Silvana Buljan: 0:00

customer centricity as marketing. Anybody has an opinion. What is customer centricity? We put the customer into the center. Okay, but what does that mean? I mean, the customer is king or queen. What does that mean?

Rick Denton: 0:17

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. Another first for CX passport. I'm so excited to be able to talk with someone from Spain today. A country that I love visiting in 1985. But I haven't made my way back there yet. Today we get that chance we get our first guest from Spain. Silvana Buljan, Executive Director for bond brand loyalty EMEA. For over two decades, Silvana has been at the forefront of revolutionising customer strategies and experiences across a wide range of industries, automotive, air transport, luxury insurance, financial services, and more Hermitian to make customer engagement and customer centric management, not just buzzwords but actionable strategies that drive real change. Using the success from her own career, Savannah brings her experience to grow others as a mentor and a thought leader. From being a judge for CRM idol to mentoring at the professional women's network, Silvana holds a strong commitment to nurturing talent and sharing knowledge. In a role at Bond brand loyalty amaze, Silvana is fostering meaningful connections with customers and employees shaping those experiences that resonate in the heart of Europe and beyond. Get comfortable, grab a little Harmonix bedico McGlasson temper Neo, and enjoy today's episode, Silvana, welcome to CX passport.

Silvana Buljan: 2:13

Thank you so much for Rick, and thank you for such an enthusiastic intro. I loved it, I

Rick Denton: 2:19

get you, I get it. Maybe listeners and viewers are sick. I love my guests. And so I get a little excited when I get to introduce them. And it's my chance to speak a little bit before we get to learn all of the great wisdom nuggets that you have now. I want to let our listeners and viewers in on a little bit insider secret here while you are living and residing in Spain, and so technically a Spanish guest, if you will, because of living there. That's not where you are today. Where do I find you today?

Silvana Buljan: 2:46

Well, you find it today in major gaudier in Bosnia Herzegovina. I'm not sure Well, it's actually a lot less of lot of visitors from the United States from from North America in general. It's a very spiritual place. And

Rick Denton: 3:02

as part of the world, and it's a spiritual place, it's a beautiful place. And it's a place that I know that I want to get to. And so technically, I will check off the Spain box. But I'm tempted to check off the bosnia-herzegovina box here, but we'll just have to find another CX guest for that. But I'm so glad that you've been willing to talk to us today and see x passport while you are traveling, which is perfect for the theme of the show for sure. Let's go. Another theme. Let's talk about those buzzwords, translating those buzzwords into action. The word customer centric transformation that is definitely a buzzword. And yet for you, it's something tangible, what does it actually mean to you? And how does a company actually do this? What results can they expect?

Silvana Buljan: 3:48

Well, when we start with customers that we need to make some distinctions also in language and then some definitions, because customer centricity is marketing, anybody has an opinion? Anybody has an own view on that? What is customer centric, you know, we put the customer into the center, okay, but what does that mean? I mean, the customer is king or queen. What does that mean? The moment when it comes to changing things, how we usually work or our mindset towards strategic decision making, really putting customers first and not the company results that we all have, of course, once you have a positive or great p&l statement. So when we come to really introducing some definitions and distinctions, there we become closer to also understanding the magnitude of when we talk about a customer centric transformation, especially if we are in a business that has grown because of a great product or product centric management, right? Yeah. So to put a little bit of di D. demystifying the definition of customer centric transformation, we all Let's look at four main elements, starting with strategy and leadership. Because it is a business strategy, it's not a philosophy. It's not just a methodology, it's really a business strategy for long term growth and sustainable growth. So that's where leadership and strategy is absolutely important. Then it comes to processes and technology, actually something most companies started investing in, right when they were thinking of customer centricity, I need to have the data, I need to have a customer history, the Consolidated Database, or database framework, whatever. So systems and processes, it's something that is the more tangible thing, and that companies have first invested in. And one of the most critical elements, which is also then a link to e x, and CX is the customer centric talent management, the people that I select the people that represent my brand, and the people I want to retain, to deliver exceptional customer experiences. So we need to look at all these pillars from the most structural things like processes and systems towards talent, and leadership, which is very, very human. And which is a lot about Yeah, yeah, making a difference in people's lives.

Rick Denton: 6:31

And what I really like about that, as customer centricity frequently is you spoken of in sort of veins of, like you said, the posters on the wall, we're customer centric, we care about the customer. I like that you've crystallized it in these four categories. And where do you stand in those four categories? There's a dimension that whether you mentioned it overtly, here, or in other places, I know, you've mentioned that this idea that org design itself, now we're getting tactical here, but org design itself, can impede customer centricity, what do you mean by that?

