4 Ways Building a 'Customer Room' Can Reshape Your Customer Experience

In today’s episode, I chat with Daniel Coullet, Senior Vice President of Customer Success and Experience, and Elizabeth Curtin, Customer Experience Practice Manager at PTC, about defining customer success, and the value of designing a customer room to enhance employee and customer experience. PTC is a B2B global software company that offers a technology platform and solutions to help companies design, manufacture, operate, and service things for a smart, connected world.

Define Customer Success and Speak the Same Language

Daniel and his team are dedicated to understanding their customers, how they use PTC’s products and services, and how PTC employees can have a better understanding of the product itself, in order to provide the best value to the customer. Delivering this value is a part of PTC’s definition of customer success; it’s knowing what goals customers are trying to achieve and subsequently, them saying you helped to achieve their goal.

As he started this transformation across the company, Daniel had to get everyone on the same page regarding who the customer is and the definition of customer success. Daniel and his team defined customer success for PTC within three pillars: ease of using the product, its value, and the delight they experienced working with PTC.

Provide the best value to your customer. Know the goals your customers are trying to achieve and help them get there. #CX #CustExp Share on X

Be Brave, Bring Customer Feedback to the Forefront

With a focus on understanding who their customers are and what they want, Daniel gathered Voice of Customer data for their feedback on the PTC experience. With this feedback, Daniel communicated his findings in a way that made the customers real to everyone in the organization.

Daniel took one of the company’s best customers and recorded a 20-minute video with them explaining why they work with PTC, what the experience has been like, their expectations, what PTC is doing and not doing well, and any advice they’d like to offer. Daniel shares that hearing this feedback directly from a customer, especially one who is considered your top customer, was impactful because he learned that “your best customers are not particularly always happy with everything.”

The leaders were shocked by some of the feedback and were motivated to transform the experience. Sometimes, one piece of impactful content can have more of an effect than gathering your team to discuss survey results. In Daniel’s case, the video made the feedback more human and personal.

Designing a Customer Room and its Purpose

What You Need To Know About Designing a Customer Room — Example of PTC’s customer room

The video feedback was one of the first steps in reshaping how the customer experience was viewed, but to truly have a catalyst for the CX program and drive culture change, Daniel and Elizabeth decided to create a customer room.

By partnering with Human Resources, who was looking for a way to onboard new hires, they designed a customer room that provided CX and educational value to employees.

Customer Room goals:

Educational space for employees
Drive culture change
New way to onboard employees
Gain a better understanding of customers and their journey. Understand the settings they work in, the type of customer they are, which products they use, and how to drive empathy in employees.

How is the room organized?

A large conference room is set up once a quarter by stages of the customer lifecycle.
Posters on the wall display what customer type is involved in each stage of the journey.
Posters are placed around the room to explain what the customer experience is and how to look at the three pillars of value, ease, and delight.
A display of how everything is measured (Net Promoter Score). They update the NPS quarterly so employees can see if their efforts are actually making progress and increasing the scores.

How is it used?

Customer Room is open for a week during each quarter, anybody can come and go as they please.
Top executives are invited to come into the space and hold meetings and workshops. Some even host “fireside chats,” increasing their engagement with the room.
Whenever meetings and workshops are hosted, the room supports the idea of understanding and focusing on the customer and who they are.

What worked and what was the value?

Posters worked well; they tried a digital approach with video-based interactive engagement but found out that people just want to see things on the wall.
The room gave people the opportunity to walk around, absorb the information and have the time to think about what they see.
It has helped employees become more passionate about their own work and contributions to the company.
One employee specifically mentioned that they learned more about PTC and the customers than the 5 years they’ve been working there.

What Do You Know Now That You Wish You Knew Then?

Daniel says:

I’ve done much more listening than anything I’ve done before. By listening, you understand where people are thinking and how you can be of help to them.
Customer experience definitely has to be embedded in the bigger picture of the company.
Define customer success early so everyone can be on the same page about working towards customer experience and value.

Define customer success early so everyone can be on the same page about working towards customer experience and value. #CX #CustExp Share on X

About Daniel Coullet

Subject Matter Expert for “Out of the Box” thinking with a proven history leading global business transformation, service innovation, customer success, and engagement.

As a competitive athlete, Daniel always had a passion for winning driven by practicing multiple sports from trekking, biking, swimming, and skiing. It is this same commitment and drive for excellence that he brings to his career as a leader in customer success. A trusted advisor who is culturally adept with 20 years of experience building and transforming organizations in Europe, Asia, and the US, Daniel has an innate curiosity for learning about and understanding people’s behavior and different cultural norms.

About Elizabeth Curtin

Elizabeth Curtain is a Customer Experience Transformation Programs Manager with a unique supporting background in project management, technical support, product management, online marketing, and web content development.

She has a proven track record of analyzing customer needs to create valuable solution enhancements, positioning them in the market to increase customer retention rates and drive incremental revenue.

The presenting sponsor of The Chief Customer Officer Human Duct Tape Show is Customerville. Customerville transforms customer experience surveys into rich, interactive experiences using its unique Design-driven Feedback™ platform.

This partnership ensures that I can continue these shows that you’ve shared such positive feedback on. Thanks so much to Customervillle! Enjoy the show!