Rick Denton: 0:05

You're listening to CX Passport, the show about creating great customer experiences with a dash of travel talk. Each episode we’ll talk with our guests about great CX, travel...and just like the best journeys, explore new directions we never anticipated. I'm your host Rick Denton. I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport. Let's get going. For my Turkish listeners, today's conversation will be with a brand you know very well. For my listeners who may not yet have heard of hepsia burrata, you'll want to know them. As a second largest e commerce company in Turkey. Hepsiburada has over 12 million active customers, 90 million products and over 250 million transactions per month. Supporting that volume you'll find 4000 employees over 10,000 If you consider last mile delivery operations Hepsiburada is a big deal. With that many customers imagine what lessons they've learned about customer experience and what great ideas and stories they have. longtime listeners know that I value hearing customer experience perspectives from all around the globe, every continent except for Antarctica, but I'm still hopeful I'll have a guest from there someday. Hearing the Turkish perspective day will amplify our global CX conversation and learning. That's why I am so excited to talk today with Esra Beyzadeoğlu and Buğra Asfuroğlu. Esra is the chief people officer and recently became responsible for customer experience and customer service. Buğra was formally titled as the customer experience director for Hepsiburada . But most feel there, he should really be called the King of CX given what he's doing. Get ready to hear great insights from a massive brand on how to create great customer experience. Esra, Buğra welcome to CX passport.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 2:02

Hello, Rick, we are really happy to be here with you today. We are really excited the same time because it's the kind of first time for us.

Rick Denton: 2:13

Yeah,

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 2:14

this kind of a podcast, I guess.

Rick Denton: 2:16

Well, it's gonna be a lot of fun. I am absolutely looking forward to you know, I have had Turkish guests before, but I just love continuing to talk to this region and get such great insights from you. But it's so so let's just start right off with you. Your scope of responsibilities really intrigued me, Chief People Officer, and leadership for customer experience and customer service. How do you think bringing those responsibilities together works really well for hepsia burrata?

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 2:43

Thank you, Rick. It sounds maybe a different but there's a vision and rationale behind it. And I just started talking but also you have Buddha here as you said he's my king of CX for hips brother who is the leader of customer experience of E commerce in Turkey. I mean, we have the highest NPS course in e Commerce Industry in Turkey. So I want to hear first Bura is Val Mora you are here to today.

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 3:20

It's very nice to be here. With you. We are very excited

Rick Denton: 3:24

Buğra it's always good to speak to anyone who is called the King of CX so I cannot wait to hear your insight and inspiration as we go through the episode as well. I'm in the presence of royalty clearly.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 3:37

Yes. Okay. So it's been one and a half years that I joined Hepsiburada , Rick. And formerly actually now I'm responsible from is Chief people and culture officer of Hepsiburada . Culture is a very key word here because in our culture, customer is just at the heart of our everything. So, before joining Hepsiburada , I have a carrier, which is mostly related with technology actually, formally I was CIO and CEO of a midsize bank in Turkey. And before that, during 20 years, I have lots of things related with technology, process, management, consultancy system integration, etc. So actually people side is new for me. But when this kind of selection is made for Hepsiburada , I mean bringing some kind of a profile like me need to manage people and culture of Hepsiburada , or Chairwoman and our CEO was thinking we are a big technology company with the great operations with supply chain management. Lots of operations on around ecommerce and being a super app. So we want someone with a technology background to manage all these, who can build new teams, who knows profiles, who knows the needs, and who can also manage the culture, which creates the everything inside the company and creates a have a big role actually has a big role for managing the results of overall business actually. So after nearly one year of managing only people and culture, culture and organization and big transformation from people and culture perspective, since last six to eight months, I'm responsible from customer experience together with customer services as well. And since then, I really enjoy it. In my former experience, I had managed customer experience as well for a while, but here in Hepsiburada . I've been considering the industry, the ecommerce industry, it's like, I mean, different from any industry. And anything any company compared with in Turkish in Turkish markets, I can say. So, last six to nine months was very fruitful, I learned many things. And is you have a good venue, have a good team, who knows what to do, who knows where to go. I mean, if you have CX King to manage all those, I think you're lucky and you float full flow with the things that you can do. That you can enjoy more imagine actually. So since then, is I also started mentioning, where we we were actually the NPS leader in E commerce marketing Turkish industry. And we continue to do it, because it's a kind of race actually, I mean, you cannot lie on it. I mean, you cannot say that, we have the best customer experience in the market, and it will go forever. Now you have those of competitors, maybe we will also mention, and you have to do better things every day, you have to think what is the next big thing. And you have, as we create everyday as we produce every day, new products, new features, new processes, new verticals, horizontals, etc, you have to have a big, holistic eye on everything. And you have to put the customer experience on heart of everything on the core of our culture. We are I mean, I'm using this advantage actually is I'm the chief people and culture officer. And also ahead as a customer experience responsible from customer experience. When we create the organizations, I have the power to manage the overall structure and put the pressure on themes saying that you shouldn't forget customer experience, we should always start by looking at the impact of whatever we do to the results of our customer experience and create the trainings and conduct the transformation programs also putting the customer in the heart of everything,

