Design Thinking, Customer Centricity in the daily business

1. Design Thinking
and customer centricity in
the daily business
G E R M A N | B U S I N E S S | S C H O O L
Marketing Assignment
UIT. April 2nd, 2018
Marketing Session by
Dipl. Kfm. Nicolas Crisand
Managing Partner
AccensaGmbH Developing Management
Competence Germany
Developed by
Khalef Maherzi
Bachar Souissi
MBA Sustainable Management
Energy Management

2. Design Thinking and customer centricity in the daily business
This document was developed by Bachar Souissi and Khalef Maherzi as Marketing assignment by Dipl. Kfm. Nicolas Crisand 2018 @ GBS – GERMAN | BUSINESS | SCHOOL - UIT P a g e | 2
How
could Design Thinking help to establish a behaviour
of real customer centricity and to enforce this
behaviour in the daily business routine?

3. Design Thinking and customer centricity in the daily business
This document was developed by Bachar Souissi and Khalef Maherzi as Marketing assignment by Dipl. Kfm. Nicolas Crisand 2018 @ GBS – GERMAN | BUSINESS | SCHOOL - UIT P a g e | 3
The core idea is how might we satisfy customer needs? How to overcome this challenge?
How to make it flexible?
To illustrate how design thinking can transcend in daily business routine. We will use one
of our formal employers, TD Canada Trust, as an example. To give a small overview, TD is
a canadine bank that employs more than 85 000 peoples, has approximately 23 million
customers and has 944 billion in assets. (TD-BANK, 2014)
Customer centricity is an attitude, therefore to implement this behaviour we should use
culture as a tool to get it spread through the company. However before focusing on
customers, we need to focus on our employees, thus we should show them how to co-
create with customers (Notelet, 2016).
Furthermore TD vision is: “To be the better bank”, (TD-BANK, 2014) as it shows that our
company is open to innovation based on a mindset of continuous improvement which
goes hand in hand with the methodology of design thinking. Our vision accepts failure as
a pillar to improvement. Therefore, at the route level it is based on the “fail fast to succeed
faster” (Notelet, 2016) principle.
Moreover, TD mission is: “We will be
the best run, Customer-focused,
integrated financial institution with
a Unique and Inclusive Employee
Culture” (TD-BANK, 2014). Our bank
mission explicitly quotes her desire
to be customer centric through the
use of our employee culture.
For instance, at TD we don’t sell
products or services to clients, we
advise them on what would be the
best for them. This is linked to the
co-creation between TD employees
and our customers (Notelet, 2016). With the available products and services, we build
personalised portfolios based on customers need. By advising, clients the emotion that
predominates is: help and trust therefore the relationship becomes non-transactional.
Advising and not selling on a daily routine is a strong example of the application of the
design thinking methodology (Notelet, 2016).
Furthermore, delivering legendary customer experience is one of TD guideline principal
(TD-BANK, 2014). However, the question becomes how to deliver legendary? It is not
How? What?
Attitude Mission
Values Strategy
With what?
Competences
Culture
Organi
zation
RolePeople

4. Design Thinking and customer centricity in the daily business
This document was developed by Bachar Souissi and Khalef Maherzi as Marketing assignment by Dipl. Kfm. Nicolas Crisand 2018 @ GBS – GERMAN | BUSINESS | SCHOOL - UIT P a g e | 4
through physical outcomes of the interaction but through emotions. Empathy is the key
to legendary experience. Simple sentence like: “I understand where you are coming
from”, recapping what customers says to show that his problem matters to us and it
shows that we are actively listening. Acknowledge, active listening, respect, and trust are
all tools to deliver legendary experience. Addressing the emotion and being effective is
the best combination to make the customers participate in TD success because TD’s
success is based on our customers, not only but also by seizing their feedback to insure
the continuous iterative improvement of the value proposition. (TD-BANK, 2014)
As a result, to implicate efficiently design thinking in an organisation: we, the
management, should invest more in our employees and give them means to deliver
legendary experience, likewise by insuring a behaviour transformation through a culture
of collaboration. Employees have to build trust with the organisation by addressing
customers’ emotions, thus clients feel that they can trust the company and start co-
creating. Customers are happy when they are satisfied witch results in a healthy
organisation. It all comes down to attitude. (TD-BANK, 2014)
References
Notelet, C., 2016. How to create a customer centric strategy thanks to design thinking?. [Online]
Available at: http://digital-me-up.com/2016/10/03/create-customer-centric-strategy-thanks-
design-thinking/
[Accessed 22 march 2018].
TD-BANK, 2014. How we are building The Better Bank. [Online]
Available at: https://www.td.com/document/PDF/corporateresponsibility/2014-Final-
CRR_EN.pdf
[Accessed 22 march 2017].