March 2011
Know-how on the Orient Express
A journey through best customer interaction practices in video, print and web
The legendary Orient Express evokes luxury, nostalgia, romance, murder even, and has sparked the imagination of many writers, movie and TV makers. Atlas Copco Compressor Technique employees, however, are likely to link it to their Customer Orient Express, a concept we developed for an internal webinar on customer friendliness. Its theme is a journey by train in which best customer interaction practices are explored. We filmed on the actual Orient Express, created a game board and box, a brochure and developed an e-learning module.
Customer satisfaction is a driving force for the Atlas Copco Compressor Technique service division, so staff receive regular training on this topic. For a worldwide organisation like Atlas Copco, a particularly efficient way to organise training is by means of webinars. The formula is used to train a selected target group of local management, who are then given other communication or training materials to pass the message on within their own organisation.
Concept
Sometimes we go to a client with one killer concept we’re all convinced of; in this case our brainstorm had resulted in various theme proposals for the webinar, all with their own merit. The Orient Express had popped out as a mere verbal association with the key notion of “customer oriented organisation”, but the analogy turned out to work well all the way: learning is like a journey towards a promising destination, hence the “Customer Orient Express”.
Perhaps travel is not the most original metaphor here, but it is clear and easy to interpret, and the fame of the Orient Express adds a flavour of adventure to it. Our contacts at the Atlas Copco service division also fell for the idea, not in the least because a train lent itself very well to the game board they already had in mind.
Webinar video
Obviously the webinar video we were to make couldn’t do without real footage from the Orient Express. In line with the great platonic tradition, a number of dialogues between two Atlas Copco employees on the train gradually bring forward the company’s focus points in terms of customer interaction to the webinar participants.
Together with our crew of three, the Atlas Copco “travellers” did a great job in shooting all the footage required for a 30-minute video in just 24 hours on the train. The staff and accommodation on the Orient Express also proved to be strong examples of excellent customer service that underline the messages.
Supporting materials
To support webinar participants in their roll-out of the messages to a broader audience, we designed a game board with the box to fit it into, and a brochure. The board isn’t a classical game, but rather a visual guide for the presenter of the customer interaction topics.
The drawings are metaphors for the right employee behaviour in four major themes. The brochure supports the presenter with the same drawings and the content of the webinar in small and easily digestible chunks of information. They were also distributed to employees for later reference.
Virtual trip
A final deliverable was released a few weeks after the webinar: a virtual trip on the Customer Orient Express; or to put it more plainly: an e-learning made available on Atlas Copco Compressor Technique’s intranet. We used the existing drawings and added new ones to create a linear, but highly interactive learning trip. It alternates exploration, like dilemmas, with on-screen course text and some mini-games to spice up the learning experience. A lot of “soundscape” in the background, with train noises and voices from travellers, the waiter, the conductor, etc., make the whole feel even livelier and more realistic.
