4 Essential Steps to Building a Customer-Centric Model

Ed O’Boyle

By Ed O’Boyle and Amy Adkins 

Customer engagement represents the emotional and psychological attachment between your company and your customers. It is vital to business growth and vitality, and can accelerate your company’s revenue, sales, profitability and share of wallet. 

Every B2B leader we’ve worked with understands the importance of customer engagement and has a strategy in place to improve it. Yet a recent report from Gallup has found that B2B companies have only managed to engage 29% of their customers. Where’s the disconnect between strategy and outcomes?

The very best B2B leaders we’ve worked with take a customer-centric approach to engaging customers. This approach puts their customers at the core of everything and is about more than focusing on customers or having a defined customer experience. We believe that customer centricity provides the surest path to customer engagement.

Although an increasing number of B2B companies realize they need to be customer-centric to compete in today’s market, not all have figured out how to put this model into use. We have found that developing a customer-centric model essentially comes down to four phases: Discovery, Diagnostic, Analytic and Sustainment. Within each of these phases, there are also common tasks that companies can follow to understand and act on the voice of the customer. 

1. Discovery: This phase involves an evaluation of the current state of your customer relationships. Some of the tasks associated with this phase include:

• conducting stakeholder analyses to identify the current customer landscape
• identifying your organization’s needs and priorities
• exploring your existing world, including account structure, the language and culture of your organization and any prior metrics used to evaluate customer relationships to date
• building or refining a customer engagement strategy
• creating a customer list and relationship map

2. Diagnostic: This phase incorporates qualitative and quantitative analyses. Some of the tasks associated within this phase include:

• conducting a key account review
• gathering key account review findings to make insights into customer accounts
• using key account review insights to make recommendations
• sharing best practices based on insights and recommendations
• carrying out an ethnographic study of customers
• identifying key priorities for customers

3. Analytic: This phase encompasses the findings and insights from the Discovery phase to identify the key drivers of the customer experience and how your company is performing on those key drivers. Some of the tasks associated with this phase include:

• identifying the key drivers that propel the customer relationship forward
• gauging the company’s success with the key drivers
• linking the key drivers to customers’ key priorities and conducting a gap analysis
• making connections among the findings of the Discovery phase

4. Sustainment: This phase pinpoints specific steps to take to improve your customer experience. Some of the tasks associated with this phase include:

• creating an action plan to transform the customer experience
• identifying quick wins for ways to improve the customer relationship
• implementing a results communication strategy across your organization
• communicating progress with customers to ensure they understand your organization’s efforts to improve the relationship

Of course, there is one predominant factor in a customer-centric model: people. It is critical that every employee understands what customer centricity means for your business and how they can deliver on it. This applies to your employees at all levels, including leaders, managers and individual contributors.

Leaders: Leaders must hear the voice of the customer to improve the company’s relationship with the customer and to improve business outcomes. They must take accountability for generating a holistic culture shift and for creating processes to build strong, vital relationships that support business results. 

Managers: Managers are in the best position to set the tone for improving customer relationships by targeting the key drivers that best link to customers’ overall experience.
Individual contributors: Individual contributors who work day in and day out with client contacts are the face of your organization. Helping individual contributors understand the importance of improving the customer relationship is the ultimate catalyst for creating change. 

As your company moves through the four phases outlined previously, you must provide employees with the education, training and tools they need to play their part in the customer experience. For example, during the Discovery phase, your leaders should develop an in-depth understanding of customer engagement and impact, and how both work to strengthen customer relationships. Or, in the Diagnostic phase, your managers should attend a course or similar training to learn how to set up their account teams for success. 

Ed O’Boyle is Global Practice Leader, Workplace and Marketplace at Gallup. Amy Adkins is a Writer and Editor at Gallup.com.

Ed O’Boyle

Gallup

As Gallup’s Global Practice Leader, Ed O’Boyle oversees strategic vision for the company’s Workplace and Marketplace practices. He is responsible for turning ideas into innovation using Gallup’s leading-edge science and discoveries as a guide. Ed was instrumental in developing the company’s B2B framework, which empowers clients to achieve exponential increases in performance through customer engagement and impact.

