Business-to-Business-to-Customer (B2B2C) CX Best Practices

We often get asked by companies that don’t directly serve consumers if they can learn from customer experience content that seems to be more focused on business-to-consumer (B2C) models. The answer: Absolutely yes!

Our research does include some items that are B2C-oriented, but most of our core ideas apply quite well in other models, including business-to-business (B2B), government and non-profits.  We’ve had no problem using our insights to help a wide range of organizations.

In our report The Secret to B2B2C Customer Experience Success, we discuss a more complex B2B model, business-to-business-to-customer (B2B2C). The goal of CX in B2B2C is to:

Enhance end customer experience in a way that satisfies the needs of channel partners

B2B2C CX is all about four relationships:

1. Company to Channel Partners. To deliver great CX to customers, a company also needs to nurture its relationships with its channel partners to help them be successful.
2. Channel Partners to End Customer. In this relationship, a company can only influence how channel partners think about and deliver CX in the partner’s interactions with the end customer.
3. Company to End Customer. These interactions provide the company with the best CX opportunities to deliver great CX to the end customer because such interactions are wholly under a company’s control.
4. Company and Channel Partner to End Customer. These are times when a company and a channel partner engage the end customer as one unit. In these instances, both partners need to share a common vision of how the CX should be delivered.

In the chart below, you can see how to infuse these four CX core competencies across the relationships:

1. Purposeful Leadership: Operate consistently with a clear set of values.
2. Employee Engagement: Align employees with the goals of the organization.
3. Compelling Brand Values: Deliver on your brand promises to customers.
4. Customer Connectedness: Infuse customer insight across the organization.

The bottom line: Good CX practices transcend business models.

Report: Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2016 (B2B)

We just published a Temkin Group report, Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2016, The research examines Net Promoter Scores and the link to loyalty for 62 tech vendors based on feedback from 800 IT decision makers in large North American organizations. We also compared overall results to our benchmarks from the previous four years. Here’s the executive summary:

For the fifth year in a row, we examined the link between Net Promoter Scores® (NPS®) and loyalty for technology vendors. We surveyed 800 IT decision-makers from large North American firms to learn about their relationships with their technology providers. Of the 62 tech vendors we evaluated, IBM, HPE outsourcing, IBM SPSS, and VMware earned the highest NPS, while Cognizant, Capgemini, and Infosys received the lowest. Overall, the average NPS for the tech vendor industry decreased by almost 2 percentage points from last year. Our analysis shows that promoters are much more likely than detractors to increase their spending with tech vendors, try new products and services when they are announced, and forgive tech vendors after a bad experience. We also found that Software AG and HPE outsourcing are the top companies for purchase momentum, while IBM SPSS, IBM software, and IBM outsourcing have the highest Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient, and HPE outsourcing and IBM SPSS are at the top of the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings.

The report includes graphics with data for NPS, purchase intentions, likelihood to forgive, and likelihood to try a new offering. The excel spreadsheet includes this data (in more detail) for the 62 companies as well as for other tech vendors with less than 40 pieces of feedback. It also includes the summary NPS scores from 2015.

Download report for $695
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

As you can see in the chart below, the NPS ranges from a high of 61 for IBM software down to  a low of -10 for Cognizant IT services.

The industry average NPS decreased to 29.9 this year. The research also includes data for Purchase Momentum (how much customers are planning to buy), Temkin Forgiveness Ratings (likelihood of customers to forgive after a bad experience), and Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient (likelihood of customer to try a new offering). We not only list the results for each company, but we also show that NPS is highly correlated to each of these items (as you can see below for Purchase Momentum).

Report details: When you purchase this research, you will receive a written report and an excel spreadsheet with more data. The report includes graphics with data for NPS, purchase momentum, Temkin Forgiveness Ratings, and Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient for the 62 tech vendors that had at least 40 pieces of feedback. The excel spreadsheet includes this data (in more detail) for the 62 companies as well as for other tech vendors with less than 40 pieces of feedback. It also includes the summary NPS scores from 2015. If you want to know more about the data file, download this SAMPLE SPREADSHEET without the data (.xls).

Download report for $695
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Note: See our 2015 NPS benchmark, 2014 NPS benchmark, 2013 NPS benchmark and 2012 NPS benchmark for tech vendors as well as our page full of NPS resources.

P.S. Net Promoter Score, Net Promoter, and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Satmetrix Systems, and Fred Reichheld.

Report: B2B Customer Experience Best Practices

We published a Temkin Group report, Business-to-Business (B2B) Customer Experience Best Practices. This report provides data on the state of customer experience (CX) in B2B as well as 20 CX best practices across five critical B2B processes. Here’s the executive summary:

Temkin Group research shows that although business-to-business (B2B) organizations are raising their customer experience (CX) ambitions, they still have a way to go before achieving their goals. Despite the fact that most large B2Bs have a low level of CX maturity, our research shows that 57% of them aspire to deliver industry-leading customer experience within three years. However, to improve their CX, B2Bs must master Temkin Group’s four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness. Our research uncovered 20 practices that B2Bs can emulate when applying those competencies across these five key business processes: sales and account management, implementation/project execution, support and issue resolution, partner alignment, and product management and innovation. To assess your organization’s CX maturity, use Temkin Group’s Customer Experience Competency Assessment and compare the results to data from other large B2B firms to chart your path to improvement.

