Build a business worth choosing

By helping your teams enrich customer lives.

Profitably. At scale.

500+ mio

1+ million

Top-decile

Net Promoter Scores

employees impacted

customers touched

TRUSTED BY

Adidas · Audi · Barclays · Bekaert · Bordeaux Wines · Bridgestone · BNP Paribas Asset Management · Brightfish · Coca-Cola East-Japan · Deloitte · Etex · Gemalto · Generali Group · Grant Thornton · ING · Kinepolis · Lantmännen Unibake · Lexus · MCE · Mercedes-Benz · Mondi · Nationale Nederlanden · Oriflame · Philips · Pontes · Reebok · Sanoma · Teijin Aramid · Toyota · Vodafone · Wabco · Weber-Stephen · Wireco

Selected cases below

Call me when…

Customers can’t tell the difference

Everyone's offers and experiences feel the same. Despite your efforts, customers struggle to see what makes you special, or why they should pay you more.

You’re in perpetual catch-up

By the time you’ve implemented actions, your market and technology have shifted again. Burning people and resources, without really getting ahead.

Promises get lost in delivery

Your customer promise gets lost among the sprints, dashboards, silos and technologies. Everyone has great intentions, but customers don’t feel the result.

Bots change the choice equation

Your teams try to please the algorithms that help customers search, evaluate and buy. But what are the reasons to choose you if the agents disagree?

Teams struggle with the change

Every day brings a new AI update, market shock and bottomless inbox. Measuring and cascading harder isn’t the answer. Teams need energy, not pressure.

Your industry needs disrupting

Everyone still makes money, but you can see your industry’s model ending. You may not see how, but you know it’s time for a reboot. And you’re up for it.

Let's have coffee

Not yet ready to talk?

Then steal my thinking here.

What’s it like to work with me

To become worth choosing requires a conversation about what your customers really seek and why your teams should care to give it to them.

So don’t expect the usual charades. Instead, think corporate acupuncture.

I bring my little black book. We talk. I listen. We look beyond the symptoms to identify the 2 or 3 key interventions that move your customers. Your business. Your industry.

Step 1: Scoping

We meet to discuss the customer transformation that’s on your mind. The offer, experience, strategy or technology that needs work.

Step 2: Immersion

I deep-dive into your business and industry. Read strategies and reports. Talk to key stakeholders. Do desk research. Visit markets.

Step 3: Iteration

I prototype the smartest next moves towards your customer transformation goal. Together we test, refine, and if needed pivot.

Step 4: Conclusion

We introduce the prototype to your team, so they further modify and take it forward. And ownership stays in your business.

Alain Thys looking out of the window

Hi, I’m Alain

I’m a customer transformation architect

I help your teams enrich customer lives.

It’s what earns premium prices, builds loyalty and makes it worthwhile for your people to co-invest in your strategy. After all, your teams are customers of their work, too.

I got there the hard way.

Big programmes. Global standards. From accounting to cars to wine.

Global case studies. Painful bruises.

But while proud of the work, I felt my profession drifting.

Experiences that weren’t. Transformations that fizzled. The mad race towards Artificial Irrelevance.

So I looked elsewhere.

For seven years, I stepped out of my business bubble to learn from the real experts in emotion, humanity and change: neuroscientists, theatre makers, systems thinkers.

A tarot reader taught me the power of narrative. A Nepalese monk threw rice in my face. An improv coach made me play an ATM. Then recast me as a tree.

We went deeper than I went before:

  • Turned McFunerals into meaningful farewells

  • Reimagined a global HQ to work for employees

  • Crafted an AI-first strategy teams actually wanted

I learned that smarter sprints, metrics or maturity models can be interesting mechanisms, but that real change comes from the two or three highest impact moves that unblock or accelerate momentum.

Intuitively, I’d been doing this for years.

Working with my new friends, I was finally able to put it into words.

It became The Transformation Code

A lens to look at Story, Resonance and Flow.

The three key factors that drive any transformation.

That make your business worth choosing.

By your customers. Your teams. Yes, even yourself.

A friend called it corporate acupuncture.

It stuck.

The Transformation Code by Alain Thys: How to really transform your customers, your organisation, yourself.

