Bol.com is considered the best by potential customers in the WUA research on online orientation for buying a laptop. In this interview, we speak with Jan Huysmans, Director Electronics & Toys and Elias Ott, Category Manager Computer & Games. About VR, winning in the DNA, about the ultimate customer proposition, about data, personalization and about market stalls.
Jan Huysmans and Elias Ott, congratulations on winning this WUA research. How important is it for you to be the best in the digital arena? What role does having a winning mentality play in this?
Jan Huysmans: "We're super happy because it's recognition from the people we do it all for, our customers. They show that they appreciate the work we put into bol.com. I think winning this prize is completely in line with how we work here. We want to offer our customers the best every day and do it just a little bit better each day."
Elias Ott: "Winning is also very much about processes. Continuous improvements come back in the teams' planning. We set hypotheses, test them and so we're constantly tweaking and iteratively improving processes. The winning mentality is well embedded in the team. Within Jan's unit we do the clash of the categories, which is an internal game. Partly it's about business results, but partly it's just fun: we play jeu-de-boules against each other and recently I participated in a bootcamp."
What is your approach, what's going so well? What can other digital leaders learn from your approach?
JH: "It might sound obvious, but we really put the customer at the center here. We look at customer experience that's much broader than just the website and everything around it in terms of service and customer contact. Is that super special? No, but really doing the best for the customer in all domains and going just one step further, that's where you make the difference in our view."
EO: "We do a tremendous amount because we find so many things incredibly exciting. We always want to see where we can still gain advantages. We keep inventing new things to always take a step further. Especially online, everything you adjust works together: cross-pollination occurs that makes developments go even faster.
JH: "We consciously choose to chop everything into small pieces and experiment in sub-areas. If you chop everything into very small pieces, you quickly see what works and what doesn't. And this way you can make a lot of progress very quickly. We also just stop doing some things, then there are still ten other things ready that we pick up instead."
EO: "At the beginning of the year we agree on a number of focus points. During the year so many other things come up that by the end of the year we've turned around a number of those focus points. We've seen that other things make more sense. That's the strength of bol.com: there's so much forward focus. What we're increasingly doing is agreeing on a process for how we can share learnings even better. So that we can evaluate every quarter, look together and learn from the things that went well and could be better. We also want to share that with the rest of the organization again."
From a consumer perspective, there should be no difference (anymore) between service and sales. Are you well able to break down the silos at bol.com or: are you planning to do that?
JH: "Customers are looking for a total approach, a product or service. We look from the need and work toward an approach. Of course we are organized by specialisms: that's super important because in each separate domain, both in sales and service areas, developments are going so fast that you shouldn't try to keep track of that from a central point."
EO: "Category teams with their stores sit very close to the customer. They are supported by colleagues from customer service but also from controlling and the supply chain department. We connect with each other as quickly as possible. If many questions arise about a certain topic, you want, for example, the scripting and answers at the call center agents to be adjusted immediately to be able to answer questions as well as possible. We've set up the organization based on NPS thinking and are focused on customer satisfaction. That's so high on the flag here, we always think first about the customer and then about the rest. That's a common interest we all have."
What role does customer research and putting the customer first play in your daily work and with the teams under your responsibility?
JH: "We permanently get insights from NPS measurements. You can drill down on those at category level, at driver level. What's really behind it, what's happening? If you notice something somewhere you can see the open answers from customers and we get a lot of wisdom from that. You also have the customer behavior data: what happens on the site? That's also an important element of customer research and we get a lot from that."
EO: "Customer behavior and data. There's an enormous challenge there, I get a real kick from understanding that. We sit here with a bunch of professionals, including econometricians, studying customer behavior day in and day out. We want to understand how it works because we find it interesting and because we want to be successful. So we're also very busy getting the dashboarding super tight to make the data insightful, so that in one overview you understand and see: this is what's going on. Then you can drill down on that and get to the core very quickly."
JH: "It's not just about a problem, it can also be about something that's going very well to understand the success and to be able to replicate that. What does, for example, an optimal promotion REALLY look like and what did we do for that?"
What KPIs do you use for digital, which knobs do you turn especially to excel digitally?
JH: "We mainly steer on NPS. And besides that we naturally steer on a whole number of conversion KPIs, but we also have several for service and customer satisfaction."
What are your biggest digital challenges for 2017?
JH: "An important element, which we're also permanently learning about and taking big steps in, is to understand certain customer groups much better. There's no such thing as one customer journey, there are so many different needs. We want to understand that well and respond well to it. That's the big challenge I think. To ultimately become more relevant for the consumer. Not one-size-fits-all, but very targeted."
EO: "Bol.com is the store of all of us. One person ultimately chooses based on what their peers find important and is sensitive to reviews. Another looks at specs. You want to be able to weigh all that based on the data you have to connect as well as possible with the customer's needs."
JH: "It's not difficult to put up a page somewhere where you find all the explanation together, the challenge is, how do you get that into the customer journey in a good way, in such a way that it doesn't bother one person and is a helpful method for another. That's a permanent exercise that we constantly look at with our UX specialists. How can we integrate that well now? The end game revolves around relevance."
EO: "For example, with complex technical products you see a lot of choice helpers in the market. We've also started looking at that. You can then choose to copy the best practice by building a funnel with 5 questions in it and saying: this is the answer and the product you're looking for. But: does the customer understand this? Have you then taken the customer along well from certain specifications of, for example, a laptop, have you then explained what this does for you, a certain speed and ease of use? If you fill in three things in a choice helper and boom, you have the answer, what connection have you made with the customer then? Those are challenges!"
What digital innovations are you working on now and what developments are on the roadmap?
JH: "We recently further expanded our delivery service, delivery on Sunday, delivery on all weekday evenings and same day delivery at home. So we're really working on the delivery propositions, we've made nice steps there. Another project we're experimenting with is, for example, live chat in the computer environment."
What do you think is The Next Big Thing in digital in your market and area of focus?
EO: "You want to connect as closely as possible to the customer's physical experience world. That's possible, for example, with VR applications. Some products are like bread from the bakery and people buy those very easily online. But if it's more expensive or more complex, then you actually want to take away concerns as well as possible, or give answers to questions that arise. If you can then virtually rotate a laptop completely in the air yourself, look at the connections for a moment, you can even virtually start it up for a moment... Those are fantastic VR applications!"
JH: "The moment trends translate into customer needs, we need to be on board and experiment. It's ultimately about what our customers are waiting for."
EO: "Furthermore, I think a rich individual personal approach becomes very important. It's not all about data, but about personal relevance in all domains. One of our board members says that very nicely, with the winged expression: 'bol.com doesn't have customers, but customers have bol.com'. That slogan is really in the DNA here."
What is your ultimate goal and dream to achieve in business?
JH: "What I find super pleasant about retailing is the impact: the moment you do something, you immediately see results and that applies even more strongly to digital. I certainly get my energy from that and want to perfect that much further, I want to understand it even better. My goal is also to let even more people discover how easy and fun online shopping can be."
EO: "For me it's putting down the best store, or actually the best proposition that has ever existed. I want to understand exactly what a consumer needs and tailor the very best proposition to that. I want to subdivide into target groups and peel off, peel and compartmentalize propositions, in a scalable way. Besides that I want to add warmth: from personal contact I want consumers to feel understood by us. I always see myself as a market trader with in this case a lot of different stalls. I want to be able to look the consumer straight in the eyes!"
