Horst Remes

Speaker
Dutch
English
Horst Remes

Who is Horst Remes?

Horst Remes combines the precision of an engineer with the delivery of a performer. He was recently named one of the global CX 50, the world's top voices in Customer Experience.

He works hands-on every day, redesigning processes that improve customer experience and efficiency at the same time. His keynotes are a direct extension of that work. The cases are real, the examples are recognisable, and the take-aways are usable on Monday morning.

He dismantles the myths around customer centricity with humour and with constant interaction with the room. Whether he speaks to an executive committee of seven or a hall of several hundred, the energy is the same. One client still cited his keynote a year later as the starting point for their change.

Horst has a strong aversion to fluff. He warns against what he calls "management bullshit": glossy phrases that sound good but mean nothing.

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  • The great myths of Customer Centricity

    Most customer centricity initiatives fail quietly. Customers don't feel the difference between before and after, so nothing changes in their behaviour: no more word of mouth, no uplift in sales, no stronger loyalty. The initiative fades away without anyone declaring it over.

    It rarely fails on effort or budget. Managers act on beliefs that sound reasonable to almost everyone, but are demonstrably wrong, so the money goes to changes that customers never notice. Or they borrow ideas from far more mature organisations, without the conditions that made those ideas work there.

    Horst Remes calls these beliefs the customer-centricity myths. They are not a matter of opinion. Behavioural research and twenty years of work on the shop floor show they do not hold, and that acting on them quietly costs money. One of them is the belief that a company that wants to be customer centric has to be good at everything.

    This keynote takes the myths apart one by one, with cases from his own work, and shows where to put your money and energy for results that actually stick.

    Listen to a podcast episode with Horst Remes about The Myths of Customer Experience here. 

  • A Rebel's Guide to CX

    Meet your customers' expectations, and preferably exceed them. Follow the best practices. Benchmark yourself against the leaders in your industry. The advice sounds sensible, and it quietly leads to one conclusion: to be customer centric, you have to be excellent at everything.

    The companies that genuinely make a difference do not work that way. They pay little attention to the best practices in CX and they do not benchmark themselves against anyone. Their view is more rebellious, and it shows in three choices.

    They are not trying to fit in with their industry, they are trying to stand out from it. They do not wait for the customer's verdict either, but own the story and decide for themselves what customers should expect from them. And where most organisations try to balance opposing customer needs and end up somewhere in the middle, these companies commit to one specific definition of customer experience, so that every customer feels in every interaction why they chose this company.

    Horst Remes shows how these organisations operate, with cases from his own practice, and what it takes to make the same choices in yours. It asks more courage than following the best practices, and it works considerably better.

We invited Horst Remes as one of the keynote speakers at the Volvo Consumer Experience Summit. With his witty keynote, strong drive and confrontational humour, he inspired our retailers and our employees. He gave them a taste of how a consumer-focused approach can make all the difference.

Elfi Janssens - Managing Director

Volvo Cars

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There are many keynotes on the topic of customer centricity, but rarely are they as eye-opening as Horst's on the myths! To the point, entertaining & with a lot of expertise on the subject, he manages to inspire his audience for the topic.

Dominique Feurich - Head of Transformation

Thyssenkrupp (DE)

Through his compelling storytelling and constant interaction with the audience, Horst managed to deliver an engaging and informative keynote from start to finish.

 

Sofie Parys - Sales & Segment Strategy Manager

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