Beate van Dongen Crombags (1973) is one of the owners of the consultancy firm VODW. She is specialized in optimizing the dialogue between companies and customers. Beate advises companies on customer experiences, digital transformations and the structure of multichannel organizations.

Beate aims for the top: both literally in the mountains as well as figuratively in her work together with her clients and their customers. She always starts at what makes customers tick and translates this into futureproof, sustainable and pragmatic solutions.

Beate publishes articles and teaches at Nyenrode University. In her role as jury member of the National Contact Center Awards she evaluates leading contact center cases in the Netherlands. Beate has been voted several time as one of the 100 top marketers of the Netherlands.

Deborah Wietzes (1979) is senior manager customer experience at VODW. For the past 11 years, she has supported a broad range of national and international companies to become more customer-centric. She defines their current customer journeys, optimizes them and transforms organizations to maximize business results.

Existing and new customer insights are always the foundation and Deborah translates these together with her clients and customers into unexpected, impactful concepts. She regularly lectures on customer experience during seminars or at universities.

Deborah gets energy from ‘new’; new people, new places, new environments and new challenges. This, together with the fast diversity of industries and countries she operates in, leads to a broad collection of inspirational examples, of which only a fraction is included in this book.