KPN Case Study: how Psychology Conquered KPN's Online Department

KPN is a leading provider of ICT services. A large organization, with many different products and services at home and abroad, and therefore many different customers with many different needs. Understanding who your customers are and how they behave is crucial if you want to keep growing as an organization, whether you have one customer or millions.

Something KPN's Online department understands all too well and is the reason why Peter Sonke, head of that department, has chosen to train every employee in his department in behavioral psychology. We stopped by headquarters to ask about Sonke's vision for optimization and what he believes the role of data and psychology is in maximizing growth and improving customer satisfaction.

Beyond data-driven work

Data-driven working has long been the norm at KPN. Over the years, they have invested heavily to expand this way of working. And they do so for good reason. According to Sonke, working data or evidence driven allows them to serve the customer better: “We are convinced that in this way we can make our customers” lives more fun and easier."

But data-driven work means more than just processing and analyzing data. Peter Sonke's interest in psychology began two years ago. After that, the belief that knowledge of behavior will help us further in optimizing the online customer experience only increased. The search was soon on for a party that could deliver on the method he envisioned.

“The knowledge of psychology and behavior is a skill that demonstrably improves your marketing. So then you have to make sure your people can work with it and think from that philosophy.” - Peter Sonke, KPN

About a year ago, all employees in the digital department started the Online Persuasion Masterclass at Online Dialogue. “Data is just one of the ingredients for online success.”, said Peter Sonke. He says he believes in the combination of three things: knowledge of customer behavior, UX that responds to customer behavior and data To complete the circle. “Data without behavioral science doesn't work for online. It has to be a combination. The knowledge of psychology and behavior is a skill that demonstrably improves your marketing. So then you have to make sure your people can work with it and think from that philosophy.”

Knowledge partners

Many companies want to figure everything out on their own. They go to work themselves to gain new knowledge and look for new ways to improve their operations. At Online Dialogue, we guide companies to the point where they can do the work entirely by themselves. We start with demonstrating and gradually let the organization do more tasks themselves. With the help of our training courses, we can help companies one step further and provide the depth they need for their own optimization program.

Peter Sonke also believes in this transfer of knowledge. “You have to make something your own first and then you can figure out everything yourself. KPN is big enough to insource everything. But we are less agile. New technologies, new applications and new visions are constantly emerging. But they won't come quickly from large corporations. Innovations and new ideas often start with new companies. So you have to partner with those. Smaller organizations try new things faster, and the moment something becomes big, you hook up. If unexpectedly it doesn't come to fruition, you can also terminate it quickly.“