Top CEOs Agree: Let Customers Drive Your Business Strategy, Break Down Silos, And Be Entrepreneurial Comment Now

Robert Reiss, 

As we travel through untrodden territories of our digital new world, the old platitude “The only constant is change” has become our new compass. New competitors – in fact new industries – surface seemingly overnight as old business models flash into obsolescence; creating predictable quarterly growth is becoming harder to navigate.  So, in an effort to find solutions, on November 20,2013 I facilitated a conversation with leaders from several industries including healthcare, financial services, travel, and technology. Below are the two solutions that emerged where participant quotes provide perspective. The participants were:

• Keith Banks, President, US Trust
• Adam Goldstein, CEO, Royal Caribbean International
• Bob Lord, CEO, AOL Networks
• Alan Miller, Founder, CEO & Chairman, Universal Health Services
• Vasant Prabhu Vice Chairman & CFO, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide
• Brad Stewart, CEO, XOJET

Solution # 1: Companies need to involve customers in strategy and be more contextual with customer engagement. The customer now can drive strategy. In fact, according to a recent IBM study of over 4,000 C-suite executives, for the first time customers actually play a larger role in driving strategy than the board of directors cites Dr. Saul Berman, Leader of Strategy & Transformation at IBM. Clearly our digital world of social media and big data, combined with increased customer information and consequently expectations, has escalated the customers’ potential role where they are increasingly becoming involved in not just product development, service, sales, but even talent recruitment and strategy.

Keith Banks from US Trust talked about how clients have become part of the strategy process, “We recently created Client Advisory Councils, where clients share insights on how to best deliver service. We found the number one thing on the minds of our clients was inter-generational wealth transfer. We also found out our younger clients preferred younger advisors who talk like them, communicate in the way they do, use social media instead of meeting a lot.”

Alan Miller of Universal Health Services highlighted how the healthcare model is fundamentally changing, “Consumers are becoming more educated and engaged in making healthcare decisions for themselves and their families. As a result, we are reshaping the way we operate so that we can better meet their demands and become their provider of choice. We are constantly looking to offer new services to meet patients’ needs, and we are making investments in new technology so that we can continue to provide the quality care our customers want and deserve.”

Bob Lord, Global CEO of AOL Networks shared a personal example of how the customer experience is changing, “My daughter has a smartphone and there’s all this contextual information on Instagram that she’s doing when she’s shopping at UNIQLO. UNIQLO is creating a pool of assets that they can collect to learn more about her. That was never there before. But then they’re delivering her a service on the back end, saying for girls who bought this, they also like these kinds of things.”

And customers change in different settings. As Vasant Prabhu from Starwood discussed, “There is something we call a trip persona. You’re a very different person when you’re with family vs. a business conference. You can make big mistakes if you don’t know the context.” He continues, “Customers really drive our business decisions. For example there are now as many Chinese travelling out of China as Americans travelling out of the US. In the US, most people use their Starwood Preferred Guest points for hotel rooms. Well, in China, they want to use it for weddings or at our restaurants. Also, the Chinese guest has different preferences, for example, they like tea, not coffee. And, there is a revolution in how our guests interact with us, mobile has gone from 15% to almost 50% of our digital interactions. We must understand how customers are changing and deliver what they want real time.”

Brad Stewart talked about how the private jet industry is in the early phases of a potential industry transformation,  “What shocks me is that CEOs and private equity executives tell me they’re spending $250k to $1.5 million a year on private aviation and they always say it’s a top 2 or 3 spend, and yet while they are flying their family, kids and pets in this little cocoon, 9, 10 miles in the sky, they often don’t really know what they are spending money on. And so what we’re trying to do at XOJET is fundamentally change the conversation. So the trend needs to be about education and renting experiences.”