Rick Denton: 8:44

that that last part there really resonates with me, right? Because there's so many times as a customer experience professional as a consultant, right? I go into companies and I try to help them create great customer experiences. One of the things that you often see is perhaps a leadership team that it okay, the customer is kind of important. It's sort of a thing we think about it, but you're describing exactly that. And that makes a lot of sense why taking the chief people officer, the chief culture officer and having them responsible for customer experience, allows that decision making that is at the top levels of the company to be focused around the customer all the way through from top to bottom. It's a brilliant sort of I just haven't heard that association very often and I thought was intrigued when you had mentioned that to me.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 9:27

One more point, Rick, I mean, this is a vision of our Chairwoman as well. I mean, our CEO and Chairwoman when they built the company, our Chairwoman built this company back 2022 years ago when there wasn't even smartphones, ecommerce. She was She She is a very visionary, wonderful lady and she she said one day everything will be going online. Everything will be sold all through online. So, when she built the company, she put the customers on the call. She still liked it. I mean, whatever we do, we shouldn't forget customer. And this is related with their vision as well. So I have to give credit to their vision and I bought it actually,

Rick Denton: 10:20

that's Fanta, well, that's probably why you're there. Right? If you're aligned with that vision, that's a great reason to be there. So Buğra, Esra just said something there that triggered that thought, right. So it was a number of years ago, Chairwoman said, hey, look, everything's gonna be online. And I know that Turkey has actually a pretty strong e commerce culture already. What are some of the factors that you're seeing that's driving that ecommerce market?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 10:42

Well, and as you said, Rick, Turkey has a significantly stronger ecommerce culture. Actually, the general population is open to to digitization. One of the reasons is the credit card penetration is very high in the big banking sectors, in a technological perspective is very advanced and smartphone penetration among the population is also very high. When you look at the numbers, actually, according to the data given by the Ministry of Trade, I'm talking about last year's 2021 rounds numbers here. The monetary volume of ecommerce in Turkey has increased almost 70% Really, I am repeating it 70% Compared to last year. And the total share of ecommerce has in all other commercial activities has reached almost 18%. It's an it's growing. So last year, there has been almost 408,000 businesses in E commerce in Turkey, we have the main reason for such a strong improvement. In E commerce is mainly its effectiveness for the customer, it's safe, it's easy, if you don't like the product, you can give it back. It's almost as feta as fast as buying something from a shop. And most of the time, the prices are more affordable than the physical shops because there is buybacks competition in the marketplace. So this is the main reasons why customers more and more preferring e commerce in Turkey.

Your CX Passport Captain: 12:22

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Rick Denton: 12:48

That that smartphone penetration, the maturity of the banking system and all of that those are, those are clearly some elements that are particularly attractive. I know that when I've talked with others in that market, it just is not to say that folks were necessarily digitally native, but rather it's just a culture and an environment where that is a very common and normal thing to engage in a digital sort of aspect. And I have to imagine that that is what's influencing the thought that I've got for another question here for you. And it's for both of you. I'm not sure who would want to take this one first. But it's no secret that there's a big name in the US in E commerce that is now in Turkey as well. And I know that could present a challenge. But how is Hepsiburada differentiating itself from competitors, both the large one coming in, but just any competitor in the E commerce space? How are you going to stand out?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 13:42

Maybe I can take it, by the way Rick, it is not alone. You know, we have the biggest one from the west. Also biggest one from the east here. Yeah, both of them. Both of them are here. The other one,

Rick Denton: 13:55

so you're getting attacked on two fronts coming into Turkey. But that tells you that the Turkish market is incredibly attractive if the big name and the West and the big name in the east are coming there. How are you standing out how are you going to win this battle?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 14:07

