Heidelberg Cement Accelerated its Customer-Centric Transformation Journey on 38 Markets with GemSeek‘s CX Platform

2,000+

successful improvement
initiatives inspired by
customer feedback

70%

response rate

100%

close the loop rate

The business problem

HeidelbergCement is one of the world’s largest building materials companies and a pioneer of customer experience management in the heavy industry sector.
The company started its CX transformation journey back in 2013 with 3 key strategic objectives:

Drive customer-centric culture by involving all levels of the organisation –customer-facing departments, operations and administrative staff
Differentiate versus competitors and improve products and services by a deep understanding of customer needs and struggles.
Establish customer-centric principles and deliver greater value for customers to drive loyalty and increase CLV.
The top priority and end goal of the program is to create a customer-centric culture globally that allows local organisations to be more competitive based on the quality of service they provide. Reaching this goal meant that the CX team had to find a scalable, automated solution that allowed all markets and business units to objectively and consistently measure customer feedback and respond to the shifting customer expectations in a flexible and efficient way.

Our Task

We were tasked to come up with tech solution to power up the rapid scale of the global CX framework to many of Heidelberg’s local markets. The solution needed to take into consideration the complex business structure, regional specifics and vertical integrations of business lines, while at the same time allow the needed flexibility for each market to adapt the global framework as the CX programs matures and evolves.

Our Solution

The GemSeek CX platform was a key driver of Heidelberg’s journey from the early stages of its NPS^® program to a truly global CX framework that not only measures customer satisfaction, but enables multiple strategic, localised improvement initiatives.
It was chosen for its willingness to invest the effort needed into customisations and grow together with HeidelbergCement. The CX platform is a key element of the global framework, because it aggregates local results and provides a strategic view on the customer. It’s also essential for localisation, because it allows countries to design surveys and get the most relevant insights for their market.
After Heidelberg’s CX team developed the global framework, they partnered with GemSeek’s team to rollout the program globally. In order to ensure the organisation will successfully start a transformation towards a customer-focused culture, a couple of key principles were adopted:

Bottom-up involvement in defining customer journey and key touchpoints
Cross-functional involvement with customer feedback at all levels

In just 2 years 25 markets were onboarded – a remarkable rate given the fact the innovation cycle in the heavy industries can take more than 10 years. The speed of adoption was enabled by the direct involvement of the global CX team and GemSeek’s implementation and CX consultant. Тhe successful onboarding of local teams was also a multi-step process including:

Introduction phase – present the CX strategy to the country managers, align on key priorities and next steps
Onsite implementation phase – deployment of the GemSeek CX management platform with the constant support from the global CX team
Embedding phase – start collecting insights and use them to improve customer experience and commercial performance
Optimisation phase – allow each market to identify and choose what works for them, leverage on the close the loop initiatives to run more strategic transformative projects. CX Success stories are circulated to drive customer-centricity .

At the current stage, markets have more flexibility. They are encouraged to gain insights for commercial purposes – identify opportunities to increase the share of wallet of happy customers or remedy unhappy ones before their spend starts declining.

The insights served as an inspiration for various improvement projects. Among the most successful ones on country level were:

In Norway there were many complaints about the product quality which were captured thanks to the digital platform. The local team decided to introduce a sampling routine into the standard process. This immediately improved the rate of securing deals and increased market revenue by 25%. At the same time, the compensation claims decreased two times.
Ghana achieved increased the sales of a product 6 times in just 2 years. The feedback collected through the platform indicated that customers needed training in product usage and application. The local team launched a Cement Academy focused on improving customers’ skills in material selection, mixing, moulding, demoulding, as well as health and safety. The training was delivered to over 700 construction companies across Ghana with the help of a mobile training truck.
Russia boosted its NPS by 12% in 4 years. Local executives focused on building the needed capabilities, structures and processes which led to significant improvements in customer service. The most recent enhancement is a digital truck tracking tool, which notifies customers 30 mins before a delivery arrives and also allows the logistics department to monitor, control and analyse deliveries in real time.

Key Business Impact & Project Successes

+10% increase in revenue since 2017
100% close the loop rate
Over 2,000 successfully completed CX initiatives to improve products and service experience
70% response rate
More than 10, 000 customers surveyed in 38 countries

Look In The Future

Heidelberg Cement envisions a future where ordering concrete and other building materials is a frictionless experience streamlined through digital tools.
Removing friction from the customer’s journey in innovative ways. The systematic focus on customer experience sped up the digitisation of the customer journey. A global e-portal and mobile app to track orders and pay digitally is currently being introduced.

Using CX insights as inspiration for innovation. Customer feedback has also helped Heidelberg Cement affirm the main direction the organisations is innovating upon – sustainability. As part of its pledge to produce carbon neutral cement by 2050, the company is already making progress towards a more sustainable future. As sustainability is becoming a key success driver in the construction industry, the company’s innovation leaders are working even harder towards more carbon neutral products that allow its customers to offer a more sustainable solution to their markets.