Stefan Wörnle – MediaMarktSaturn

Stefan Wörnle is the Department Manager of the Customer Intelligence and Experience department at MediaMarktSaturn, Europe’s leading retail company for consumer electronics and associated services. Within the department, he and his team are responsible for the customer journey & customer experience, brand strategy, and sustainability spheres.

Turnover and market share are key KPIs

In addition to key KPIs like turnover and market share, MediaMarktSaturn attaches a great deal of importance to a wide array of brand-related KPIs, tells Stefan: “When it comes to brand-related KPIs, we are especially interested in top-of-mind awareness and the brand equity index. The BEI score considers multiple factors, including brand preference and willingness to recommend. The score is collated along with many other brand image attributes during the monthly brand health tracking in 13 countries. Hereby, we also obtain our competitors’ reviews and uncover which brands perform best now and what our position is in each country. This enables subsequent benchmarking.”

Growth drivers: CX just as important as pricing

Retailer choice drivers are also being measured as part of a large-scale, international customer segmentation study. This way, the company knows exactly which factors make it the preferred retailer and gains insight into the interrelations, says Stefan: “We know that such factors as price perception, product availability and anything concerning the smooth omnichannel experience are significant growth drivers and we recognise that CX is just as important as pricing. Hence, we are focusing heavily on improving our omnichannel customer experience.”

“CX is just as important as pricing. Hence, we are focusing heavily on improving our omnichannel customer experience.”

What role does the moment of truth play?

Stefan considers the moment of truth to be a particularly important aspect of the customer journey, playing a decisive role in whether that journey is to continue: “It can be a negative experience, which causes us to lose a customer. That is something that we need to avoid by taking appropriate countermeasures. Positive moments are significant too, of course. Therefore, we identify these and subsequently enhance them. This is quite often measurable in the conversion and micro-conversion rates. In the online business, you can see it very clearly.”

Even though many different moments exist, Stefan considers two of them to be particularly important. He refers to the business-wide customer journey framework, which features the four phases: ‘Want it’, ‘Get it’, ‘Use it’ and ‘Love it’: “The transition from ‘Want it’ to ‘Get it’ is an important moment. This is when customers decide where they will make a purchase and we must be the preferred CE retailer. More important is a sub-step in the ‘Get it’ phase, the moment following the consultation and purchase decision. This is when customers decide whether they would like to add any services and which ones. If, for example, someone is buying a new television, we will additionally offer our installation or calibration service or a streaming subscription. We are keen to offer comprehensive solutions to our customers, as that is in keeping with our aspiration to enhance people’s lives through technology-related experiences – and these services also boost our turnover, of course.’

focus on a Smooth omnichannel experience

Stefan explains that long-term success depends on customers’ experiences of in-store or online purchases, with there often no clear separation between these two worlds anymore. For that reason, MediaMarktSaturn goes all out to ensure a smooth omnichannel experience: “We are fully aware that more than half of in-store customers will have browsed online before coming into the store, which is why we are constantly trying to improve the connection between these two worlds, by using electronic price tags linked to our customers’ product reviews for example. Two particularly successful measures are in place at present. One is the support provided by our in-store customer advisers using a smartphone with in-house developed apps. Our MyStore app provides, among other things, clear information on differences between products, checks stock availability and enables staff to compare prices with those of our competitors – all done quickly and easily on a smartphone during the conversation with the customer by the shelf in our store. The other example is our Click & Collect service. Customers can check a product’s availability in our web shops, purchase it online and pick it up in-store within 30 minutes.”

There are various catalysts for such CX innovations, adds Stefan: “The triggers stem from a wide variety of spheres, such as sales and operational excellence, but also the detailed analysis of net promoter score (NPS). If we discover that there is a weak point when examining the thousands of NPS feedbacks sent every day, then that will form the basis of a new CX project.”

Data-supported prioritisation

The company has clearly defined objectives in all areas, explains Stefan. Data helps us to identify weaknesses and prioritise tasks: “With the help of the customer journey framework that we introduced in 2019, we are endeavouring to amalgamate data from various data silos to ensure we have a solid, comprehensive overview. Hence data is ensuring we know exactly what it is we need to tackle first.”

Moreover, modern tools are providing better insights and are also helping to understand customers better: “In recent years, we have continued closing the gap between our customers and ourselves. What do they think of us? Why do they think that? What are the most significant retail choice drivers? We have an increasingly solid understanding of who our customers are and what motivates their purchasing behaviour.”

“Data is ensuring we know exactly what it is we need to tackle first.”

LOOKING AHEAD

Stefan identifies three significant trends for CE retailers over the next few years. These include data-driven, real-time communication & customer experience, which will make the webshop and the customer app even more important. A second trend is the growing significance of holistic service design methods, i.e., interdepartmental cooperation and continuously trying out new measures to shape the customer experience even better. Lastly, Stefan stresses that proximity to customers during the ‘Use it’ phase is becoming increasingly important as well: “We need to ensure our presence here. If we want to enhance people’s lives through technology and related solutions, then we need to be providing guidance, information, and support after making a sale too. We are keen to provide handy tips and tricks that will make the technology a more familiar part of customers’ lives, boost loyalty to MediaMarktSaturn and ideally inspire the next “Want it” phase.”