B2B customers are increasingly demanding richer and more ‘consumerised’ customer experiences. Streamlined digital access to information, influencers and channels has fuelled this demand, blurring traditional marketing-purchase-service paths, and empowering B2B customers to continuously evaluate organisations and the promises they make around their products and services. As B2B buyers increasingly imitate the shopping habits of consumers, B2B brands need to rethink customer experience.
According to Accenture Strategy’s 2015 B2B Customer Experience report, less than a quarter (23 percent) of B2B organisations are implementing truly effective customer experience programmes and achieving higher revenue growth as a result. The vast majority, however, are missing the mark. Those in this group report an average annual revenue decline of minus one per cent.
Barriers to success
So, what’s holding them back? The research found that while 86 per cent of B2B executives consider the customer experiences provided during sales and service interactions to be very important, only 40 percent put customer experience at the top of their list of strategic priorities. With less than a quarter achieving strong returns from experience-related investments, the rest are either losing money or simply treading water.
It’s apparent many B2B companies are just paying lip service to customer experience. One explanation is that initiatives to improve customer experience fall to managers in sales and service roles. The topic is rarely discussed in the c-suite, and consequently executive priorities and investments are channeled elsewhere.
B2B companies are also less mature than their B2C counterparts when it comes to creating a strategic vision, developing customer understanding, and using digital to effectively engage customers. Simply put, many B2B companies lack the skills and capabilities to change the customer experience in a positive way. Many organisations are in agreement. Less than one third (32 percent) of executives say they are well-equipped with the skills, tools and resources needed to deliver the desired B2B customer experience. Many also point to a lack of c-suite attention and the cross-organisational integration needed to make an impact.
How leaders of customer experience succeed
The research identified three groups of B2B organisations – leaders, strivers and laggards – with each group characterised by their ability to plan and execute customer experience and deliver annual revenue growth. With just over a fifth (23 percent) of organisations remaining as leaders since last year, more laggards have moved up to the strivers category, increasing it from 48 percent to 57 percent.
Leaders stand out by consistently and significantly outperforming their peers in customer experience with both strong strategies and execution abilities. These organisations do customer experience ‘right’ and enjoy higher than average revenue growth. Comparatively, strivers achieve an average of six per cent annual revenue growth. Leaders also stand out by viewing after-sales service as a critical part of the customer lifecycle, as well as investing in both new digital technologies and traditional customer connection points.
Re-evaluating customer experience
Those looking to re-energise their customer experience results should look to refresh their digital strategy, using new digital capabilities as the catalyst across the customer journey. They can do so by following these steps:
- Elevate the customer experience as a c-suite topic: By talking about it at board level and educating executives about the value that can come from getting customer experience right, it is more likely to become a strategic priority. And once it truly becomes a c-level priority, it is more likely that investment will follow.
- Identify and develop the skills needed to bring the vision of customer experience to life: Follow the lead of B2C companies by focusing on both traditional and digital capabilities. Our research showed that B2B companies that generate the highest returns from their customer experience investments invest twice as much as their peers in traditional capabilities such as contact centres, field service processes and tools, and even legacy CRM systems. These leaders also invest more – and more broadly – in digital enablement. In fact, two-thirds of those companies’ customer experience budgets are devoted to things like ecommerce, customer self-service, digital sales and service integration, cloud-based sales, digital marketing, collaboration tools and mobility.
- Measure the return on B2B customer experience investments: With those insights, board members will understand how experiences tie to financial levers and feel more comfortable dedicating the necessary funding. The value of customer experience can be measured in several ways, including ratings of customer satisfaction or Net Promoter Score. B2C companies often link such customer satisfaction indicators to compensation. There’s no reason why B2B companies can’t do the same.
- Stay committed: Once customer experience becomes a priority, it is imperative executives maintain their investments, even when other business issues that demand attention – and funding – arise. Improving the B2B customer experience is a marathon, not a sprint.
B2B companies that are faking their commitment to customer experience can’t do so for much longer. It’s time for those executives who purport to appreciate the importance of customer experience to put their money – and attention – where their mouths are. If they don’t, their customers will switch to providers who offer the seamless interactions and multi-channel experiences they now demand.