Hi María, tell us about yourself and your background.
My name is Maria, I am the current partner and director of Lukkap Data & Analytics. I have been working at Lukkap for ten years. At university, I studied Law and Business Administration and Management in Madrid (ICADE University) and completed my education with an Executive Program in Analytics at ESIC University. Before Lukkap, I did internships in a law firm and in a bank.
How did you start working in the customer experience space?
I discovered Lukkap ten years ago. They were the pioneers in customer experience. I fell in love with the methodology and the projects. Since then, I have been working in more than 200 customer and employee experience projects with different companies in different industries.
Can you tell us a little bit about your current role?
During my first 8 years at Lukkap, I worked in customer experience but in the last few years my role is focused on leading the data and analytics area. We help companies achieve their challenges through CX and EX data. We capture a lot of customer and employee data, blend it, and analyze it with machine learning techniques to get real action plans.
How can companies better listen and understand their customer base?
They should focus on these points:
- Capture customer data from different sources (website, social media, phone calls…), not just surveys;
- Ask for more things, beyond Net Promoter Scores;
- Mix all the information. We are used to analyzing part by part. To obtain better insights, mixing is the key;
- Analyze and iterate continuously and use the best techniques.
What are some companies that you think are doing an excellent job at customer experience, and why?
Interesting question. Here in Spain, I know a lot. A lot of companies have realized that they must work on CX in order to improve. In Spain, the best in class are the pharmaceutical companies, the insurance companies, the banking ones, and some retailers.
Many companies are currently undergoing digital transformation processes – what are your tips on a successful digital transformation?
Due to my role, one of the tips is to use numbers and data to make decisions. Moreover, I recommend bringing together the best of the offline and online worlds to deliver a wow experience.
What are some CX solutions or tools that you’re keeping your eyes on right now?
I constantly look at all the voices of the customer and employee tools that the market offers.
In addition, one of the CX solutions that we are developing, and that we think is the future success of companies, is to work on the union of the employee and customer experience. In Spain we are the only ones that are working on this together and obtaining results.
Did you read any interesting books this past summer that you’d like to recommend?
This book is not from this summer, but it is one I always recommend. It is not 100% CX but it is a good one to transform companies. It is The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
What is your favorite CX metric?
I don’t have just one. For me it is the mix of different ones: NPS + operating KPIs + service KPIs + performance of the experience by moment. With all that, you obtain the real insight.
