AudioNova

Audio Nova is one of Europe’s largest specialists in the field of hearing aids. It has more than 1300 stores in 11 different countries. In the Netherlands, AudioNova is known under the name Schoonenberg and the German branch GEERS is the largest with nearly 600 branches. In collaboration with AudioNova, Insinto has used its model, approach and expertise to improve customer satisfaction in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Poland and Denmark. Customers often go to AudioNova if they have complaints about the hearing and are curious about the possible solutions. The purchase of a hearing aid is an important moment for the customer. The investment is relatively high for many of the customers and the first purchase of a hearing aid marks a new phase in the ageing process. What makes the purchase of a hearing aid special from a business point of view is the many contact between employee and customer. The measurement of a hearing aid happens during several appointments, so that the customer spends several hours 1-to-1 with the employees of AudioNova. The interaction between employees and customers is therefore crucial for the success of AudioNova.

Method and approach

Increasing the customer experience was the underlying goal of the collaboration between AudioNova and Insinto. The Net Promoter Score has been used to measure the willingness of customers to recommend the shops of AudioNova. The NPS method has been used because it is widely deployed in the market making benchmarking possible. Main question was;

How do we get the right insights from tens of thousands of customer surveys each year and then put in the right actions?

What Insinto has done in collaboration with AudioNova is the application of data science to build statistical research models that determine the crucial aspects of the customer experience. By making a deeper analysis, with an analysis varying from the friendliness of the employees to the representation of the shop, we have been able to find the key drivers that have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction. That makes it clear to each customer segment and country that the organization can best focus on increasing the NPS. But also where it could pay less attention to save costs. By continuing to measure these structurally and proactively, and also to make changes on the basis of the analyses, a constant improvement cycle has arisen in collaboration with AudioNova. In order to give employees the tools in hand to improve the customer experience (and thus the NPS) in their branch office, after the (quantitative) analyses a (qualitative) deepening battle was made by organizing roundtables with the best and least performing subsidiaries. Based on this, a matrix has been developed with very concrete actions that employees can do during each step of the customer trip, to improve the three main drivers of NPS. In addition, a monthly “one-pager” has been introduced. Each subsidiary receives one A4 paper each month with all crucial information and improvement points. Intentionally it is broken with the trend to move everything to complex online systems. Weakness is that these systems have a learning curve and are not barely used in the daily operation on the shop floor. To solve this, a monthly “one-pager” has been introduced at the branch level that makes customer satisfaction as concrete as possible. The one-pager is simple to understand, but not simplistic given the amount of information and analysis on which it is based. Preferably, it depends on the refrigerator in the branch every month to initiate action.