Companies also need to be seamless throughout the customer experience regardless of platforms. Adam Goldstein of Royal Caribbean shared, “The Royal Caribbean service standard that our guests expect on board our ships should be evident in all of their interactions with us whether they are onboard or not.” He continued talking about how he personally connects with the customers and the media in a digital world, “I guess I was one of the first CEOs to blog on a regular basis and to take the risks and seek the benefits of doing that. When I would ask journalists, why do you read my blog– and I really meant that question seriously– and they would say because it’s not marketing speak.”

Solution # 2: As the nature of competition intensifies, it is essential to continually innovate and act like entrepreneurs. As customers now control more information, competition intensifies. The winners innovate. And like the Intel slogan, in many cases ‘corporate entrepreneurship inside’ enables agile rollouts of new business models to drive success. As one CEO mentioned, consider the idea that you plugged in your television set and it worked for 10 years. That doesn’t exist anymore; now it’s getting software upgrades, it’s getting rebooted, and it’s changing what it does on any given day. The winners innovate and act like entrepreneurs.

Bob Lord of AOL Networks shared, “Silos are the enemy of business progress, and the way to break down silos is to have customers at the center. You test and you learn, test and learn. And you have to get the whole company including the board comfortable with that structure, so that they’re expecting every quarter that you have a new innovation that you’re testing. When you start acting like a startup, you can create cross-functional teams that have full ownership, work on a particular problem and create excitement, energy, fun and great solutions throughout your organization. You have to try to create that entrepreneurial culture within the bigger organization.”

Adam Goldstein of Royal Caribbean explained how cruise customers have completely changed with the times, “A radical change in our business over 20 years is that in the 90s a mainstay of our communication program was the ability to disconnect from the hassles of daily life and the importance of getting away from it all. Today, it’s unimaginable that you would go anywhere disconnected. In fact we have recently invested heavily to deliver a new technology enabling land line speed connectivity and pervasive Wi-Fi on several of our ships.”

Sometimes the innovations were actually about coming full circle to solutions of long ago. Brad Stewart stated, “It’s almost of going back to the late 1800s and early 1900s in terms of walking into that store. Customers are expecting you as a company to treat them as if you’re their one of five or 10 customers.”

Vasant Prabhu of Starwood provided more historical perspective, “The hotel business is centuries old and it started out with the innkeeper, and he knew everybody. He was always there greeting his guests, and he knew what they wanted. He knew which room they liked. He knew why they were there. He knew how they liked their food. And then we evolved to the era of the chains. They were important, because it was safe, clean and efficient, and very predictable. Now it’s coming full circle. People expect you to know who they are at all times. You’re not supposed to be a stranger. But the technology is getting to the point where you can do it, and frankly, you have to.”

Alan Miller of Universal Health Services shared how the CEO should view this environment, “The biggest thing for the CEO is adaptability. The CEO has to have a lot of different people who have totally differing ideas. And he has to have young people who see the world very differently. If you all wind up growing up together, that’s not going to be a good thing anymore. The way the world is seen by 20 year olds, 40 year olds, 60 year olds are three different worlds totally. Getting everyone to work together is exciting and the feeling of a start-up is great which is good because I’m a pure entrepreneur at heart.”

Keith Banks of U.S. Trust sums up the business climate, “I think it’s going to be a lot more intense competitively. So you’ve got to have the wherewithal to fight that fight. We’re seeing the degree of difficulty from a regulatory standpoint is growing at a rapid pace. And that’s making it more costly to do business, more risky to do business if you get it wrong. What companies need to do is evolve with the client, and sometimes evolve faster than the client. With so many data points, technology can help uncover new directions.”

… As we look at new business models that can help us lead in this new digital world frontier, CEOs need to involve their customers in driving strategy and have the agility and innovative spirit of an entrepreneur. As Len Green, professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College once explained to me, successful entrepreneurs continually exhibit several of the same characteristics. A. They are calculated risk takers;   B. They do not overanalyze problems or spend too much time in meetings discussion solutions.  

