Transforming Customer Retention in Global Logistics
Service innovation leadership transforms customer relationships delivering 30% YoY increase of revenue.
CONFIDENTIAL - Details only at an in-person presentation
The problem
Maersk, one of the largest logistics and ocean transportation providers, needed a new approach to build lasting customer partnerships after the pandemic. The industry's high commoditization created transactional relationships, especially with medium and smaller customers representing 2/3 of cargo volume. We proposed solving this through a new service proposition and business model.
Role: Design and Product Leader
Team: Evangelos, Maria, Mikhail, Gokul
Year: 2023-2024
Skills: Customer research, Business innovation, Hypothesis-driven design, Cross-functional leadership, Product management, Strategy, Value proposition design, Stakeholder management
Results & Impact
Designed, launched, and managed a global pilot program with its own P&L across 3 regions for 12 months, improving 10+ KPIs and validating core hypotheses.
30%
75%
YoY increase in volume and revenue
decrease in churn risk
18%
spent more and were intending to increase future business
CONFIDENTIAL - Details only at an in-person presentation
Key moments - trade offs
Getting Permission for the Unfamiliar
While the problem of customer retention and transactional relationships was an industry norm, we needed senior leadership’s buy-in for "giving first to get back long term"—not the status quo approach to solving it. With the product manager, we avoided direct presentations and instead created hype around the idea from different business sides while clearly communicating our guardrails, securing leadership permission to move forward.
Onboarding Diverse products across the business
The pilot required specific services and products to create customer value, each with different requirements. Instead of risking standardization complications, we gave each business team control over what and how much they participated—setting their own scope—building trust with product managers and reducing manual work for the team.
Avoiding "Too Much" Rewarding
We needed to reward specific customer behavior without spending on "bad" customers. On the other hand, customers expected recognition from the first booking. After analyzing multiple structures, we chose a tier-based system with strict performance criteria for progression, achieving reward control, self-correction, and execution simplicity.
Getting Buy-in for Experiment Potential
After 4 months, we needed to demonstrate business value beyond hypothesis validation to secure continued support. To engage stakeholders unfamiliar of the details of the pilot, I opted to use a startup-style presentation emphasizing business results and anchoring leadership emotionally with data, rather than lengthy detailed decks. A winning approach that secured buy-in for scaling the program 10x.
Solving Scale Complexity
Scaling required clear SOPs for multiple teams, but legacy systems and limited resources created execution barriers. We onboarded local resources for semi-manual execution while preparing for formal development discussions, enabling program scaling without waiting for full system development.
Learnings
Industry commoditization shifts organizations into "survival" mode rapidly, hitting innovative ventures first.
Continuous and Tailored Stakeholder Engagement: Unconventional experiments have fragile leadership support. Maintaining it requires continuous, tailored, data-driven communication addressing shifting business priorities.
Active Sponsorship is Essential: Innovative ventures need active leadership advocates who, with team support, become ambassadors anchoring their peers.