B2B Customer Experience Management

The Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study monitors the implementation of best practices in customer-focused management for sustainable high profitability. This is a study of the journey to world-class performance in how business-to-business firms (1) listen to customers, (2) view customers, (3) center employees on customers, and (4) center business on customers. It explores the motivations behind customer experience management (CEM) and its linkages to corporate goals, strategy, culture, processes, and business results.

The 2012 study includes numerous success stories about managing business-to-business customer experience. It is hoped that more business books and articles will balance their discussion of B2C and B2B CEM. Managing B2B customer experience can be much more challenging, with high involvement of numerous influencers of the purchase decision, high stakes purchases with lengthy sales cycles, reciprocal buyer/supplier relationships, and complex touch-points across functional areas, managerial levels, and products, among other factors unique to B2B environments.

In addition to a core set of common questions, the 2011 study discovered insights about the key drivers of B2B CEM success, and the 2010 study analyzed functional areas driving various CEM activities and their breadth of deployment within companies.

Inspiring stories about the progress of business customer experience management can be found throughout the 2012 best practices study, featuring companies such as Ciena, Citrix, LexisNexis, Orange, SunTrust, Symantec, tw telecom, and others in business services, building materials, remarketing, and semiconductor industries.

Recommendations for stronger customer experience strategy, cross-organizational cooperation, and business results are provided throughout the report.

Corporate Goals that Motivate CEM: Today's practices are largely centered on revenue and culture change, with top goals in customer retention, customer experience differentiation, and share of customer budget.

Business results attributed to CEM include:

• $40M profit improvement and 18 points increase in Net Promoter Score (NPS) through customer segmentation, customer experience redesign and promoter marketing. (Business Services)
• 85% customer retention rate, 30% customer acquisition rate, 7% improvement in on-time delivery, and 2% market share improvement since last year. (Machinery)
• 85% improvement in on-time delivery over 3 years through supply chain visibility. (Construction)
• 40 points increase in NPS over 3 years by introducing a customer-focused mindset. (Telecommunications)

Participants: Business-to-business customer experience practitioners responded to an online survey from May through July 2012. Industries represented include business services, computer hardware, computer software, construction, energy/utilities, financial/insurance, machinery, medical devices, printing/publishing, professional services, telecommunications, transportation/logistics.

Respondents' companies are headquartered in North America (76%), Europe (12%), Asia (8%), and the Middle East (4%). A fourth of the participants represent companies with more than 20,000 employees; 35% of the companies have 5,000-20,000 employees and 40% of the companies have less than 5,000 employees.

Job titles of participants include Senior Vice President of Client Experience and Loyalty, Vice President of Customer Experience, Vice President of Member Experience, Vice President of Customer Satisfaction and Quality, Chief Marketing Officer, Customer Experience Officer, Head of Customer Experience, Head of Customer Service, Global Customer Experience Director, Customer Experience and Insights Director, Customer Advocacy Director, eBusiness Strategy and Customer Experience Director, Enterprise Customer Fulfillment Global Director, Global Customer Experience Manager, Customer Experience Manager, Customer Experience Program Manager, Business Intelligence Manager, Commercial Accounts and Development Manager, Market Research Senior Manager, and Senior Customer Satisfaction Analyst.

A dedicated sales force is in place for 85% of participants' companies. Other sales channels in use are value-added resellers (42%), internet (35%), and agents/brokers (27%).

Sales cycle duration for participants' primary product or service is typically 3 months (33%) or 6 months (31%); within a year for 12% of respondents; longer than a year for 10%; within a month for 10%thin a week for 4%.

Average sales price for their primary product or service is $100K-$1M for 36% of respondents; greater than $1M for 16%; $10-100K for 22%; $1-10K for 18%; less than $1K for 9%.

This study was sponsored by ClearAction

ClearAction is a customer experience optimization consulting firm that guides company-wide action on a clear view of customer intelligence. Customer experience optimization goes beyond the revenue-focus of customer experience management, to grow both revenue and profit naturally through company-wide alignment with buyer priorities.

ClearAction's depth of practitioner experience since 1989:

• Inspires employees to take the customer perspective — know your customers' world better than your competitors do.
• Instills customer-focused decision-making as a habit among all employees — motivate customer experience optimization as a way of life.
• Engages employees to resolve and prevent customers' issues — collaborate cross-organizationally for company-wide customer experience excellence.

Related articles:

• Increasing Customer Focus in Voice of the Customer for Business Results
• Focusing on People in B2B Customer Experience Strategy
• Investment Patterns in B2B Customer Experience Management
• Business Customer Experience Management Stories Highlighted in 3rd Annual B2B CEM Study
• Customer Experience Study Highlights & Recommendations
• 6 Factors Identified for B2B Customer Experience Excellence
• Payoff for Coordinating Customer Experience Management Worldwide
• Big Gains by Presenting Voice of the Customer to All Employees
• ROI Opportunities for B2B Customer Experience Management
• 8 Paths to Value via Benchmarking Studies
• Need for Differentiated Customer Experience
• B2B Customer Experience Blueprint
• Improving Customer Buying Experience
• Selling Through Someone Else: How to Use Agile Sales Networks and Partners to Sell More, new book by Accenture consultants featuring a ClearAction B2B CEM Best Practices Study graphic

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