From Product-Centric to Customer-Centric Rabobank.
Floor van Gent
Established a customer centric transformation at leading bank Rabobank streamlining CX processes and tools used by more than 150 product managers, marketeers and designers.
I helped the RetailNL division in their transition from a fragmented, product-centric approach to a unified, customer-centric organization. With a clear strategy, framework, and journey way of working, I enabled cross-functional teams to improve the customer experience (CX) across the end-to-end lifecycle. This transformation achieved significant business outcomes, including a 20% boost in employee efficiency, a 30% increase in data-driven decision-making, a 15% rise in customer satisfaction (CSAT), and a 25% increase in upsell and cross-sell opportunities.
Challenge
Rabobank's RetailNL division, which offers services ranging from mortgages to fraud detection, had been focused on digitizing its services in response to rising customer expectations. However, siloed teams and inconsistent tools and methods resulted in a fragmented and inefficient customer experience. With no clear ownership of customer journeys, the bank struggled to align internal efforts with the customer-centric vision needed to stand out from competitors.
Upon joining, I noticed several critical issues:
Teams used different definitions, methods, and tools for customer experience.
There was no clear ownership of customer journeys, nor a centralized repository.
Pressure was mounting to map and improve end-to-end (E2E) journeys, but knowledge gaps persisted across the organization.
The challenge was to create a unified CX approach that would break down silos, empower teams, and provide a customer-centric roadmap that aligned with Rabobank’s strategic goals.
Outcome
Developed and trained capabilities in journey mapping and journey management
Unified 150+ product managers, marketers, and designers around a single CX approach, breaking down silos and fostering a culture of customer-centricity.
Facilitated 50+ workshops and coached 10 cross-functional teams, resulting in 60+ solutions, including one with a $2MM annual call reduction.
Achieved a 15% increase in CSAT across key customer journeys, including the high-impact fraud prevention journey.
Standardized CX processes through an interactive playbook of 60 pages.
Established a hierarchy of all customer journeys based on the end-to-end lifecycle, so that all teams work together effectively from one perspective
Integrated a journey framework and governance structure for managing 150+ customer journeys, aligning 20+ product teams with all journeys, customer insights, solutions and metrics.
The overview of all journeys and ownership, and having one single source of truth increased employee efficiency by 20%
This also boosted upsell and cross-sell opportunities by 25%.
The connected web of journeys, insights, solutions and metrics, increased data-driven decision-making by 30%.
Operationalized CX with a tool to map and monitor all journeys along the end-to-end lifecycle
Established TheyDo as an official tool and dashboard for journey management that ensures continuous CX improvement across all teams, used for ongoing performance monitoring by 40+ product managers and designers weekly.
The tool got adopted by the Board of Directors to support the transformation.
Designed a clear overview of roles and responsibilities for structurally improving CX
Developed a governance structure of roles and responsibilities necessary, and with guidelines on how these roles should communicate and collaborate to improve CX.
Defined a CX strategy with 4 desired CX principles with measurable drivers, functioning as tangible guidelines for employees, so they know how to contribute to the CX strategy.
My role
In this transformation, I collaborated closely with a Business Change Manager and Design Strategist from Rabobank. Together, we were responsible for aligning the organization around our CX efforts.
In this project, I served multiple roles over a timespan of a year fulltime:
CX Strategist: I initiated the CX strategy, roadmap, journey framework, and governance structures, and developed them in collaboration.
Lead Service Designer: I orchestrated the entire design process, facilitated workshops from scoping to implementation, coached journey owners and created most tools and templates.
TheyDo Expert: I set up the platform, trained teams, and developed onboarding materials, ensuring consistent usage across the organization.
Feedback
Judith Sasburg | Chapter Lead Design: "You are a quick, creative thinker and a clear communicator. You demonstrated this in our meetings by ensuring understanding, and taking actionable steps, resulting in concrete outcomes like playbooks. Your ability to 'get shit done' is admirable. You also showed agility when needed, while staying true to what's important."
Sander Viegers | Head of Design: "Floor played a pivotal role in defining and implementing journey management practices. With a blend of sharp analytical abilities, unwavering conviction, and an effective communication style, Floor fearlessly addressed critical issues, leading to tangible results."
Rosanne Voets | Business Strategist: "What I value most about our collaboration is your ability to seamlessly switch between strategic thinking and hands-on coaching. Your expertise in CX is cutting edge. You have a rare ability to understand stakeholder needs and adjusting plans accordingly while staying focused on our goals."
Approach
Check out my full portfolio to see the approach of this project. https://www.floorvangent.com/rabobank (pw: floorvangent)
1.Empathize:
Conducted extensive qualitative research, including 120 interviews with customers and employees, to identify pain points across key journeys like payments and fraud.
Engaged with stakeholders to understand business priorities and align them with user needs.
2. Define:
Mapped the end-to-end customer lifecycle to create a journey atlas consisting of 150+ journeys.
Identified and prioritized high-impact journeys, defining 100 actionable solutions to improve user experiences.
3. Ideate:
Facilitated over 60 workshops with 10 cross-functional teams to brainstorm and co-create solutions.
Collaborated with stakeholders to ensure solutions balanced customer needs with business objectives.
4. Prototype:
Developed low-fidelity prototypes for journey enhancements and validated them through usability testing and stakeholder feedback.
Designed new features, like a self-service PIN reset, to address identified pain points.
5. Implement:
Established a CX governance framework and trained journey managers to sustain and scale CX initiatives.
Secured buy-in from senior leaders by presenting results through compelling storytelling and data.
6. Measure and Adapt:
Monitored the impact of solutions, achieving a 15% increase in CSAT and saving $2M annually through call volume reduction.
Embedded journey management and data-driven decision-making into the organization’s operational model, improving efficiency by 20%.
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Posted Jan 21, 2025
Developed and managed a customer-centric transformation program based on Design Thinking principles that improved B2C and B2B service delivery for leading bank