Yeah, well okay, as we as we are discussing here, it's a very fast growing and very competitive markets. Like in such a promising and competitive market, Hepsiburada we believe that and also we calculated instead of competing only with marketing and or pricing, we need to we have to put customer experience as our main differentiation point. So, we see customer experience is not only a tool to increase customer satisfaction, it is our it is a crucial factor for our growth. So we put CX at center of our growth strategy, it's the locomotive for our for our growth. Like let me give you an example. Before the pandemic's when our customers, especially when all ecommerce customers want to return a product If they had to go to the cargo cargo branches to drop the return. This process, especially during the pandemics has created a health concern because most of the time the cargo branches are very crowded places. So during the pandemics, we came up with a service, that the name is returned by appointment appointments at home. Thanks to our tech teams and our logistic company, our customer may easily schedule a return directly any appointments from a return appointment from the app, by directly select the desired dates, and our cargo company hips digits, courier will go to the customer store and pick the return. So this project helps customers to have more convenience with their returns. And since it is the first of its kind, it makes us stand out from the other platforms. So therefore it increases loyalty and our consideration. This is how we invest in our future and product development in order to create unique selling propositions to the customer.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 16:09

And you know, this is this became a very fruitful and wonderful project for all of us and collected many awards from Turkey CX awards, and also international CX awards. And it it has been a very important part of our delivery and after sales experience, actually and which helped us a lot to increase our NPS and maintain it actually.

Rick Denton: 16:39

You know, it's funny, as I was hearing that specific example that triggered two questions, one for each of you. Let me start actually with you, Esra. And it is these that clearly was not an easy initiative to do. It's not a cheap one, right? There's real work. So how does that decision get made at the leadership level, I'm thinking it's tied back to a lot of what you'd said earlier on culture and the customer at the center, maybe walk me through what was that like when the leadership team was deciding this is what we want to do for the customer.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 17:11

And I'll start and if you want to add something Buğra, please interrupt. And actually, when you look at our strategies from top level, and how to differentiate ourselves, for the next thing, we decide some initiatives in the company. So this was one of the initiatives that we started, like some other initiatives, which impacts a lot of customer experience. And we built some cross functional project teams for taking live these kinds of projects. Another example may be next day at your door project. So we started that project. And in two to three months, we change the structure of our delivery experience for the moment, we have now 35 million products that can be delivered next day at your door.

Rick Denton: 18:13

Nice,

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 18:14

right, Buğra? now 30 35 million products, I guess, and many, many merchants are included in this program. So if you create the awareness of the importance of this initiative, across the units from business, commercial category, marketing, branding, product, it delivery, operations, etc. Many, there are many things that should be done. It's not only an IT project, it is the kind of operational operating model many changes at the same time. And we if you create the awareness of it, and you say that this will be an important initiative for the company, then we wrong for it. I mean, we manage the common objectives and work accordingly actually,

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 19:11

I made something once once you start this kind of huge initiatives in the company, and like with important parties with you, you are also creating solutions with many other things not only for these projects, you are touching almost every aspect of the delivery experience. Yeah.

Rick Denton: 19:38

And it's so I'm curious then, when there's so many initiatives, as you were talking about that we were I kind of want to know a little of this. How did you know this is what the customer wanted? How did you know that there was the pain point of dealing with going to the courier offices and that the the solution that would work would be the one that was the at home appointment pickup. What was the voice of the customer? How did you know that that's what you wanted to do for the customer?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 20:08

Well, the ideas are mostly coming from our customers, let's say yeah, not, not not the word by word, but through our resources. And through our rich data pool, we are looking to the market researchers looking at customer services, data operational data, where we like a visual part of the journey is causing more pain points, deeper pain points. And this is how, according to the impact analysis through the through the customer experience or customer satisfaction, you can see which part of the...which journeys and which part part of that journey is you have to touch and then you prioritize, prioritize them according to the volume of the effects and the emotion that creates to the customer. And then you execute it.