Silvana Buljan: 7:08

So when we look at the typical organizational design, it looks at metrics organizations, or regional organizations, or, or business unit organization. So all of them from the beginning are defined with an inside out view, this is who I am, this is the product or services that I have. And this is how I need to structure myself, well to grow in the marketplace. It's not about understanding what is the customer journey, where I fit into my customers lives? And how can I organize around this customer journey, in order to make customer experience something very natural and frictionless within my organization, this is where we fail. Because the moment we cluster in different types of, you know, organizational setups, the moment we define people in departments, department heads, p&l, heads, practice leads, and so on. This is the moment where we disconnect from our customers journey, and how we as an organization can be as agile, as fast and as time to market to really make a difference for our customers. And the bigger we get, the more we see that and organizations and that's why if you have a picture of a customer in the center, the moment we have all these boxes, and departments and heads of boxes and resources, you see parts of the customer, the nose is there, the mouth is there the eyes of their fractions across the organization. And this is because we have learned if this is what we still want, we still show in business schools, how organizational design works. It's around our product and services. It's not around organizing our customer needs and our customers reality with us, which is the customer journey, the touch points they live with us they experience with us.

Your CX Passport Captain: 9:10

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Rick Denton: 9:36

I like that in visualizing the big org charts that I've been a part of in my pre consulting days. And it's very it's easy. Like that's just kind of almost how we mentally think in business that these are the hierarchies that are in place. What would it look like if you like take that org design and if not necessarily specifically, what would an org design look like if it were customer centric as opposed to the hierarchical fashion of the past.

Silvana Buljan: 10:04

In the ideal case, we would organize around the touch points and our customer journey, kind of touch point responsibles. And these touch points responsibles, you know, should have the task to always coordinate with a touchpoint, before and after, in a chronological flow of a customer journey, when we they make decisions towards changes in processes and system because, again, behind each touchpoint, and our customers journey, there are processes systems and people behind, the more we coordinated better, but thinking of the touch point experience and not off, you know, our product lifecycle, for instance, this makes a difference. So this would be the ideal case. I have not seen many companies doing that.

Rick Denton: 10:55

No, no, no, no, no, no. And I think we would take not just today's podcasts, but almost an entire learning series for us to innovate Well, that's probably what you help your clients with, as well as going to that touch point approach. And being able to go from the traditional hierarchical into this, this approach there. I'm fascinated by the concept of it. There's another thread that you mentioned another dimension that you mentioned earlier in customer centricity, and that was the one around talent. And that doesn't surprise like this one is not a surprise, talent clearly is a key element of that, how, how should a company really consider their talent management approaches in this context of customer centricity?

Silvana Buljan: 11:35

See, when we see companies, so the classical HR departments are many, many, well, in most of the of the cases that we know that disconnected from the like business strategy, delivery or or business objectives, when they need to prepare the people in order to deliver or exceptional customer experiences, or be prepared with, you know, market trends that are coming. Because HR is like, many times organized in a separate way there is no, there's the HR people, they think of we need to recruit, we need to enable, we need to train, we need to do performance reviews, we need to retain talent. But this is very much age, process driven view. Now, when it comes to talent management, and a combination of customer centricity, it's not only about training them and knowing what customer centricity means. It's about enabling them or, or helping them to connect to understand my job role or function. How does that impact the customer experience in the different touchpoints of the customer journey? And what is my role as employee or brand ambassador, to make a difference for customers, this connection many times is missing in talent management, because talent management looks at the inside view, we are a corporation, we have our values, we have our standards, we have our career paths. And it's all about this, you know, like internal view, and making the connection to the external market view, not only in terms of who do I need? Now, sometimes I talk about the bottleneck profiles or the other, the younger generations or, you know, how can we how can we attract an employer brand for the generations to come? Right? This is not really connected with our Well, I would say purpose as a company, which should be for all of us to make a difference in our for our customers?

Rick Denton: 13:47

Yeah, okay, I know, I'm seeing some of that. But that makes no sense, certainly, like hrs you're describing is perhaps no more guilty than other functions like finance or others, if you have that internal focus that you don't have that extract for you. If you're designing your process for an HR process, if you're designing it for a finance process, and those aren't bad, gosh, who the heck knows a company needs those processes in place? It's the understanding of how do you take that and instead of inward looking process, outward looking process and combine the discipline process with that customer influence, that customer centricity that you're describing?

