Customers first! Portbase does much more besides the half-yearly customer panels. As a Customer Experience expert, Marlies de Groot works full-time to improve the customer experience. “We want to make the use of the Port Community System (PCS) even more valuable and easier for customers than it already is.”
What do our approximately 5,000 customers think of Portbase’s services? It’s hard to give a simple answer to that question, replies De Groot. “It really varies by customer group.” Whatever differences there may be, Portbase has been ‘of, for and by the community’ since its inception in 2002. “The half-yearly customer panels (see other article) are an important tool for establishing the connection with customers, identifying their wants and needs and concrete input on Portbase’s development agenda.” However, customer experience encompasses much more than that. From presenting Portbase to the world in a uniform way to the practicalities of the services as experienced by customers on a day-to-day basis. De Groot: “The fact that we are ‘of, for and by the community’ is something we want to convey and live up to even better.”
“The fact that we are ‘of, for and by the community’
is something we want to convey and live up to even better”
Research-based
Research provides an indispensable foundation for that. In addition to a major annual customer satisfaction survey, Portbase conducts smaller polls on an ongoing basis. For example, about how customers experience their contacts with Customer Service. Portbase always takes the results on board, as it does the issues raised by the internal CX (Customer Experience) team. All disciplines within Portbase that have direct contact with customers sit down monthly to discuss feedback from customers and how to respond to it.
“Customers should feel we are addressing them
personally and helping them proactively”
Practical improvements
The results of the customer panels, all the surveys and other customer feedback increasingly guide Portbase policy. They also provide input for practical improvements to day-to-day services. As an example, De Groot cites the work of Portbase’s UX designers. By looking at customers’ use of the Portbase services with them and using smart analysis software, they are able to arrange web screens in such a way that they more logically match the work process. De Groot: “That UX expertise has now been used for a number of services. Customers see the effects in their daily practice. The web screens are easier to read at a glance and work more intuitively. We get a lot of positive feedback.”
Finding your way around
the PCS should just be very easy
Relevant and valuable
“Working with the PCS should be just as easy as ordering from bol.com,” concludes De Groot. “It isn’t complicated now, but there is still scope to make it much more straightforward. At Portbase, we want to keep moving forwards in this area. Customers should feel we are addressing them personally and helping them proactively. At the same time, we also want to make customers more digitally self-reliant. Finding your way around the PCS should just be very easy. At the end of the day, it’s about always giving customers what they need. From the very first contact, signing up as a customer, through connecting and using our services on a daily basis to providing support, we want to deliver a single, seamless solution.”
