Marcel Stephan: Customer Experience.. but for an entire city
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In the case of a city you are selling an open ended “life journey” rather than a well-defined experience built around a particular product. This covers a wide range of possibilities like the ability to come visit, live, study, work, or invest. Accordingly, there are there are a seemingly infinite number of city touchpoints and stakeholders that cannot be under direct control. For example, whilst more than 600,000 people shall visit King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) this year a significant challenge looms. A city is a connected web of experiences, so just one bad moment can affect the entire visitor’s enjoyment in the city.
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Marcel Stephan: Customer Experience.. but for an entire city
- 1. Customer Experience... but for an entire city! Marcel Stephan | King Abdullah Economic City
- 2. HELLO! LinkedIn: marcelstephan Email: marcelstephan@yahoo.com Marcel Stephan Head of Customer Experience King Abdullah Economic City
- 3. Great brands in Customer Experience…
- 4. Great brands in Customer Experience…
- 5. What makes them special? Simplicity? Convenience? Personalization?
- 6. Now let’s scale up
- 7. Let’s scale up some more
- 8. Defining Characteristics of Customer Experience for an Entire City
- 9. You are not simply selling a product or a service
- 10. You are not simply selling a product or a service Visit Live Study Work Invest
- 11. Your weakness shall be exposed
- 12. Your weakness shall be exposed
- 13. Your stakeholders are outside your direct control
- 14. Your stakeholders are outside your direct control
- 16. • Greenfield development • Located on Red Sea • Amongst world’s largest private sector projects • EEC = Master Developer
- 17. • 181 km2; comparable to Brussels or Washington DC
- 20. 1. Guide Development 2. Manage Stakeholders 3. Generate Economic Growth Place Experience (PX)
- 25. So how is KAEC doing this? 1. Guide Development
- 27. Safety & Security Healthcare Learning & Development Community Public Spaces Housing Public Services Mobility Retail Leisure 1. Guide Development
- 29. I want to go to X I check where and when I can catch the bus I walk to the bus stop I wait at the bus stop I get on the bus I reach my destination 1. Guide Development
- 30. I want to go to X I check where and when I can catch the bus I walk to the bus stop I wait at the bus stop I get on the bus I reach my destination Simplicity? Convenience? Personalization? 1. Guide Development
- 31. illustrative • Executive Dashboard • Performance Management • Performance by Segment • Benchmark comparisons Based on: • CSat • Mystery Shopping • Other data streams 1. Guide Development
- 35. So how is KAEC doing this? 2. Manage Stakeholders
- 36. Retail Safety & Security Healthcare Learning & Development Community Public Spaces Housing Public Services Mobility Leisure 2. Manage Stakeholders
- 45. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 46. So how is KAEC doing this? 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 47. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 48. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 49. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 50. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 51. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 52. 3. Generate Economic Growth
- 53. Conclusion
- 56. So… what about you?
- 57. Design
- 58. Manage
- 59. Measure
- 60. Transform
- 61. THANK YOU! LinkedIn: marcelstephan Email: marcelstephan@yahoo.com Marcel Stephan Head of Customer Experience King Abdullah Economic City
Editor's Notes
- Good Afternoon, my name is Marcel Stephan. I am the head of Customer Experience in King Abdullah Economic City. Thank you for joining and thank you to the MBSC team for organizing. Next week I shall be representing KAEC in the SDCG2018 in Dublin Ireland. It is my pleasure to share the presentation beforehand. Today I am going to talk to you about a topic we are all familiar with… but perhaps on a scale we are not all familiar with
- So let me hear from you… Which brand is great in customer experience? Any suggestions?
- I had asked over 200 of my colleagues to list the brands they believe are best at customer experience. The results were not surprising. They mentioned brands such as Apple, Emirates Airlines and Starbucks.
- When I asked why, the rationale was fairly consistent. People feel impressed with the simplicity, convenience and personalization that such brands offer. It’s safe to say that every interaction that a customer has with such prominent brands is carefully managed to leave the customer not only satisfied but wanting more. This customer become more loyal and more likely to recommend to their friends.
