From Crisis to All‐Time High Performance: Using the HPO Framework to Improve Customer Relations at Ziggo

Realizing the need to improve its processes in order to better serve its customers and meet its financial goals, the leaders of the Customer Relations department at Ziggo, a Dutch provider of media and communications services, turned to the HPO framework, which outlines the characteristics of a high‐performing organization, for guidance. Unlike other instruments, this framework details the factors that are essential to high performance, but does not stipulate how to achieve HPO status. Led by a team of HPO consultants, management developed a strategy for empowering employees to attain departmental goals and cultivating teamwork, all while measuring and communicating results. In five years, the department has seen sustainable improvements at the individual, team, and organizational levels, and in its relations with external partners. Although challenges remain to be addressed, employee satisfaction is up, profits have almost doubled, and the once‐struggling CR department has achieved an all‐time high customer satisfaction score for its industry of 7.5 out of 10 and has boosted its HPO level by approximately 10 percent.