How HelloFresh Leverages Customer Insights to Improve Operational Efficiency

Challenge: Enhancing operational efficiency without compromising high-quality standards

HelloFresh is the world's leading meal-kit company operating in 18 countries. One of the biggest focus areas in this space is ensuring that the supply chain is efficient and streamlined without compromising on high-quality standards.

Stefan Platteau, Associate Director of Global Product Strategy and Analytics, is on a mission to enhance the company's operational efficiency while keeping customer satisfaction metrics high.

"The margin of error in delivering a great experience is very small. We need to ensure that the box is produced on time, contains high-quality ingredients, and is delivered in good condition by a third-party logistics provider. Meeting these customer expectations is challenging, but it's crucial to be successful in our space."

The team understands that negative customer experiences may affect customer retention and have enduring implications for the brand's reputation.

"One bad experience can outweigh multiple positive ones, so it's really important to get it right every time. If we don't, it affects how customers perceive us and whether they trust us as a brand."

The Operations Team had limited access to customer insights in the past, yet they are vital for understanding concerns related to deliveries, packaging, or ingredient quality.

"Our teams manage multiple priorities. They also lack direct access to our customers, so it becomes crucial for us to bridge that gap. Our objective is to equip them with tools and resources to understand customer concerns and perceptions. We need to provide customer data in a format that's easy to understand and tailored to their needs so they can make more informed decisions."

Solution: Empowering operational teams with tactical and strategic insights

The CX Team had been using Chattermill successfully to drive growth for years and knew it could add value across more business functions, including Operations, Logistics, and Supply Chain Management Teams. The team decided to expand their usage and democratize the voice of the customer across their supply chain management departments.

"When we receive customer feedback, it goes to Chattermill, which categorizes it into positive and negative sentiment, using predefined categories relevant to our business. Based on this, we've developed team dashboards that enable different departments to explore feedback and gain insights into the customer experience."

The insights are shared across departments to improve decision-making processes in their supply chain management.

"We share Chattermill dashboards with our Production Teams responsible for managing our distribution facilities, or with our Logistics Teams, which handle the transportation of boxes to our customers. Our aim is to provide each team with relevant information to support decision-making. For instance, if a logistics provider is not meeting expectations, we notify our team promptly. Similarly, if there are quality issues with specific ingredients, our data enables us to alert our Procurement and Food Safety teams in a timely manner."

"One of the advantages of using Chattermill is its ability to enrich customer feedback with additional operational parameters. We can use Chattermill to compare the performance among our production facilities. In the U.S. alone, where we currently operate 12 facilities, we frequently assess their relative performance. By dissecting NPS scores into categories, we can pinpoint areas where one center excels over another."

Results

Preventing customer churn

Sharing customer insights across broader operational teams resulted in decreased negative customer sentiment across various areas. By leveraging Chattermill to pinpoint pain points in the customer journey, the team effectively mitigates major customer issues and prevents customer churn.

"A few years ago, we updated the packaging of our sour cream. Immediately after implementation, we noticed increased negative customer sentiment associated with leakage in their boxes. Through a quick analysis in Chattermill, we identified that the new packaging was simply unsuitable for transportation. We were able to revert that change quickly, and the negative spike immediately dropped. Without Chattermill, it could have taken us longer and caused a negative experience for even more customers."

Improved operational efficiency

The procurement team managed to improve operational efficiency by accelerating the decision-making process. By identifying customer concerns in Chattermill, the team is now able to resolve quality issues faster.

"With Chattermill, we can act really fast. When we detect a surge in negative feedback around a certain batch of ingredients, we can pinpoint the problematic ones, check their availability in our production facilities, and prevent further distribution to customers. For larger patterns and trends, we can discover those within a couple of weeks, often within 12 days."

Increased accountability across operational teams

Expanding Chattermill beyond CX and Support teams proved to be a strategic decision for HelloFresh. By establishing relevant dashboards for operational teams, the company enhanced cross-visibility and alignment across the business.

"Chattermill is definitely a platform for all teams. Particularly over the past couple of years, we've tried to democratize customer feedback, and Chattermill has played a big role in making that possible. If any person in Operations or in Product is interested in better understanding our customers, I can give them access to Chattermill and just let them explore it. I think that's quite a powerful way to bring everyone closer to your customers."