The Transformation Code

Δ = Story × Resonance × Flow

After three decades in customer transformation, I reached a deceptively simple conclusion:

To become worth choosing, a business needs to help its customers, teams and stakeholders become who they want to be.

Help them transform.

Which always comes down to the same three factors:

  • Story: A new way to see the future that is possible

  • Resonance: The desire to achieve that goal

  • Flow: The freedom, tools and conditions to act

The opportunity this creates for leaders is to look beyond the corporate noise and find the two or three moves that make transformation real.

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Selected Cases

​I’ve been involved in too many projects to list, but these cases give a first flavour. I'll happily discuss limited case details and other credentials in a personal conversation (subject to NDA). 

  • At Pontes Crematoria, we looked beyond the death care industry’s focus on operational efficiency to ask what grieving people actually need.

    The result: a crematorium opening in 2029, designed to redefine the industry’s standards, scripts and rituals.

  • At a global non-food retailer, we flipped the usual AI-first cascade by asking why teams would, and wouldn’t, want to use AI.

    The result: a pragmatic, honest AI narrative that fitted the corporate strategy, addressed teams’ aspirations and fears, and shaped a programme to make AI relevant to store staff.

  • Luxury car brands obsess over the vehicle. At Lexus, we went further, turning the brand’s ‘omotenashi’ heritage into an automotive experience on a par with five-star hospitality.

    The result: a retail experience that helped Lexus become the NPS leader in most European markets.

  • When ING Insurance (later NN) prepared for its IPO, we paired international experience standards with a customer movement that invited staff to show customers they cared.

    The result: hundreds of grassroots initiatives, leading to #1 or other top NPS positions in every market.

  • At Grant Thornton, we looked beyond the professional services focus on meeting clients’ needs to ask how clients should feel at every stage of the relationship.

    The result: shared standards for both the practical and emotional sides of client experience, with measurement and capability development across 100+ markets.

  • At Generali, we broke with the habit of scripting every possible customer scenario from headquarters. Instead, we crafted a global customer manifesto and worked with market teams to turn it into experiences they could stand behind.

    The result: a set of customer standards for purchase, claims, service and renewal, with the people, technology and organisational capabilities to deliver them.

  • At Philips, we shifted marketing’s focus from the company’s technology-centric heritage towards an approach led by customer insight.

    The result: one of the world’s first global, cross-functional Net Promoter programmes, stronger customer-led marketing capabilities, and better alignment between marketing, sales and technology.

  • Some other projects include:

    • Creating and implementing international experience standards at Oriflame, Vodafone, Bridgestone, …

    • Implementing customer-centricity programmes at Bekaert, Deloitte, Weber-Stephen, Mercedes, McLaren, …

    • Developing and introducing new value propositions at MCE, Lantmännen-Unibake, Sanoma Group, …

    • Implementing customer voice, strategy and employee programmes at Toyota.

    • Setting up a global advocacy programme for Bordeaux wines (tasty!)

    • and so on …

What others say about me

  • Alexandra de Greck

    "​With his collaborative, commercial and hands-on approach, Alain sparked a fire for customer experience across the company from the moment he started."

    Alexandra de Greck
    ​Chief Operations Officer 

    Oriflame

  • James Wallman

    From our first interactions, I thought: "Wow, this guy's sharp - super smart & also super honest. He exemplifies the concept of radical candour."

    James Wallman
    CEO

    World Experience Organisation

  • Nikolaas Tahon

    For the first time in my life, I got a more structured way of thinking about customer experience and client satisfaction.

    Nikolaas Tahon
    ​Global Board Member

    Deloitte

  • Dominik Endler

    Alain helped define and form our customer-centricity program. His skill to listen, understand and bring everything into the context of his client is amazing.

    Dominik Endler ​
    VP Customer & Commercial Excellence and CMO 

    Bekaert

  • Paul English

    Alain has worked with us on our CX agenda from the beginning. He brings clarity, relevance and a commercial mindset to engage a diverse and international audience.

    Paul English
    ​Global Leader - Markets & Clients 

    Grant Thornton International

Are you ready to make your business worth choosing?

Enrich the lives of your customers. Allow your teams to care.

Let's meet for a virtual coffee