Silvana Buljan: 14:24

And then on and actually I can see my employees have the talent also as internal customers, I need to engage with them employee experience, we need to invest in employee experience and all in order to be relevant for our employees in order for them to make to deliver an exceptional customer experience. So in the metric, there's this famous Harvard service profit chain, which starts with you know, happy employees, supported by great leadership. deliver a great customer satisfaction experience, which is better business outcomes. So it's all there, no new stuff. It's all there.

Rick Denton: 15:05

You know, that's I, there are times that I think that there, there's a way for I could launch another podcast how to call, there's nothing new. Because so much of what we describe in our conversations are our basics. And yet we know as not only practitioners like you and I are but also, as customers, we know it is still so remarkably broken. And so there's still much more to come. There's something that in your background mentioned, all those different industry types. And that means that you've spent time in both the physical realm and the digital realm. And I've got to imagine, there's a mixture of similarities and differences between the two worlds how we understand the customer centricity differences in a physical like, say, retail, versus a digital experience.

Silvana Buljan: 15:54

I would say what well, if you are a digital native company, you're born digital, the probability that you are born and think customer centric is a lot higher, if you are physical company who is doing digital transformation and becoming more digital, okay. And this is why I would like to distinguish that, because if you are born digital, let's say in the last 10 to 15 years, you use things like the Agile Manifesto, you use things like jobs to be done for customers, you use things like design thinking. So you use all these methods when you build your business. And all of these have the customer view or empathy with customers, or using customer data in all of these methodologies is present. If you're, let's say brick and mortar, or old school retail business, of course, you have learned that you need to be relevant for customers, but the way that you have learned it was different, probably giving the best product not to you're focusing on what is the offer, then given to customers not to be irrelevant, not that much on the experience that you want to give to customers, because you will you're thinking, if I have the best product for the best price, then the customer will come. This is change. So the challenge is that change customer behavior to change and customer needs, who is really tracking that in organizations to be up to date and up to scale. This is something that is some you know, it's it's being sourced by the supermarket research. But it's not part of the day to day DNA. When we run our traditional retail business or the only the physical retail business then. And if we say customer centricity is relevant for us, we start to focus on how to make the physical retail experience better, by engaging our customers differently by training our people by selecting our people, right customer facing a different way. All this comes up but but it's always it's, it's, it's a one point transactional solution to a concrete need, instead of looking at the holistic customer journey and seamless experience our customers are looking for, because they don't care if it's digital or physical. Any touchpoint must be aligned with the strategy, or with the needs that our customers expect from us when they buy and consume our product and services. You

Rick Denton: 18:34

actually surprised me with that answer. I fully expected you to go a different direction. Completely. What's one? Well, the idea that retail, the physical, physical retail, let me use that word, that that would be the direction that are the the choice between the two that would be less customer centric, just start natively. And the reason I thought that the reason I expected you to say that is because while the customer is there, the customer is present. The customer is right there in your face, it's impossible to avoid the quote customer because they are physically present. Whereas the digital the customer can be more abstract. You you I like how you opened my eyes a little surprised me there with Well, yes, but the digital has at least a inherent bias towards considering the entire journey as opposed to the point in moment transaction that retail has.

Silvana Buljan: 19:26

I love that great because it opens another oh gosh, what additional Are you about to surprise me again. It's all about how I use and how I act, how I use the data that I have in the interaction. Because if I'm so give you an example of something that happens at one of our customers, so your retailer in the fashion industry, you're a retailer and you're organized On department level, right, right on Plant, plant 1234, up to five, whatever. And you are the department boss. So you are the all your team is independent of what you know, you can have a household department, you can have a fashion department, you can have whatever or men's fashion or women's fashion, then a customer walks in. And this customer has more than one neat, it's not only, I need a new suit for myself. But look, my wife is here, my kids, let's just go shopping for everybody. Now, if I'm a good salesperson, and I see that this customer is about to spend a lot of money with me. And I can read this by interacting with them. And now I want to go with them throughout the whole department store and give them the best advice because I know where to find this and that I can give them advice. This is something I would love to do. And this will be the right customer centric behavior because I can read the customer, I see there is lots of willingness to buy, I have, you know, I'm building trust. And they listened to me, and I'm the perfect person to accompany this customer. Now I have a boss who says, oh, but you are my employee working on my department level, you cannot just go with the customer up and down. Right? So how do we use the data and this doesn't, this doesn't happen in the digital world, in the digital world, the data I have, I can just lead the customer to work best he or she can land with the offering that I have using the data in real time. We are not able to do that if we again as an organization are not customer centric, if the leaders are not aligned, and we don't let employees do that. And then we just suck in the retail experience in terms of customer centricity because we completely don't understand the customer needs and I can have the person in front of me. Do I surprise you again?

