Earlier this month we kicked off our brand new Smartees tour on transforming consumer experience. On the agenda are three half-day workshop events (in Ghent, London & Amsterdam) and three 1-hour online sessions (on Thursday April 28) offering a guide to evoke empathy, enthusiasm and action in managing consumer journeys. So are you looking for inspiration on how to challenge your consumer journey game plan? Then sign up now for one of the upcoming sessions or just read on for a recap of our first session in Ghent.

Let’s get inspired!

Tuesday April 12, 2016. After enjoying some delicious cake pops and other snacks, Hakim Zemni (our Belgian MD) welcomed 35 interested and interesting Belgian professionals in our penthouse and introduced the day’s program. During the quick get-to-know-each-other round at the end of the introduction, people already warmed up for the workshop part that was still to come.
Next, Managing Partner Christophe Vergult took the stage to tell the story about how companies can challenge their consumer journey, by going from moments to life. He kicked off by emphasizing that companies already understand why consumer centricity is important, but they often forget people are only consumers a limited part of the day. In order to become truly consumer-centric, we need to take a more holistic approach towards consumer centricity. Companies need to stretch their perspective from customers who buy their products to people who cope with different roles and have aspirations far beyond consumption. From managing brand interactions and touchpoints to providing value in one’s life. Based on interesting examples of TUI, Unilever and Philips, Christophe explained the importance of mapping your consumer journey in order to become a more consumer-centric company.

Next up to inspire the audience was Delphine Vantomme (Business Director InSites Consulting), together with Julie Karkousse (Candidate Service Manager Adecco Belgium). Together, they brought our Adecco client case, about their search to bring more value to the life of their candidates. Julie and Delphine gave the audience a sneak peek into Adecco’s ’denktank’ (i.e. think tank), an associate board with a long-term and structural online eco system of associates working closely together with the company. To give the audience a better understanding of what this associate board is all about, Julie let them ’meet‘ the candidates who participate in the board by shortly introducing a few of them in the presentation. Together with the examples that Christophe put forward, the audience got a clear vision on how to implement consumer centricity and map their consumer journey beyond consumption.

Workshop ‘till you drop!

After the break, it was time for the workshop. We divided the audience in small groups and based on our consumer centricity framework, they brainstormed to come up with new ideas and action plans to improve each other’s consumer journey. At the end of the day, the brainstorms resulted in interesting and original ideas that were presented to the other groups.

Based on the attendees’ enthusiasm, I think we can summarize the afternoon by saying that this Smartees kick-off in our hometown presented itself as a beautiful promise for the other sessions still to come… Speaking of those other sessions, don’t forget to join one of our 1-hour webinars coming up this Thursday. So if you still want to join this session, sign up now. Hope to meet you in cyberspace!
Co-written with Hannelore Decramer, intern at our Client Happiness team.