Ep. 53 - How Philips turned customer experience into a strategic advantage - with Tina Lilje.

After more than 20 years at Philips, Tina Lilje knows what it takes to make customer experience more than a metric. As former Global Head of Customer Experience, she built a CX strategy across 100+ countries and 75,000 employees—connecting the dots between service, design, and leadership.

In this episode, Tina and TheyDo’s Jochem van der Veer explore how healthcare is embracing AI without losing its human touch. From fixing design flaws that cost millions to turning executives into customer sponsors, Tina shares why the most successful CX strategies start with root causes, not dashboards—and why humans will always be healthcare’s most valuable premium.

Guest Bio

Tina Lilje is the former Global Head of Customer Experience at Philips, where she led the company’s global CX transformation across healthcare and B2B markets. Over two decades, she moved from marketing and M&A to executive CX leadership, designing a customer-first strategy spanning more than 100 countries. Known for operationalizing CX and aligning global teams around root-cause improvement, Tina now advises organizations on embedding customer-centric thinking that actually sticks.

Key Takeaways

• Fix root causes, not symptoms: Sustainable CX impact comes from addressing systemic design flaws, not surface-level issues.
• AI in healthcare needs humans: Technology should enhance, not replace, human care, especially in regulated, high-stakes industries.
• Customer voice is the strongest lever: Bringing real customer stories into leadership discussions drives alignment and urgency.
• KPIs must match behavior: Incentives shape culture, customer goals only work when bonuses, priorities, and structures reinforce them.
• Consistency beats perfection: True CX excellence lies in reliability, authenticity, and operational follow-through.

Episode Chapters

00:00 Welcome and introduction

03:00 Why humans are a premium in healthcare’s AI era

06:00 Balancing innovation with regulation in clinical settings

09:50 How small CX fixes drive major impact

14:30 Discovering the “detector” moment: fixing root causes

18:00 Turning CX from a program into a lasting function

25:00 Finding mentors and building CX leadership credibility

33:00 Creating partnerships, not transactions, with customers

41:00 Why NPS failed and what replaced it

48:20 Embedding CX across functions and KPIs

52:00 Aligning around customer realities, not silos

56:00 Incentives, ownership, and the human factor

01:04:00 When to go “all in” on CX, and when not to

01:06:30 Tina’s next chapter and closing thoughts

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