Rick Denton: 22:09

So far, that's so much fun. I love that I love Did I surprise you again? Yeah, you did. And that's what I love about CX passport is that selfishly, I'm learning from the guest and we just happen to hit record and share it with a wider audience. You clearly are a world traveler with background all over Europe and living in Spain and Bosnia Herzegovina, you know, travel and you know that it can be exhausting. And you know that stuffing down in the lounge can be a delight. So let's do that. Now. Let's start down in the first class lounge. We've quickly here and have a little bit of fun. What is a dream travel location from your past? Japan? Yes. Okay. I'm with you there. Tell me a little bit about why for you.

Silvana Buljan: 22:51

When I think of Japan, I think of an exceptional service that is giving to customers because the look at the independent look in order automotive, for instance, when we analyze data, we lots of love many times see that Toyota is always a benchmark I would love to see. And I know so many stories about Toyota and we have worked with Yoda in the past. But really being on site and living this Omotenashi service culture I would I there's so much curiosity I have and so much yeah, I would just like flexure to experience someday. I have never been to Japan. I know more about Japan. I heard love Japan. But I've not I have not been there yet.

Rick Denton: 23:34

Ah. So I think you answered my second question, which is a dream travel location you've not been to yet. We'll talk about Japan. So Japan is your future hope? What's a dream travel location that you've been to in the past? You mixed it up on me? You surprised me again? I love it. No, do not apologize. We'll call this one the one where I see a lot of surprises, Rick.

Silvana Buljan: 23:54

Oh, that was Hawaii. Ah, I went to Hawaii many many years ago and that was a great experience. Yeah. I like the Waikiki Beach. Yeah, and yeah, the whole the whole experience was great. Yeah, it was really really great. It

Rick Denton: 24:16

is a really nice place to be I've only been there once and it was C 23 years ago. So yeah, I need to get back there for sure. What is a favorite thing of yours to eat?

Silvana Buljan: 24:31

Uh, well, I like so many things but something special and it's my connection to to Spain as well. A good plate of harmony bedico that you mentioned when you introduced me I mean there is no such thing as a great plate of harmony bedico With or a good glass of red wine. Or in summertime Hoonah Kenya. So some some fresh and cool beer.

Rick Denton: 25:02

Oh this is sounding wonderful yes it's I love that I'm on a bedico comes up again that's so much fun the other direction so what is something growing up you hated but we're forced to eat as a kid

Silvana Buljan: 25:16

liver

Rick Denton: 25:20

I laugh with a bit of a knowing laugh and same with listeners and viewers because liver it has come up so many times recently I do not know why we were serving liver to our families and our kids in the past

Silvana Buljan: 25:33

my mom forced me to either because she was convinced it's good for my growth I don't know why but I can't leave not anything that is like like like anything that is how do you call it in English the the interior organs

Rick Denton: 25:52

oh yeah I love it. Well let's we're gonna have to exit the lounge here. And so what is one travel item not including your phone not including your passport that you will not leave home without?

Silvana Buljan: 26:07

Well it has to do with what you see in the back here we are right now a rosary I never leave my home without a rosary

Rick Denton: 26:22

Vaughn I like that answer. For those that aren't viewing this describe what is behind you to tell us what they're seeing and why the Rosary is important to what is behind you.

Silvana Buljan: 26:33

So behind me actually is the church of magic Oregon, where I am right now. As it is the sanctuary of the of the of the Virgin Mary is one of the sanctuaries like like Fatima is in Portugal or is in is in France? I'd actually don't know if you have sanctuaries in North America. I'm not sure about that. Yeah, it's it's, it's the Rosary is you know, if you're spiritual you pray, you pray the rosary. And it's, it's something that I've learned since I was little, my mom also gave it to me it's a protection protects you. So it's something very meaningful to me. Yeah. And

Rick Denton: 27:13

I really liked that. And so I'm thankful, I think you and I can both be thankful for the Rosary and not for liver. And so we're thankful for Silvana there is no good segue from some from rosary to what I want to ask you now, but I want to get tactical, I want to really understand the how to have some elements, I talk a ton about how process is a key success factor for customer experience delivery, weaving that outside in of customer with the inside out a process. So thinking of customer centric, and all of the customer centric processes a company would need to do, how do you help companies with that customer centric process design?

