The Challenge

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Disseminating a new way of understanding customer needs and acting on them in 3 countries with completely different contexts, teams, expertise, ways of working, and cultures. 

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Process​

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1. understanding 
   
   To start the project, I held a session with the stakeholders involved. They had greater knowledge about the specificities of each region (Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay) to gather information that would be useful in creating the best approach to achieve the end goal. Also I've mapped restrictions, blocks, the questions of the project and the key results we've needed at the end of the job.
    

2. investigation
   
   After in deep interviews with teams who labor with these international offices, I discovered that there was a more subtle issues, related with a lack of guidance, resources and support.
   
   In addition, every approach we had needed to be smooth, so they didn't perceive it as impositions from the headquarters.
   
   Also, the local culture tended to override any strategy, so we had to keep this in mind to create an dynamic that worked in the long term.
    

3. cocreation
   
   Whatever strategy we wished for the offices outside the headquarters to adopt, it had to consider the culture and people of each place. It means that before trying to implement a new customer-centric approach, we should first of all have real empathy to listen to their pains and flexibilize methods and techniques due to the individual context of each office.
   
   Considering these aspects, I've created a dynamic that first and foremost puts them in first place. In the first stage of the dynamic that I designed with the teams from Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay:
   
   Firstly, we listened how was the process they generate solutions to meet customer needs. This moment was important for us to measure the degree of maturity of the teams of these countries to absorb the new methodology that needed to be implemented.
   
   Then, we took note of the team's complaints about a lack of people, outdated systems, a lack of funding, and training that made the process even more challenging.
   
   At the end we could map the environment and the main obstacles to implementing the new methodology.
   
   After this listening, we moved on to the second phase of the interaction, where we put ourselves in their shoes by presenting:

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• Relatively similar problems that also happened at the company headquarters
   

• That we were recording every point of attention raised to address it 
   

• Despite the role of disseminating customer-centricity in offices outside Brazil, we were still learning and we were empathetic about the obstacles they were facing.
  
  This stage reduced the team's resistance and reduced anxiety because we gave them clarity that we were considering their perspective.

 

Only at the end we presented the step-by-step of the new process, as an evolution of the way they already did it.

 

During this presentation, each team member took note of possible points of attention or barriers they saw for the process to be implemented, as well as what they could do differently to implement the methodology in an adapted way to fit their reality.

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Results:

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As a result, we obtained:

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• Committed teams to change because they trusted that their points were being considered
   

• Mapped obstacles to change
   

• Knowledge about the maturity level of each office to subsequently adapt the methodology in the best way
   

• Next necessary steps for implementation in the offices of each country.