were the circumstances, what were the strengths and values which we put into play; how the client expressed his gratefulness; how the seller felt … In fact, we analyse when the seller had an exceptional success. What is called the “ positive deviation”.

That is to say the factors that make a client feel grateful and the factors that make a seller feel proud. By sharing their own stories and those of their colleagues they learn how to be successful.

The seller realises two things: that he feels emotionally very well acting like that and that he knows how to do it, given that he has done it on many occasions.

These stories are shared, they are analysed and a pattern is seen that goes much deeper than any protocol of action. No one would dare to ask for so much.

In Madavi we like the phrase that says: That which works in practise do you think it would work in theory?  That done we ask everyone to do what they already know how to do. And to do it more and better. And to do so we give them a very high level of autonomy with the clients.