Rick Denton: 21:13

Alright, so little change of pace here. I know that Turkey is a place that I want to visit some time, but have not had the opportunity to but it would be a journey for me. And I know that sometimes those journeys are it's nice to just have a stop in the lounge and I imagine when you've been a part of your journeys as well. Stopping in the lounge is a nice little treat as well. So let's take a little change of pace here. Let's join me in the first class lounge we'll move quickly here and hopefully have some fun. What is the dream travel location from your past? We'll start Esra go first. And then I'll hear from Buğra

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 21:43

and my...I don't know if you believe or I mean read astrology. Rick,

Rick Denton: 21:53

I'm aware of Yes.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 21:55

I'm my horoscope is Sagittarius. Okay, so Sagittarius is very well known. It's its willingness to travel, whatever it takes. We have to travel. I mean, we have to find some new places, meet new people see new places, et cetera, et cetera, and Pandemic impacted mostly the Sagittarius people. So as soon as it's finished, I just went to back to my normal life and every weekend I'm traveling inside Turkey outside Turkey, etc. So if you say to me during travel location from my past for me, I don't want to go to the place that I had been to once I want to see new places because I'm excited.

Rick Denton: 22:45

So your dream travel location of your past is everywhere. I can't wait to hear what your next one is going to be Buğra right what is the dream travel location from your past

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 22:56

route you pick the right people your van running, then the question is travels by it's hard to decide. Right? Lots I might say South Africa South Korea it's it's a perfect place for road tripping perfect foods, perfect wine yachts. Great drinks if you are a gin person. I don't know if you are a gin person or bourbon whiskey person but I am a yes.

Rick Denton: 23:24

I'm all of the above.

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 23:28

I could see all of them. I am a gin person. It's a perfect place for gin lovers and there are no great great, great experiences. I went to cage dive they're great white sharks it was it was winter but once you're in the cage with them, you forget about the sharks well

Rick Denton: 23:45

No thanks. Sorry not gonna join you with a gin and tonic on the beach looking at you there in the little shark cage. But no thanks for me. Let's go reverse here. So Buğra dream travel location you've not been to yet.

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 23:57

I have a long list, which I would like to start with Peru and Cuba,

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 24:04

similar with Buğra , because it's not so close here. So we have to have more time than weekend to go to some kind of a place like that. And I really wonder that culture in cars and also Cuba is different from many perspectives, I guess. And also Rick now is you know, at least two people in Turkey you have two houses in Turkey means I mean Turkish plus 30 is very well known across the world. You should also visit consider visiting Turkey so Oh,

Rick Denton: 24:39

it's on my list. Absolutely. In fact what I'm particularly excited about is Turkish airways is going to have a nonstop to my airport. So very soon I will be able to just get on the plane and when they when they reopen the door. I will have landed in Turkey so I'm looking forward to that. What is you mentioned food Buğra . I'm going to start with Esra, what is a favorite thing to eat?

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 25:04

And actually, I like local Turkish cuisine a lot. So, in eastern side, everyplace in Turkey wherever you go, you meet with different kinds of delicious foods. You have never tasted so. I like Turkish food. I will vote on that. And especially the eastern and southeastern part of Turkey. You You have to go on the diet after you make some kind

Rick Denton: 25:38

oh I fully understand the pain of eating while traveling and what that looks like.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 25:48

Many things

Rick Denton: 25:49

very nice Buğra . What about you?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 25:52

Okay, it's, it's around half past six years, we are approaching the dinner. making you hungry. I'm very carnivores person. So I will say I will say medium cooked steak.

Rick Denton: 26:07

Very good. So the other direction here what is the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you hated as a kid? We were all you want to go first.

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 26:18

Think normally I love food, but our celery. That's it celery. My my mother tried to disguise it like potatoes ignore it.

Rick Denton: 26:30

It is amazing how as parents, we find ways to try to trick our kids to eat things. Ezra, what about you? What's the thing your parents forced you to eat? But you hate it as a kid?

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 26:37

I wasn't really. I mean, and I eat everything. So I mean, I went to dormitory school, late high school. So you had to eat everything to survive. Now I have some troubles with my son that I never experienced or never had with my parents. But there isn't a specific food that

Rick Denton: 27:07

that's funny. You have to eat to survive. I love it. Going back to travel. We're about to leave the first class lounge but I'm curious. Esra, we'll start with you, Buğra , I will end with you. What is one travel item not including your phone, you will not leave home without

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 27:24

that always be a book with me. I mean, it book with some form of short stories. I mean, I always take a book with me, actually.

