In the old structure, a customer manager was responsible for a specific sales channel. Sometimes, this had unwanted consequences: ‘In the past, our customers sometimes had different and, unfortunately, changing contact persons at METRO. We wanted to change that,’ says Sebastian Weißenfels. After all, the situation was unsatisfactory for both sides. Today, in the omnichannel age, the principle that holds for every customer care representative is: ‘We are one METRO – no matter where our customers meet us!’
At the regional METRO branch in Neuss in the Lower Rhine region, where the customer manager works, the standard that is soon to apply everywhere in Germany has already been implemented: a field manager takes care of customers in a specific area across all sales channels. He or she works closely with a back office manager, his or her back-up, so to speak. ‘Our motto is now: one face to the customer,’ explains Sebastian Weißenfels. For customers like Christa Eickenscheidt from the ‘Wetterkamp’, this means that she now only has to remember 1 name at METRO. She can discuss with her customer care manager what goods she needs, how and when she would like to receive the delivery or which digital solutions from the ‘DISH’ platform make sense for her business.
METRO Germany uses the digital customer management tool ‘SAM’ to make sure things run smoothly. This is a software program that gives a customer care representative a simple overview which contains all the important information about a customer on his or her mobile terminal at the touch of a button: master data, information on the company, sales development, visit history, issues discussed and appointments. ‘The information which we can retrieve in real time allows us not only to take better care of the customer,’ says Sebastian Weißenfels. ‘We, too, can develop further, because it makes work processes more transparent.’