Silvana Buljan: 27:55

Well, first of all, we always use voice of customer data, we always want to know how do customers perceive the experience with us in the different touch points in moments that matter to them. In in the in the you mentioned the process the complaint management process, it's such a great input and nobody really uses so they use it for like reporting and tracking and handling times and solution rates. But to really listen to what customers are saying to us, when they complain about something, it's a goldmine that we're not using. So it's really about Yes, using the data that we have from customers to get to learn to listen and really learn from them. This as a first place, I always need the data to understand what do customers think of their experience with us. So of course, we know we because we analyze the data, we do analysis, we derive what the moments of meta are, we derive actions to how to improve them. So this is this is our starting point to then be able to offer other things or to support the transformation process without things because a transformation, or customer centric transformation is always a structural part and the cultural part. The structural part is always around. What processes wouldn't be the change what technological adjustments, so how do we train people differently? How do we organize differently, you know, the organization set up. But the cultural part, the mindset part, this is the most tricky part, because it's really about, about we change how we understand our business, we change our decision making, because we learn to be more customer centric, not only product centric or corporate centric. So the cultural transformation is the toughest part. And we do support that with them by really working with the people working with leaders. We have a methodology that is called CX leader, where we actually do some psychological tests with leaders to see how their competencies are in terms of customer centric leadership. We also look for the talent Management how customer centric are our people when they work? So there are some techniques and tools that we can use to to have data both from customers as well as from employees to from them really arm a good action plan for implementation and then there is a rigor and making it happen making it work because discipline you need the discipline there. So my German partner Rick, I was born in Germany is you are I learned Yes, this we love discipline.

Rick Denton: 30:33

It maybe maybe that's what you have it Yes, I was born on a US base and moved when I was wanting to happen maybe that's why I'm so focused on process because some of that German air was infused in me as I was born because I'm so with you I'm so with you on voice of the customer, not survey the overall voice of the customer what that means. And using that to inspire the decisions you make. And then the discipline and the rigor and the processes associated with it are what actually matter.

Silvana Buljan: 30:59

One more thing, you hit me one more thing that would I would like to add is, and what I see in lots of organization, because we are so ruled by processes, compliance. Empowerment to our people. With all the discussions we have now around artificial intelligence, automation, and all these things, and also in sourcing or centralization, especially in huge organizations, the empowerment, we need to give our people to create the magic in the customer experience is disappearing, the bigger and getting as an organization, the less I trust my own people, and the less I have power, this is a big mistake. So the empowerment is something that I would like I would like to add to the list.

Rick Denton: 31:47

I am so glad that you added that and we're going to end there. And we're going to end there because I love how you make a distinction between process and policies. You make a distinction with a rigid, inflexible process, being something that an employee is not empowered to understand and evolve with based on the needs of the customer, as opposed to a structure that is in place to allow things to be efficient to move to move forward. Many times we've seen processes, aka policies, make inefficiency make it impossible to deliver good experiences for Every Customer Every Time and so I really appreciate that Sivanna folks wanted to get to know a little bit more about you your approach to customer experience, customer centricity. Little bit more about the work that you do, how should they get in touch?

Silvana Buljan: 32:34

Oh, of course via email, it's easy so vana dot borjan at Bond pl.com via LinkedIn, I think Savannah boy yawns there are not so many that's easy, but my name not so many. Silvana bonds, girl you should find me. Very

Rick Denton: 32:56

good. Well, just in case there are multiples I'll put all that in the show notes and you can scroll down and link there so Vaughn it this was a fun journey if I may to be able to understand your approach to customer centricity, both the the definitions of it, the specifics around it, and then the tactical how to the voice of the customer, the process, the empowerment, brilliant conversation, and yes, you did surprise me multiple times and I enjoyed the heck out of it, so Vana. Thank you for being on CX passport.

Silvana Buljan: 33:26

Thank you, Rick. It was a pleasure.

Rick Denton: 33:33

Thanks for joining us this week on CX Passport. If you liked today’s episode I have 3 quick next steps for you Click subscribe on the CX Passport youtube channel or your favorite podcast app Next leave a comment below the video or a review in your favorite podcast app so others can find and and enjoy CX Passport too Then, head over to cxpassport.com website for show notes and resources that can help you create tangible business results by delivering great customer experience. Until next time, I’m Rick Denton and I believe the best meals are served outside and require a passport.