Rick Denton: 27:38

Very nice. Buğra . What about you?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 27:41

Well, I started traveling during the beginning of my 20s, around 20 years ago, so there was almost no internet, very few. That is not smartphone by the way. So I used to travel with guidebooks. I still most of the time. If I go I go for a long trip includes road trips. I traveled with the with the guide

Rick Denton: 28:09

for those that don't know, Hepsiburada, and I admit, I didn't know the brand very well before we started talking. But it is a wide ranging brand traditional e commerce but also instant grocery delivery flight tickets, there's even your own payment company have Hepsi Pay I think it is but to the customer. It's one brand, it's one experience. So as I think this quote or I'm sorry Buğra I think this question is for you. How do you unify your understanding of the customer and help all of those divisions create a great experience for your customers, given that they only see one brand?

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 28:50

Well, as the top surface it is the mentioned as we've been talking before customer centricity is one of the core values of Hepsiburada is the CX team...We try to listen to the customers understand the request demands complaints and we try to come up with fast and effective solutions. But as you mentioned, it is not always easy or simple to project this philosophy this way of working to all departments in such a fast growing organization. In this case, it is mainly the responsibility of customer experience department in Hepsiburada rather to overcome this this challenge can enhance. In Hepsiburada CX is a centralized department. We are centralized department for all for all the verticals. We are working with all the verticals, HepsiPay, HepsiJets, HepsiTravel for all the verticals, all the product teams on and all the operations. So this ensures effective customers voice strongly and clearly across the organization. It also ensures the timely actions for customer service perfection. This is how we convey the voice of customers throughout the entire organization with a centralized Customer Experience team.

Rick Denton: 30:09

I just took a look at the clock. And we're we're basically out of time. And that makes me sad, because there's so many other things that I would want to ask you. But Esra, I'd like to close out by something you had said, or at the beginning. And we talked about it woven all the way through, and I imagine Hepsiburada is no different than other companies, there's always competing priorities inside the company. So thinking back to that customer centricity, you mentioned earlier, how are you helping the entire company put the customer at the center, the entire company, but the customer at the center as they prioritize their business areas?

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 30:46

Actually, Rick, it was very good experience to be with you here today. And then we partcipate this kind of sharings and we also learn something from your experiences, and we remember what we have achieved and we become happy, actually, I mean, we increase our happiness, I guess. So, to reply your question, actually, as part of our general strategy, and we believe marketing competition alone is not effective in gaining market share. So, positive customer experience in goods and services, instead is critical to acquire market share and actually lies at the core and at the heart of our growth strategic. So, one thing that Hepsiburada, at this point is positioning customer experience and unique selling proposition is our core marketing strategy as well not only on the core of culture, but I mean for the business resources, we see that it is very, very important. So, we therefore highly value the customer experience and closely follow all factors impacting that, as Buğra mentioned, through surveys research call center feedbacks from operational data, and is monitoring this data is critical, we are investing a lot on all unified customer journey to facilitate the data tracking and we do not come consider this data as major figures. And we also take into consideration any customer suggestion concern concerning pain points, old journeys, parts of the journeys, as well. And once we aligned our strategy with this approach, we substantially reduce the conflict of interest between business growth and customer needs customers, as we have mentioned before, so that database feedback is a major component of our work. And we prove this to all management and they all know the importance of what we do and they value it. And we discuss and he would the things all together and it is like from Human Resources perspective, the people perspective is like main competencies that we want to we want our employees to have and to improve from their all their journey in the company from the employee experience perspective as well as they should know the customer is everything in episode that takes

Rick Denton: 33:29

that's as what a great way to close this out. Because that takes us all the way back to that first observation of having the chief people officer and chief culture be responsible for customer service customer experience. Today was particularly insightful. So Esra, Buğra thank you so much for sharing your insights. I thank you for giving me additional color into the Turkish ecommerce and customer experience market. Thank you for helping me understand how Hepsiburada is really focused on the customer and how you're using customer experience to be able to differentiate against some of these incoming competitors. There's nothing quite like talking to the king of CX and also talking to a chief people officer who has control and responsibility for customer service customer experience. I've been so delighted hearing your stories today. Thank you so much Esra and Buğra I really appreciate it.

Buğra Asfuroğlu: 34:19

Thank you for having us.

Esra Beyzadeoğlu: 34:20

It was a pleasure.

Rick Denton: 34:25

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. Make sure to visit our website cxpassport.com where you can hit subscribe so you'll never miss a show. While you're at it, you can check out the rest of the EX4CX website. If you're looking to get real about customer experience, EX4CX is available to help you increase revenue by starting to listen to your customers and create great experiences for every customer every time. Thanks for listening to CX Passport and be sure to tune in for our next episode. Until next time, I'm Rick Denton, and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.