- Now let’s scale up for a single brand to a shopping mall. A shopping mall is a relatively simple example of how you could browse many diverse shops under one roof, and each one manages their customer experience in its own way. A new layer of complexity occurs since the shopping mall experience matters to you as well. For example, if the mall is run down or dirty, if the layout if confusing, if the parking is constantly full, the frustration shall affect your relationship with the shopping mall and all the brands within it. So clearly managing the CX for a shopping mall is at a higher complexity compared to an individual business.
- Now, let’s imagine this on even a larger scale. An even more complex scenario. Imagine it for an entire city! Actually, there is no need to imagine, it has already been done. I am about to show you!
- But first let me highlight the key characteristics of a CX program for an entire city
- You are not simply selling a product or a service
- In a city… You are selling an open ended “life journey”. This covers a wide range of possibilities like the ability to come visit, live, study, work, or invest. For example, if this isn’t difficult enough to comprehend, just imagine the complexity when journeys cross, e.g. a visitor becomes an investor, or a resident has children that start their study then later seek employment.
- Your weakness shall be exposed
- In a city… The customer journey is not a well-defined experience that is time bound. For example, think of a resident that lives 24/7 in your city. You can’t get away with much. They have plenty of time to find what is wrong with your city and be vocal about it. This is different than the case of a 6-hour flight where most things can be well controlled or influenced.
- Your stakeholders are diverse and probably outside your direct control
- In a city… There are many stakeholders that impact the customer journey. Not only do we have the city administration, regulators but numerous third party operators (taxi companies, retailers, etc.) You are as strong as your weakest link For example, I was on holiday recently and almost had my bag stolen. This is the one lasting memory of what should have been a luxury holiday, which has made me discourage my friends from going to this city themselves. Thus, a city is as as strong as its weakest link, in this case it was security shortcomings.
- This is my/our city. It is known as King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC). If you ever forget its name, a little trick is to pronounce the acronym KAEC as CAKE.
- At KAEC we had to take all this into careful consideration. For the vast majority of you who haven’t heard of KAEC before… KAEC is a greenfield city development. KAEC intends to be a world-class city on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea It’s recognized as one of the largest private sector projects in the world, , with a capacity to host a population of two million people. Our master developer is called Emaar Economic City (EEC), which is a publicly listed company.
- Being built on a purchased plot of land the size of Brussels.
- If you were to visit today you would see a young emerging city. Within just 10 years we already have a port, industrial zone, residential communities, MBSC college, amongst various other assets
- KAEC is pioneering a customer experience program, called Place Experience (PX), which is the next frontier for projects of this magnitude. We use PX, as a competitive differentiator, we intend that our customers realize a common thread which is the KAEC way of CX regardless of the interaction they have with us. Our learnings over the last 3 years are insightful to anyone that is involved in a mega commercial or residential project: e.g. shopping mall, airport, residential complex; city –greenfield or not – or perhaps an entire country.
- If done well, a PX program can help guide development, manage stakeholders, and generate economic growth
- Guide Development
- So what is the problem cities have in regards to guiding their development? Perhaps it is that the established benchmark does not factor for happiness. Today, GDP is no longer the only indicator for a country’s wellbeing! In isolation, GDP makes no adjustment for leisure time, for example. Imagine two economies with identical standards of living, but in one economy the workday averages 12 hours, while in the other it's only eight. Which country would you rather live in? Wouldn’t you rather select the option that makes you happier?
- Tiny Bhutan led the way in the early 1970s, when it instituted a Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index. Moreover, places such as Ecuador named a state secretary of "buen vivir," or good living. In UAE, my region, a Minister of Happiness was appointed in 2016 - the first minister of happiness in the world – and she is quoted as saying "what is the purpose of government if it does not work towards the happiness of the people?”.
- There is an increased pursuit of happiness and governments are expected to prioritize the happiness of their citizens. Globally, there has been some progress on measuring the well-being of individuals within an economy, but more work is definitely needed. It’s normal to still find a large gap between happiness goals set by governments and citizens’ expectations.
- So how is KAEC doing this?
- We start by identifying our customer? Well let’s start with the Live segment that is composed of residents in our city. We have identified seven segments, for which Dina here represents one of them. Dina is a young professional, high usage of social media, has an active social life and appreciate aesthetically beautiful places. We also know that she is demanding, values her independence, is on a bit of an off-and-on health quest, and can get bored or impatient easily.
