Exploring a way for companies to measure their customer experience. The case of B2B customers of Carlton & United Breweries (AB InBev)

Details

Supervisors

Isabelle Schuiling

Faculty

Louvain School of Management

Degree label

Master [120] en ingénieur de gestion

Abstract

Today, companies have changed the way they sell and service their customers. This is because customer expectations have changed in an era of digitalisation and growing homogenisation of products and services. Providing a better customer experience is said to give companies a competitive advantage and this is why there has been a growing interest in the subject from both academic and professional experts. In order to identify ways of increasing the customer experience, companies are trying to measure it, with as objective to be able to allocate the resources efficiently and identify issues. However, companies now interact with their customers through different channels and there are multiple digital systems that capture the data, which increases the complexity of measurement. This thesis is part of a project started during an internship at Carlton & United Breweries (CUB). CUB is AB InBev’s subsidiary in Australia. It is seeking for a way to measure the customer experience of its B2B customers such as bars, restaurants, retail etc. The objective is thus to answer the following question: How can a company measure its overall customer experience? We first looked at different potential ways of measuring it, including via customer feedback metrics, a matrix to prioritise business processes as well as a model proposed by McKinsey & Company. It's this model that full-filled the requirements better. However, there were some practical issues with the model, which is why we proposed an enhanced version. Then, we described Carlton & United Breweries, its customers, its situation and the context of the project. After that, an approach was outlined to implement the model for the company. We identified the different customer journeys, their touchpoint, experience drivers and their linked KPIs. We then proposed a basic implemented model as well as recommendations to enhance it. Finally, we also provided additional recommendations and limits of the thesis.