By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer
Customer experience (or CX, in marketing jargon), has gotten a lot of attention over the last few years, primarily among retail marketers. All it means is that a company has focused its people, processes and technology to deliver exceptional personalized experiences across all customer touch points. The better a company understands, anticipates and consistently exceeds customer expectations, the more likely it is to win and keep business, improve market position, and drive profits.
As today’s B2B buyers are increasingly influenced by their consumer experiences and have begun to demand similar experiences in their professional lives, more businesses are elevating service as an important contributor to growth. They are investing in both traditional and digital capabilities to sustain—and monetize—customer engagement.
Accenture Customer Experience Survey
According to Accenture’s 2015 B2B Customer Experience Survey, more than 8 in 10 B2B executives recognize customer experience as a strategic priority. Companies that successfully implement a CX strategy consider all of the customer experience possibilities and execution capabilities important and perform well on them.
They are more likely to use customer experience to disrupt markets. They invest heavily in digital technology while, at the same time, strengthening legacy capabilities. They understand the role and value of the connected eco-system in delivering the best possible B2B customer experience. Successful CX implementation revolves around people, and takes a balanced approach to building the skills of the talent and leadership empowerment.
Post-Sales CX to Customer Advocacy
Finally, companies whose strategies focus on CX see post-sales service as a critical driver of success, too. This last consideration is important to B2B marketers, who tend to focus a lot of time and effort on the pre-purchase end of the customer journey. Increasingly, firms succeed by concentrating more efforts on providing value beyond the sale, with the aim of turning a client into a promoter — an advocate who is willing to refer people to and provide references for your business.
Referrals have long been considered one of the most valuable forms of marketing, delivering qualified leads that tend to become clients and remain loyal over a long period of time. While loyalty programs have been a staple in the retail world for quite some time, we’re starting to see B2B firms leverage their own version.
Marketers might look at the new generation of advocate marketing software platforms to help build advocate relationships. They use portals to increase social media engagement, generate more reviews and capture referrals.
If you have any questions, comments, experiences or opinions about fleet industry-related marketing that you’d like to share, write to me at [email protected].
