Lessons from LEGO: Creating a consumer-centric company culture

Companies around the world have realised that getting closer to the consumer is crucial not only for profitable growth but also to build brand strength and brand advocacy. These days, consumers won’t hesitate from walking away from an established brand relationship that no longer meets their needs.

Many brands, including us, have started to use the Net Promoter Score, a management tool that can be used to gauge the loyalty of a firm’s customer relationships.

In an attempt to share best practice across the consumer-goods industry, we had the pleasure of inviting Conny Kalcher, LEGO Global VP Marketing and Consumer Experience and Julia Faurskov, Global Insights LEGO Experience as a part of our Speaker Series (a series of inspirational talks from industry experts or internal employees where adidas employees get the chance to learn, share and grow) to share with us how the Net Promoter Score has been pivotal in turning LEGO into a consumer centric place and how employees across all functions are living it day by day.

Here are some of the main learnings:

“Moving from a product brand to an experience brand”

As a consumer driven company it’s important to be an experience brand and not just a product brand.

Focus on understanding the consumer on a very deep level to serve them in a more personalised way.David Quass, Strategic Planning & Research Team

It’s about creating experiences that cannot be copied by anyone. Provide them with a unique experience and moments of dialogues in order to understand what they want. Learn from them and improve their experiences. In the end, it’s about getting our consumers to Talk-Share-Recommend!

“Learn to embrace the bad news” Don’t simply hide within the bubble of positive feedback, but listen to the consumer when they are sharing the bad news too. Don’t just listen to them, but actually do something about what they said. Focus on finding and fixing consumer problems! “Inside-out focus v/s Outside-in focus” Consumer experience is a fundamental business driver. Taking an outside-in Focus claims that priority setting is determined by the consumer, not by what we think is best for the consumer. Do not forget to view your work from a consumer perspective. “Read the feedback from the consumer and act on it” The product or service feedback should be made transparent to all employees working for the brand in a truly consumer centric company. The most important is not just collecting the data; it is how you act on feedback that really makes a difference.

“The more you engage with consumers the happier they are” Knowing our consumer and their expectations is crucial. Analyse the feedback you receive from the consumer, and reengage with them with callbacks. Specially engage with those that are known to be promoters of your brand. Leveraging sources of insights, like comments in social media, help brands take the right actions to turn detractors into promoters. Understand and act! “Consumer centricity is a journey” Living and driving consumer centricity within a company means a cultural change. That journey takes time. Remember that all of us can make a difference on how the consumer perceives our brand!