Instead they:                                                                                                                                              1. ACT                                                                                                                                                        2. Learn from the actions                                                                                                                           3. Build on what they have learned                                                                                                            4. Repeat the process to solve challenges

10-Point Checklist: Getting C-Suite Buy In for Social Media

Part 1

“What do you mean we need to increase our social media budget? Isn’t it free? I thought we don’t need a budget.”

And another senior marketing manager bites the dust! This is not fiction-drama. This is rampant ignorance among the C-Suite in corporate America. B2B marketing professionals are challenged every day with how to get executive management to buy in for social media. “It’s free”, “We need huge numbers”, “We need a multi-channel presence”, all of these and other confused C-Suite perceptions about the role and purpose of social media make it increasingly difficult for social to be adopted as a must-have. The fact is, social is now an integral part of lead generation and marketing programs.

Mark Yolton, senior vice president of digital, social and communities at business software and services purveyor SAP was quoted in a recent eMarketer article: “Social media marketing is no longer a nice to have—it’s a must have. Our customers expect it. Our competitors are all doing it. And unless we embrace and excel at social media marketing integrated into the full marketing mix, we’ll be at a competitive disadvantage.”
 
(Note: Mark has recently transitioned into a new role and is now Vice President of Digital Strategy & Enablement at Cisco.)

So how do you gain that competitive advantage? You’ll need the blessings of “the powers that be”. How will you convince them that social media today is a necessary cost of doing business?

Here are 5 Fundamental Steps to Help You Get C-Suite Buy In for B2B Social Media

1. KNOW YOUR INTERNAL AUDIENCE. What type of personality are you dealing with internally? Here are the most common demand generation personalities.
2.  UNDERSTAND YOUR CMO’S PROFILE. Which one is your CMO? Pick from this list.
3. EMPHASIZE THE NEED FOR A SOCIAL VOICE. Not too many members of the C-Suite are used to being hands-on with day to day operations. Explain to your top management why having a coop student or intern to Tweet and blog and post Facebook updates is not okay anymore. You need trained and experienced hands that understand customer relations, branding and lead generation. As you start to build customer engagement and loyalty through social media, you will need a core team to maintain and strengthen your company’s social voice.
4. SHOW WHY MONITORING IS IMPORTANT AND HOW IT HELPS. Typically, the C-Suite loves numbers. If you can enable some number crunching in terms of social ROI, you have a stronger case for continued and strategic social media marketing. Explain that while free tools can be useful, you may want to consider investing in better measurement and reporting tools. After all, you do want to go beyond counting your likes and fans to actually throwing light on engagement and lead progression levels with your key target audiences. In addition, track and monitor multiple social touch points to better respond to social conversations.
5. PROVE IT. Nothing you say can be as convincing as the proof of success. Run a few small, highly-focused and easily measurable campaigns to show that B2B social media really does work. The taste of success can be a heady one! Top execs will find it easier to commit to ongoing social media programs once they see a few quick and effective campaigns in action. Be sure to make them aware though, that short bursts or spike marketing cannot drive long-term results; only a sustainable social strategy can.

Look out for the next 5 steps on the road to getting C-Suite buy in for social media.


Image credit: Shutterstock

About the author: Louis Foong View all posts by Louis Foong

Louis Foong is the founder and CEO of The ALEA Group Inc, one of North America’s most innovative B2B demand generation specialists. As a thought leader with more than three decades of experience in the field, Louis guides his team and ALEA’s clients through the dynamic, evolving lead generation landscape. His astute sense of marketing and sales along with a clear vision and ability to see the “big picture” has proved beneficial to numerous organizations, both small and large. With the right advice and a slew of result-driven services, he enables clients to gain maximum return on investment for their lead generation efforts. His clients include companies in the technology, telecommunications, software, healthcare and professional services industries. Prior to starting the ALEA Group, Louis Foong has held various senior executive positions within corporate America. Today he is known and well-respected as a thought leader and pioneer in this industry. Foong is a published blogger and among the top authors on CustomerThink, a global online community of business leaders.