Every year at Pulse Europe, we recognize European industry leaders who have made significant contributions to the field of customer success (CS), driving innovation and transforming the way businesses engage with their customers.
Without further ado, put your hands together for this year’s Pulse Europe GameChanger Award Winners!
The Architect : Odido, Jason de Krijger
The Architect Award recognizes the individual or team that has gone above and beyond to build a thriving customer community. The Architect is a visionary leader who understands the power of community to drive customer engagement, loyalty, and success. They are adept at creating a space that is not only informative and helpful, but also fosters a sense of belonging and connection.
This year, The Architect goes to … (drumroll, please) … Jason de Krijger, Community Manager at Odido.
Odido is the largest mobile phone company in the Netherlands—and offers the best mobile network in the world. The company wants everyone to be able to easily participate in the digital technology of today and tomorrow—and have fun while doing it.
Jason de Krijger wins this year’s Architect Award for masterfully overcoming the challenges of a rebrand. He was able to expand and connect the Odido customer base by ensuring a smooth journey and offering self-service tools. Well done, Jason!
The Challenger: Lighthouse Intelligence, Pedro Adolfi
The Challenger Award recognizes an organization that has not only weathered unforeseen challenges but has emerged stronger, showcasing an unwavering commitment to the success of their people, customers, and community. Even in the face of uncertainty, this Challenger thinks beyond products and strategic plans, focusing on the positive impact they can have on the people they serve.
This year, The Challenger goes to … (drumroll, please) … Pedro Adolfi, Senior Digital CS Lead at Lighthouse Intelligence.
Serving the travel and hospitality industry, Lighthouse is the technology platform that turns data complexity into revenue growth. They empower their customers to discover hidden insights, capture missed opportunities, and move faster while working smarter. But the Lighthouse team had a problem: outdated customer success tactics that left some customer cohorts unmanaged.
Enter Pedro Adolfi, our Digital CS hero of this award show. Adolfi solved for reactive customer communication, low adoption rates, and unstandardized one-to-one onboarding processes. Wow! He achieved this by defining and segmenting an intended customer lifecycle to impact retention, avoid overwhelming customers, and create synergy between manual and digital efforts. Well done, Pedro!
The Defender: Blue Yonder, Charu Smita
This award recognizes an organization that has strategically fortified its defenses against churn and empowered its customers through a robust and transformative customer education program. The Defender embodies a proactive and knowledge-driven approach to equip customers with the tools and resources they need to thrive. This award celebrates visionary leaders who understand that knowledge is the ultimate shield, preventing customer frustrations and driving long-term success.
This year, The Defender Award goes to … (drumroll, please) … Charu Smita, Director of Digital Experience at Blue Yonder.
Blue Yonder is an AI-powered, autonomous, end-to-end supply chain network. Their technology transforms how their customers do business, turning uncertainty into opportunity.
Well done, Charu and team!
The Dream Team: Mews
The Dream Team Award celebrates the extraordinary achievements of a cross-functional team that has redefined collaboration and united behind the common goal of customer success. The Dream Team exemplifies the power of synergy, where diverse perspectives and expertise come together to create seamless and impactful customer experiences. This team understands that success requires breaking down silos and fostering a culture of open communication, shared accountability, and unwavering commitment to the customer.
This year, The Dream Team Award goes to … (drumroll, please) … Mews! The unstoppable Dream Team assembled included:
- Sarah Masterton-Brown, Head of Community Management
- Patrick McCrudden, Gainsight Administrator, Customer Operations
- Hadley O’Dwyer, Director, Customer Operations,
- Brenna ONeill, Instructional Design Lead, Customer Operations
Mews offers an intuitive and innovative property management system that allows their customers to spend less time at computers and more time focused on guests. However, faced with a resource-intensive onboarding process that slowed time to value for our customers, the Mews team saw an opportunity to leverage the power of community to drive customer success.
The Mews Dream Team implemented a Digital Onboarding solution. This low-touch, self-guided approach allowed customers to set up their property management systems efficiently, with in-app guides, automated feedback loops, and localized support across five languages. And did we mention the Mews Community drives engagement throughout the customer journey? We think that’s a dream come true.
The Transformational Leader: Commercetools, Hauke Rahm
The Transformational Leader Award goes to an individual who has driven transformative change within their organization by elevating customer success and product experience as strategic priorities. The Transformational Leader personifies a deep understanding of the customer journey, leveraging Gainsight’s comprehensive platform to implement innovative solutions, drive measurable results, and ultimately achieve sustainable growth.
This year, The Transformational Leader Award goes to … (drumroll, please) … Hauke Rahm, VP of Customer Success, Commercetools.
Commercetools empowers customers to build and run outstanding shopping experiences with remarkable simplicity, limitless scale, and lightning-fast speed.
Hauke Rahm recognized that transforming the Commercetools Customer Success team to become more scalable as their customer base grew required a full reevaluation of when, how, and how frequently they engaged with their customers. By tackling customer engagement head-on as a 2024 priority, Rahm updated customer health scoring, embraced AI tools for Customer Success Managers, and launched the Commercetools Community. The impact? Increased customer participation and feedback, renewal improvement, and upsell and cross-sell success. Well done, Hauke and team!
Congratulations, GameChangers! We wouldn’t be able to shape an industry without you.
Want more inspiration? Check out some amazing customer stories here!