- What do residents, such as Dina, want from a city? Well we asked them, and regardless of who they are, the findings sit comfortable into 10 core city offerings: Safety & Security, e.g. crime prevention Healthcare, e.g. hospitals Learning & Development, e.g. schools Community, e.g. social diversity Public Spaces, e.g. parks Housing, e.g. quality accommodation Public Services Mobility, e.g. public transportation Retail, e.g. restaurants Leisure, e.g. entertainment Having said that, each resident puts different weight on each offering – e.g. a mother puts more weight on safety & security and learning & development, an expat bachelor is likely to put more weight on retail and leisure, etc. >>>>>>> change the retail picture to make it visible that it’s a retail image .. Could be piatto image with the welcoming waiter
- Now how about Dina, she allocates more importance to Mobility since she seeks an active lifestyle. There are numerous sub-offerings within Mobility but the one she cares about most is the provision of quality and reliable taxi & shuttle bus services because it enables her active and social lifestyle
- For example, Dina wants to go from her home to the bowling alley. We are able to break it down into distinct steps and customize especially for Dina.
- For example, simplicity, we could provide her with the bus schedule through online since we know she is active online For example, convenience, we could ensure that no bus stop is more than 400 m away since we know she could get impatient For example, personalization, we could have lifestyle magazines in the bus since we know she appreciates an active lifestyle We then consolidate the capability needs to satisfy Dina on Mobility and other Offerings, plus the needs of all the other segments we end up with a very long list. This needs to prioritized and converted into a roadmap of initiatives assigned to owners with timelines
- To my knowledge, we are the first city anywhere in the world to have a City CX Index. So, we are able to measure the impact of our initiatives. How do we get the data to do this? We conduct extensive surveys - with thousands of respondents - and plenty of mystery shopping to evaluate the customer experience of the investors, visitors and residents. This is useful because of four reasons: We now have an executive dashboard to guide investment priorities 2. It is our performance per segment. For example, we score well with our Visitors, notably the leisure visitors coming on a day trip. They have told us that they appreciate our Safety & Security & Public Spaces the most amongst all our offerings. 3. It is our performance management tool. For each of these we know the pain points, e.g. in Retail Offering people have made clear that they desire more F&B variety and also a spectrum of price points (affordable eating to fine dining). 4. We know our comparative strengths. We also run benchmarks versus other cities to realize our gaps. For example, our Resident gaps are suggest we need to do more on Retail, Learning & Development, and Housing.
- Moreover, over time we can see how we are performing in the perspective of Dina and other customer segments on each customer offering we provide. For example, over the last 6 months the CX Index for Retail Offering improved by 16%
- Manage Stakeholders
- What is the problem cities are facing with managing stakeholders? Perhaps it is that the governance does not encourage grouping around the end-to-end customer journey. Here is a common example, tourism offices are mandated to bring in tourists. Unfortunately, this activity usually overlooks the importance of readiness of infrastructure, security, retail and healthcare since these also factor into a tourist decisions.
- So how is KAEC doing this?
- KAEC has established a PX unit on a city-level with a governance model spanning the entire city & all relevant stakeholders. There is a representative responsible for each city offering. They effectively own the needle. Let me give you an example of Retail to show you how this works
- For example, Mostapha is the city official with the responsibility to enhance the overall Retail Offering Index score i.e. he has to orchestrate improvements in sub-offerings such as restaurants & cafes, groceries & household items, etc. We work with him to relay the research findings to the 3rd party retail operators and we create a multifaceted program to incentivize improvements. For example, we notified a supermarket called Panda of identified pain points such as limited product range and suboptimal customer service skills of their frontliners. An agreement was reached, in which Panda management conducted a survey to refresh its product range and Mostapha’s team offered free training to Panda’s frontliners.
- The impact was evident as the Grocery sub-offering needle moved in the next wave of research by 11ppt and footfall also increased – which further motivated Panda and Mostapha to keep listening to customers. Mostapha also remains motivated since he hopes to grow within the city ranks. He eagerly awaits the bi-annual Index results to see how he performs in comparison to other colleagues.
