Samenvatting

As a German conglomerate company specialized in electrical engineering and electronics, operates Siemens the world market with eight different divisions ranging from Power and Gas to Mobility. This study refers to the division Siemens Building Technologies (BT), the worlds market leader for energy efficient and environmental friendly buildings and infrastructure. The Dutch department of Control Products and Systems (CPS) has ownership of the product-­‐to-­‐sales process in the Netherlands,offering installers the Heating, Ventilation & Airconditioning (HVAC) and Fire Safety portfolio of Siemens. This study is commissioned by the Head of Product Management HVAC with the main goal to increase the positive visibility of HVAC-­‐products within the purchase process of installers. Positive visibility in this context is seen as properly reaching the installers the right way, at the right time with the right information. The HVAC-­‐group within the CPS department of Siemens Nederland N.V., experiences difficulties in reaching small to medium installers, thus, the customers. The difficulties in reaching small to medium installers arise from two main issues, namely: the lack of information about the information needs and wants from installers during the purchase process and the lack of insight into which information flows the installer uses. Hence, the department does not possess enough information about the installers to properly approach them with the right information, at the right time. To gain this information and reach the main goal, this report will answer the following central question: “What is the CustomerJourney of the installers during the purchase process of Siemens HVAC-­‐products and/or competing products?” Increasing the positive visibility by reaching customers at the right time with the right information, goes hand in hand with reaching a higher level of customer satisfaction during the Customer Journey. The literature review shows that customer satisfaction depends on the gap between the expected and experienced service. In this report service is: “all the potential additional services a supplier can provide in addition to its product
offering”. Therefore, this study also focuses on the current performance of Siemens in the Customer Journey and the expectations of installers with respect to suppliers in the Customer Journey. With this information, a marketing advice report has been set up to increase the positive visibility and reduce the gap between the expected and experienced service of Siemens in the Customer Journey. Research The research consisted of both desk and field research. The desk research elaborates on the current marketing communication channels, the available information about the experiences of installers and the new worldwide marketing concept of Building Technologies, namely: ‘Creating Perfect Places’. The field research consisted of internal and external field research. The internal field research has identified the Concept Customer Journey, based on the perceptions of nine account managers. The Concept Customer Journey Map has been used as a framework for the external field research. Moreover, the opinions and experiences of five employees within the account management and Customer Support-­‐team have been investigated. Both outcomes, have been used to define the focus points of further research. In order to gain insight in the purchase process, the performances of Siemens and the expectations of installers, a qualitative research has been performed. The external field research consisted of 13 in-­‐depth interviews with small to medium sized installers. The respondents were classified according the following criteria: company size, job of the respondent and relationship to Siemens. Findings The Siemens HVAC-­‐group uses several channels to push information to installers. However, a proper defined message and goal per channel and a reinforcing cooperation between the various channels is yet to be seen. One of causing factors, is the inaccessibility of the stored information in the Customer Relationship Management-­‐system. A purchase decision passes several influences from the Decision-­‐Making Unit before reaching its final state. The research showed that directors of installers can steer the decision into a direction of a supplier, even before the installer enters the purchasing process by having preferred suppliers. This direction of choice becomes even stronger as the installer moves along the phases in the Customer Journey. The final choice passes influences from: the calculator, the project team including the project manager, the engineer and the planner and a possible consultancy office and a partner. 6 The Customer Journey consists of nine stages, in which the goals, actions, questions, risks, information needs, channels and Touch Points per stage have been defined. Direct contact between the installer and supplier exists in the calculation, development and procurement phase of the Customer Journey. The small to medium installers contain a comprehensive part of the needed knowledge themselves. This causes the number of direct Touch Points in the Customer Journey to decrease to a rather small number. One of the problems coming up in almost every stage, is the lack of communication around product portfolio changes. The performance of Siemens in the Customer Journey is evaluated positively on the following aspects: quality of the product, the personal contact with and support from the account managers and the product catalogue. Siemens can improve its performance on: speed of acting, the accessibility of Customer Support, the support for engineers and direct communication around the purchase phase. Individual performance evaluations and scores have been given to each stage within the Customer Journey. Installers expect suppliers to be future orientated, reliable, accessible and flexible. Furthermore, installers expect suppliers to provide an effort to maintain the mutual relationship. Siemens meets the installers’ expectations on future orientation and reliability, but can improve its accessibility, flexibility and effort in the mutual relationship. Individual expectations per stage within the Customer Journey have been analyzed. Conclusion For suppliers like Siemens, it is important to not only reach customers during the Customer Journey, but also around and outside the purchase process. This conclusion comes both from the expectation to provide an effort to maintain the relationship and the fact that the installer is less likely to have a strong direction of choice towards a supplier in the pre-­‐phase of the purchase process. The design phase is a special phase and, despite the strong direction of choice due to the many influences on the final decision, offers a great chance for a supplier to prove himself to the installer by providing good support. At the start of the research, four hypotheses were established. The gap between the perception of the account management of the Customer Journey and the actual Customer Journey has been proven to exist.The research has identified two main differences between the Concept Customer Journey and the actual Customer Journey. Gaps between the expectations and experiences of installers during the Customer Journey have proven to exist in each phase in which (possible) Touch Points were defined. Furthermore, the external marketing communication channels did not have an unilateral influence on the experience of the Customer during the Touch Points with Siemens. However, if the materials were not correct, or completely missing, the customer valuation would greatly decrease during the calculation and design phase. This in contrast to the personal contact with account managers, which did have a great influence, at all times, on the experience of installers during Customer Touch Points. Recommendations To provide the right information at the right time, the expectations around the service of Siemens have been linked to the multiple phases within the Customer and have been compared with the current performance in these phases. To increase the positive visibility, thus decrease the gap between the expected and experienced service, several recommendations have been given. Due to the large extent of individual recommendations, the researcher has divided them in four phases, namely: to announce the results of this research and gain involvement from the CPS-­‐team, to optimize current processes and recourses to support long-­‐term recommendations, to improve the positive visibility during existing Customer Touch Points and lastly to improve thepositive visibility during non-­‐existent Customer Touch Points, by creating TouchPoints.