Porsche Passion Report

High performance, a distinctive sound, superb handling, iconic design: in terms of direct product experience, Porsche has maintained a competitive lead as a luxury brand since its inception. However, in today’s highly competitive automotive market, a strong foundation for success only exists when these attributes are complemented by outstanding service and an excellent customer experience. Here, too, over recent years, the sports car manufacturer has embarked on an ambitious mission to achieve a customer experience that is positive in its entirety – from the initial visit to a website, to the actual car purchase and, ultimately, its maintenance and repair. 

Under the motto “Be crazy about every customer touchpoint,” the aim has been to turn customer satisfaction into customer enthusiasm by elevating experience management (XM) at Porsche to a new level. The first step in this journey addressed some fundamental questions: What does experience management mean for Porsche? What sorts of experience are customers having with the brand? And how can these experiences be digitally captured, analyzed and translated into specific KPIs? 

O-data (operational data)
Operational data is derived from business processes and provides objective information about the company and its activities. It addresses the “what” (what has happened?) and is typically collected in systems such as CRM, ERP or business intelligence tools:

• Details of the sales process
• Event participations
• Service and maintenance data
• Vehicle use data
• Use of connect services
• Website and app interactions
• Customer loyalty and customer attrition calculations 

X-data (experience data)
This is experience data which provides insights into the emotions, views, expectations and perceptions of customers. X-data describes the “why” (why did something happen?), the subjective and emotional perspectives of customers. Various methods are used to gather this data:

• Customer feedback from surveys  
• Ratings and comments on social media platforms
• Online reviews on rating platforms
• Customer complaints and requests for support
• User behavior on websites 

It was at precisely this point that the existing software fell short of the scalability needed to gradually set up new as well as adapt existing surveys, and cope with the growing volume of data. A second question concerned the issue of integration into an extensive Porsche system landscape consisting of CRM, marketing, analytics and other software.  

Porsche therefore had a decision to make: should it continue to set up every new touchpoint individually and in the same time-consuming and cost-intensive manner as before, or should it establish a fundamentally new software concept? A modern experience management software option was chosen. But from whom – and how should it be introduced? It was at this point that MHP became involved as an end-to-end partner in the area of experience management technology, and in this capacity supported Porsche through a process that started with the idea, then moved on to strategy and process- and touchpoint-related guidance, and culminated in implementation and comprehensive system integration.  

A project of such complexity, with its abundance of stakeholders, touchpoints and data, needs suitable methods by which to achieve valid results in an efficient manner. In this project, SAFe was used as an agile framework to efficiently coordinate teams working in tandem. 

SAFe provides a structured approach to applying methods such as Scrum, Kanban or extreme programming (XP), not only to individual teams, but also to multiple teams and departments in large organizations. Short sprints and clearly-defined roles made it possible to integrate and quickly test new requirements, such as additional surveys or touchpoints. This approach enabled the project to remain flexible in the face of changing market conditions. In essence, the project involved three steps: 

The project began with a focus on integrating the new solution into a complex system landscape in order to harmonize data flows and automate processes. This meshing of systems ensures that customers are addressed personally at all relevant points of contact.

• Seamless integration of Qualtrics into the existing, complex Porsche system landscape, including SAP CRM, SAP Marketing, SAP BW/4, SAP Analytics Cloud, XM Discover, SAP BTP, SAP Cloud Integration and AWS
• Development of the target architecture with a focus on data modeling, interface design and workflow automation
• Automation of feedback triggers, e.g. through automatically generated invitations following delivery of a vehicle or a workshop visit
• Highly personalized survey design geared to a touchpoint, the responsible Porsche Center, employees involved, customer information or vehicle data; with dynamic content such as images of individual vehicle configurations, information about the Porsche Center, or adjustment of questions based on a vehicle’s drive type 
   

The focus is then on merging feedback from different sources and gaining valuable insights with the aid of modern methods of analysis. This allows moods and topics to be captured and recorded systematically for the purpose of deriving the right measures in a timely manner.

• Use of integrated Qualtrics analytical functions such as Text iQ to identify moods and keywords from open-ended comments
• Integration of customer feedback from Qualtrics along with data from the external data sources of other touchpoints (e.g. call centers) into the expanded analysis tool XM Discover for comprehensive analysis
• Conception and creation of topic models in XM Discover to cluster customer feedback thematically in various languages and to gain relevant insights
• Automated translation of free-text feedback for the purpose of designing analysis models for greater efficiency and accessibility
• Development of interactive dashboards for identifying pain points and highlights, detecting trends, and defining relevant fields of action

• More than 600 directly connected dealers
• Presence in more than 80 countries – and in even more languages
• More than 2.5 million personalized invitations, and feedback obtained more than one million times
• More than 30,000 additional feedback messages per month
• More than 150,000 automated workflow executions per month
• More than 200,000 calls to standard Qualtrics APIs per month 

Porsche dealerships perform impressively at the key touchpoints of vehicle purchasing and service. In 65% of all service-related feedback and 82% of purchase-related feedback, customers reported that their expectations had been exceeded. These excellent results are themselves a source of motivation to avoid lapsing into complacency. With the aid of continuous customer feedback via Qualtrics, further possibilities for optimization are identified in a targeted manner – for an experience that is constantly evolving. 

The Passion Report, however, is not intended solely as a documentation instrument. Instead, with Qualtrics, it automatically becomes a starting point for targeted improvement measures. If, for example, a customer submits questions or negative feedback, that feedback triggers an automated escalation process, including ticketing.  

The dealer in question then has 72 hours in which to address the concern promptly, initiate improvements and process the ticket accordingly. To affirm Porsche's doctrine of customer satisfaction: “Most companies are good at large-scale events,” says Porsche CMO Robert Ader, “but only a few are great at generating enthusiasm through attention to detail.” 

From satisfaction to enthusiasm. This is the ambitious goal Porsche has set itself for its experience management. And with Qualtrics and MHP, every touchpoint becomes an important step in that direction.