LafargeHolcim’s ready-mix customers create digital quality control solution in Montreal hackathon

10 October 2017

It’s time to change the conversation around customer service. Understanding and serving our customers needs will always be LafargeHolcim’s aim, and digital advancements can help us streamline this interaction by involving our customers directly in our solutions. On June 14 and 15 it was our customers’ turn to ask what technology could do for them, as we empowered them to create an application to resolve their concrete quality control management issues.

What do customers want? Ask them!

Better customer service is achieved by ensuring we answer our customers' needs with innovative and relevant offers of services and products. LafargeHolcim is changing the nature of the customer service conversation by inviting our customers not only to point out issues to resolve, but to use digital solutions to actively participate in their resolution.

This was the goal of the hackathon, organized by digital events planners BeMyApp, held with clients from the RMX concrete and cement industries in Montreal, Canada. A hackathon is an event in which a group of people from different fields collaborate to resolve a problem with an innovative digital solution. Aided by a team of LafargeHolcim employees, R&D and IT teams and digital developers, and with a two-day deadline driving them to think creatively, our clients embarked on a mission to create a new start-up and develop their own mobile application.

A two-day recipe for better customer service:

It all started with a morning of “customer discovery”. Our clients pinpointed their key concerns, and rapidly shared and discussed customer service solutions, with feedback from BeMyApp developers and LafargeHolcim teams.
Our clients split into two teams to design a solution each for one of these key focus areas: enhancing the customer experience; and improving delivery and quality control data management on job sites, including the interaction between contractors and key stakeholders.
The teams not only designed their app, but decided how they would market it, and produced a pitch, which was made to a panel of judges from LafargeHolcim and BeMyApp.

Watch how it happened

LafargeHolcim's Montreal Hackathon

hackathon montreal photo

Changing the conversation with digital technology

The winning app will be the first to allow the project owner to monitor the quality of delivered concrete in real time, and to allow other team members to connect and contribute data. It is currently in development, and will initially be made available to clients in the US and Canada in the coming months.

This process of co-creation directly involves our customers in the solutions we offer them, allowing them to be ambassadors for the changes they want to see. Championing the digital transformation of our industry through initiatives such as these is one way we can change how our customers relate to us as a Group. It took just two days not only to create a new app, but to create a lasting bond between our business and our clients.

About BeMyApp

Based in San Francisco, Paris, London, Munich, Amsterdam,and Shanghai, BeMyApp helps companies without an IT background to adopt the same working methods as high-tech companies. Leveraging its community of 100,000 developers, startups and partners, BeMyApp produces conferences, hackathons, pop-up incubators, workshops, DevLabs, white-label and remote accelerators to foster digital innovation and transform industries.

Visit their site