- Moreover, wider cultural building on a city-level helps reinforce the city’s CX efforts. In KAEC we have also come to a realization that city frontliners are face of our city. Their attitude matters. The way they interact with our customers could make or break almost any experience. Think of city frontliners in a broad context including 3rd party stakeholders, e.g. nurses, teachers, security, waiters, cleaners, bus drivers, etc. The first way we build culture is through quarterly R&R and here you can see one frontliner per Offering being recognized for exceptional service culture, e.g. nurses, firemen, cleaner, etc.
- Here is an example of two award recipients: Abdulrazzaq decided one day to salute each person that was driving to work. This created a sense of pride and joy. We recognized him and it helped define the new standard of hospitality from our security personnel Jasser is a taxi driver based in the city. We also recognized his service culture. Then to our delight his employer (the taxi agency) gave him an award since he impressed us. This is beautiful, our culture is being embraced and reinforced by third party operators
- The second way we build culture is through training: This training module instills foundational service culture skills, and it is intended for everybody regardless of role or seniority. We inject sections on city updates, team building and techniques to boost advocacy towards the city.
- The third way we build culture is through communication and engagement. For example, we conduct town hall sessions and events to help the residents meet and better interact with city personnel – i.e. putting a name to the face that they see daily. This is an example when we helped arrange the fire fighters to meet the children in the city
- Accordingly, Dina, or any customer should be able to navigate as desired through our city – and interact with numerous entities and stakeholders - yet realize a common thread which is a consistent and elevated ‘KAEC way’ of customer experience across the city.
- Generate Economic Growth
- What is the problem cities are facing with generating economic growth? Perhaps it is that people’s perceptions are formed not by the way the city talks about itself (promotion) but how it makes them feel (experience). Actually, 86% of place branding projects fail within a year of introduction according to k629 consultants, which results in millions of dollars wasted. This is since there is a lack of credibility, you have to promote yourself on something real
- So how is KAEC doing this?
- Since we know our customers and our perceived strengths in the eyes of customers, we can develop visitor packages which hold credibility. For example, our Public Spaces are appreciated by our visitors so we have created advertisements and packages to help customers immerse in outdoor activities such as sailing, cycling, etc.
- Since we know our customers and our perceived strengths in the eyes of customers, we can develop visitor packages which hold credibility. For example, our Public Spaces are appreciated by our visitors so we have created advertisements and packages to help customers immerse in outdoor activities such as sailing, cycling, etc.
- Since we know our customers and our perceived strengths in the eyes of customers, we can develop visitor packages which hold credibility. For example, our Public Spaces are appreciated by our visitors so we have created advertisements and packages to help customers immerse in outdoor activities such as sailing, cycling, etc.
- Since we know our customers and our perceived strengths in the eyes of customers, we can develop visitor packages which hold credibility. For example, our Public Spaces are appreciated by our visitors so we have created advertisements and packages to help customers immerse in outdoor activities such as sailing, cycling, etc.
- In summary, happier visitors implies more repeat visits, which implies more expenditure in KAEC, e.g. visitor number jumped from 50k in 2016 to 300k in 2017 and more expected in 2018.
- I have not spoken much about Investors in this presentation, but the same rationale and methodology applies. Happier investors implies likelihood for more investment, e.g. Petra is a tenant in our Industrial Valley and they produce industrial equipment for the region. They decided to conduct its commercial expansion in KAEC versus other locations. This is big deal for a city since the ripple effect is significant.
- Conclusion
- If done well, a PX program can help guide development, manage stakeholders and generate economic growth. KAEC is pioneering this and we look forward to sharing more learnings in the coming months and years ahead.
- So… what about you? Probably not everyone here is designing a city but there are take aways that are relevant when you think of your customer
- Know your customer. Know what they want. Know their pain points. Design the solutions.
- Govern closely the high-impact initiatives. Have the courage to fight for the sake of the customer.
- Consolidate measurement and make it visible. Move that needle.
- Treat customer experience as a change program, i.e. think of key stakeholders, even third parties, and get them on-board.
- It has been a pleasure. Please stay in touch. Thank you.