Business-to-business customer experience management status

How relevant are the latest CXM practices in business-to-business (B2B) companies? After all, B2B account teams are typically quite involved with customers throughout a long sales cycle, interacting with various buying decision influencers and almost “living” the customer journey alongside their customers.

High-Touch in B2B

In a recently published four-year study of B2B CXM, 91% of participating companies said they sell B2B products and services through a dedicated sales force, 1 with a typical sales cycle ranging from three to twelve months. The B2B customer experience is much more person-to-person than many think due to the numerous departments involved in most purchasing decisions, various functional areas of buyer and supplier companies interacting for long periods before and after of the purchase, and the high monetary value and risky business impact of many B2B purchases.

As such, many CXM practices formalized by business-to-consumer (B2C) companies may have a different label and may be less formal, taken for granted, and less visible in B2B CXM. Therefore, B2B practice surveys can underestimate the actual work that is being done.

See the full picture

What’s missing from the CXM account team is the ability for everyone to see the big picture of how customers see things:

• Multiple accounts: If customers buy products from different business units or in different regions, do both account teams and business units have a single accurate view of who is who and what is important? Do they have an accurate view of how a change in processes, policies, business models or offering impacts the customer?
• 29% of B2B companies have established a single view of each customer across all divisions and regions; 29% more are just starting this.
• One in four B2B companies has established processes to connect data through the end-to-end customer experience with the company; 25% more are just starting this.
• One in four B2B companies integrates customer feedback sources; 29% more are just starting this.
• One third of B2B companies have established processes to coordinate multiple accounts within a client company; a third more are starting this.
• Multiple influencers: If different groups2 in the customer company have different perspectives, how well are they understood and adapted, not only by the account team itself, but also by other functional areas in the supplier company that could help if they were better informed?
• Half of the B2B companies identify all the influencers in the purchase decision; 27% are just getting started.
• 38% of B2B companies collect the voice of the customer from all influencers on the purchase decision; 36% more are just starting this.
• One-third of B2B companies consolidate purchasing decision input from multiple influencers; 24% more are just starting this.
• Multiple interfaces: If multiple functional areas interact with each other before and after purchase, how consistent is the customer experience? And how well is anecdotal feedback collected from these customer interactions for immediate resolution and proactive buyback influence?
• One in four B2B companies coordinates customer interaction activities from multiple functional areas; 37% are just starting this.
• One in four B2B companies have processes in place to coordinate ongoing post-purchase customer touch points; 38% are just starting this.

The strength of the dedicated sales force, as shown in these statistics, may actually be hampering the ability of B2B companies to see the whole picture of the customer experience as customers see it. And opportunities that could be enabled by others outside the account team are likely to be missed, unless someone facilitates integration, coordination, and consistency.

Fashion CXM

In CXM’s current range of webinars, articles, and conference talks, hot topics include predictive analytics, trip mapping, touchpoints, user experience, communities, digital and content marketing, self-service, and social media.

Indeed, B2B is late to the part in adopting technologies for predictive analytics, data mining, social collaboration, and user-generated content; approximately one in four B2B companies uses these technologies. But in cases where there is an almost daily conversation between the account teams and the customer, how many of these trendy CXM efforts are needed? And how well do they make up for what’s missing from seeing the whole picture?

Customer touchpoints, journey mapping, user experience, and / or lifecycle management are found in practice among four out of five B2B companies. However, one in three of these companies has implemented these practices throughout the company; half of the study participants use these practices in one or more places in the company. This is a greater concern, as customers tend to view a business as a single entity rather than a series of silos.

Need for a CXM strategy model

What is happening in the B2B CXM ​​strategy is similar to what is happening in B2C. A quick comparison of the data from the new B2B report with the 2013 Forrester State of the Customer Experience Survey (which is primarily based on B2C companies) shows that the numbers are roughly the same for the top barriers to success in CXM:

1. Lack of a clear customer experience strategy

2. Lack of cooperation throughout the organization.

3. Lack of budget and

4. Lack of executive participation

The most widespread practices are voice of the customer and customer engagement. These two areas are often more disruptive to the client company than the supplier company, and these areas represent two ends of the CXM spectrum: what is important and good for customers, and what customers can do to demonstrate the importance of the supplier company. In any case, the overriding desire for an immediate increase in revenue seems to be the reason for the heavy emphasis on these two areas: if only enough customers with low ratings could be turned into delusional fans, and if only enough customers could say nice things about the company, everything would be fine, in theory.

What’s missing is the medium: what is the supplier company doing with the customers’ valuable investments in the voice of the customer to make things so enjoyable that customers want to participate? It is unlikely that loyalty (that is, the part of the budget) or retention (that is, the length of the relationship) can be achieved with lasting financial impact without the middle component of the CXM puzzle.

Our B2B study has tracked motivation for CXM, how we listen to customers, how we view customers, how we focus employees on customers, and how we focus our business on customers. CXM’s effort to listen to and engage customers far exceeds CXM’s ongoing effort to ensure an accurate view of customers and even less to focus employees and businesses on customer well-being.

Success factors

With a robust CXM strategy model that unites motivations, listen, watch and focus, companies tend to have stronger business results, regardless of whether they are in the B2B or B2C industries. B2B companies reported CXM results as a 200% increase in market share over the past four years, a 30% increase in survey scores, a 20% increase in revenue, a 20% increase in customer engagement and a 15% reduction in turnover over the past year. The B2B study indicates that the following basic concepts are the keys to financial and customer experience success:

• Coordination between CXM method managers.

• Treat CXM as a determinant of corporate strategy.

• Presentation of the results of the customer survey to all employees.

• Calculation of the customer’s lifetime value.

• Action on survey results by key CX controller owners.

• Encourage CXM collaboration between organizations.

No magic bullet has emerged as a revolutionary method for customer experience excellence. Putting it all together, what is most relevant to the success of CXM is a coordinated effort in executing the basic concepts:

1. Establish a firm foundation through a culture centered on the customer, the voice and intelligence of the customer and the lifetime value of the customer as a motivator

2. Adapt the company to customer needs by improving and innovating the customer experience

3. Promote the participation of employees and customers alike, in accordance with the above.

Neither the latest CXM practices nor the traditional strengths of account management are enough to move the needle in B2B CX business results. Operational excellence within the context of what is most important to customers, as evidenced by the success factors listed above, is the recipe for differentiating and financially excelling in the customer experience.

* First published on InsideCXM[dot]com