Case study with Carolyn Ryan , National Customer Experience Manager

Sanitech is the largest sanitation company in South Africa, providing innovative sanitation and hygiene solutions. A division of WACO Africa, Sanitech has a wide network of branches throughout the country, with their toilet hire division operating across 26 branches nationwide. They also have the largest rental fleet in South Africa with over 30,000 units and 330 vehicles.

When companies are operating on this kind of scale, they simply cannot afford to lose site of their customer – as it can have significant negative consequences. Fortunately, Sanitech, who have been around since 1974, wholeheartedly understand this. Not ones to rest on their laurels, they appointed their first National Customer Experience Manager (Carolyn Ryan) in 2022, in effort to maintain their position as market leaders in sanitation and build on customer satisfaction.

While this was an exciting and innovative move by Sanitech (as dedicated CX roles are still a relatively ‘new’ concept), the challenge that lay ahead for Carolyn was achieving strategic alignment across all the different divisions and businesses. This is when she reached out to us, as a third party CX partner to employ our signature True Voice of Customer offering, which is anchored in verbatim customer research.

“Before embarking on nlightencx’s VoC programme, and reading Nathalie and Brendon’s Client Experience handbook, ‘Eat Your Own Lunch,’ I didn’t actually have a lot of insight into CX, as this was a new role for me. I assumed CX was just about how our customers viewed our services, but I quickly learned that it’s so much more than that.”

After engaging with the verbatim customer data, what stood out to Carolyn was how customer experience is a journey. “It’s a not a one-time shoeshine. There’s an entire journey that needs to be considered and it involves so many different stages.”

She found that the deep customer insights made it possible for her to break the customer journey up into these different stages, which made it simpler to strategise. It also enabled her to identify the problem areas that needed attention and put CX measures in place to address these issues.

Results achieved

From the initial set of research we did, the first CSAT score was 73% – fast forward only ONE year later, and the second CSAT score achieved was 80%. This is a significant jump in a short space of time, and a result that Carolyn attributes to implementing what we always call the ‘quick wins,’ or quick fixes.’ These refer to solutions that are quick (and relatively simple) to action but have a large impact.

For Sanitech, the quick fixes entailed focussing on client relationships, as our VoC research revealed that engagement was a low service driver for the company – with customers expecting more regular on-site visits from senior leadership.

“The research highlighted things that we can unintentionally take for granted. It’s easy for managers to get stuck behind their desks dealing with the issues of the day, but if you don’t have that client relationship, you’re heading for trouble. And it’s not going to serve us if only a few branches have great relationships with the clients, we need ALL our branches to be on the same page and to adopt the same approach.”

CX Measures put in place

    – Customer engagement plan

    Sanitech’s goal now is to move the 80% CSAT score to 85%. To achieve this, Carolyn has implemented a robust customer engagement plan that requires area managers to compile a monthly report on the clients they have visited, outlining any issues that require attention.

    – Regular customer journey mapping

    After reading a copy of EYOL, Carolyn explained that it provided her with a good framework to conduct regular customer journey mapping exercises.“ The book outlines it in a way that is simple to follow and relate to. We can now follow our customers journey, so we know exactly where we are and what we need to do in order to improve upon our CSAT score and reach that 85%.”

    – Employee accountability

    Carolyn also highlighted that in conducting regular customer journey mapping, she has been able to allocate accountability for the different journey stages to specific individuals. Taking it a step further, this accountability has since been incorporated in monthly employee KPIs.

    – Final thoughts

    “We have now established what our lowest service drivers are, and we know exactly what we need to do to bring the scores up in these areas. This is thanks to having that deep layer of customer insight. Without it, you can never be 100% sure what your customers think about you. We’ve always had survey forms that have gone out with operational staff, but it’s not enough. And I’m pretty sure that when you as the company engage directly with your customer for feedback, that they are not always going to be honest. So, working with an external CX company has made a big difference for us. We have direction, we have focus, and more importantly, we are aligned!”