Download report for $195

The report examines the state of B2B CX, including the results from large companies that completed Temkin Group’s CX Competency & Maturity Assessment:

To help B2B organizations raise their CX maturity, we identify 20 best practices for mastering Temkin Group’s four customer experience core competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness. These practices are aligned with five key B2B activities: sales and account management, implementation/project execution, support and issue resolution, partner alignment, and product management and innovation:

Download report for $195

B2B Customer Experience Resources

Temkin Group’s research regularly covers B2B environments, so we put together this landing page to share some of our content in this space. As a starter, you may want to watch this webinar with Aimee Lucas, Embedding Customer-Centricity Across Key B2B Processes.

Here are some research reports with B2B content:

• Report: Engaging A Tethered Workforce
• Report: Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction, 2017
• Report: Lessons in CX Excellence, 2017
• Business-to-Business-to-Customer (B2B2C) CX Best Practices
• Report: 2016 Temkin Experience Ratings of Tech Vendors
• Report: Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2016 (B2B)
• Report: Lessons in CX Excellence, 2016
• Report: Tech Vendors: Product and Relationship Satisfaction, 2016
• Report: B2B Customer Experience Best Practices
• Report: Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2015 (B2B)
• Report: Lessons in CX Excellence, 2015
• CX in the C-Suite: Webinar With Mercedes-Benz CEO

View all of our B2B content

Report: Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2015 (B2B)

We just published a Temkin Group report, Tech Vendor NPS Benchmark, 2015, The research examines Net Promoter Scores and the link to loyalty for 62 tech vendors based on feedback from IT decision makers in large North American organizations. We also compared overall results to our benchmarks from the previous three years. Here’s the executive summary:

To examine the link between Net Promoter Scores® (NPS®) and loyalty, we surveyed 800 IT decision-makers from large North American firms to learn about their relationships with their technology providers. Of the 62 tech vendors we evaluated, SAS Institute, HP outsourcing, and Intel earned the highest NPS, while Accenture, CA Technologies, and Hitachi received the lowest. Overall, the tech vendor industry’s average NPS jumped to 31.8 in 2015—an increase of more than eight points—after two straight years of declining scores. Our analysis shows that promoters are much more likely than detractors to spend more money with tech vendors, try new products and services when they are announced, and forgive their tech vendors after a bad experience. Our results also revealed that SAS Institute and Cognizant outsourcing were the top companies for purchase momentum, IBM SPSS and Intel have the highest Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient, and HP outsourcing and Intel scored the highest in the Temkin Forgiveness Ratings.

The report includes graphics with data for NPS, purchase intentions, likelihood to forgive, and likelihood to try a new offering. The excel spreadsheet includes this data (in more detail) for the 62 companies as well as for 25 other tech vendors with less than 40 pieces of feedback. It also includes the summary NPS scores from 2014.

Download report for $695
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

As you can see in the chart below, the NPS ranges from a high of 57 for SAS Institute down to  a low of 1 for Accenture consulting.

After declining for the past two years, the industry average NPS increased to 31.8 this year, almost reaching the level from our initial study in 2012. The research also includes data for Purchase Momentum (how much customers are planning to buy), Temkin Forgiveness Ratings (likelihood of customers to forgive after a bad experience), and Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient (likelihood of customer to try a new offering). We not only list the results for each company, but we also show that NPS is highly correlated to each of these items (as you can see below for Purchase Momentum).

Report details: When you purchase this research, you will receive a written report and an excel spreadsheet with more data. The report includes graphics with data for NPS, purchase momentum, Temkin Forgiveness Ratings, and Temkin Innovation Equity Quotient for the 62 tech vendors that had at least 40 pieces of feedback. The excel spreadsheet includes this data (in more detail) for the 62 companies as well as for 25 other tech vendors with less than 40 pieces of feedback. It also includes the summary NPS scores from 2014. If you want to know more about the data file, download this SAMPLE SPREADSHEET without the data (.xls).

Download report for $695
(includes Excel spreadsheet with data)

Note: See our 2014 NPS benchmark, 2013 NPS benchmark and 2012 NPS benchmark for tech vendors as well as our page full of NPS resources.

P.S. Net Promoter Score, Net Promoter, and NPS are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Satmetrix Systems, and Fred Reichheld.

Report: The Secret to B2B2C Customer Experience Success

We published a Temkin Group report, The Secret to B2B2C Customer Experience Success. When a company doesn’t have sole control over the customer relationship, it has to recognize the entire system of relationships that influence the end customer’s experience, focusing on what we call B2B2C CX management. Here’s the executive summary:

Many companies reach their end customers through a variety of channel partners—from independent agents and dealerships, to resellers and distributors. Temkin Group defines B2B2C customer experience as enhancing the end customer experience in a way that satisfies the needs of channel partners. The B2B2C environment is complex and full of challenges that hamper companies’ ability to deliver great customer experience to their end customers, such as a lack of alignment with partners or a limited understanding of customers. Our research uncovered five B2B2C CX capabilities that companies require to succeed in delivering a great experience to end customers: Voice of the Partner, Customer Insights Cooperation, CX Capabilities Development, Partner Engagement, and Channel Management Collaboration. We also identified three prototypical B2B2C structures that impact how companies should apply the B2B2C CX capabilities for the most effective outcome. Use Temkin Group’s assessment to identify your company’s B2B2C structure.

Download report for $195

Here’s an overview of the five B2B2C CX capabilities:

Download report for $195

The bottom line: Engage your partners to engage your customers.

Report: Raising Customer-Centricity Across the B2B Enterprise

We just published a Temkin Group report, Raising Customer-Centricity Across the B2B Enterprise. The research provides in-depth case studies of five B2B firms. Here’s the executive summary:

Temkin Group research shows that good customer experience (CX) drives loyalty with business customers. These same business customers, influenced by their personal experiences as consumers, have raised their expectations in their business-to-business (B2B) relationships. While most large B2B organizations have a low level of CX maturity, our research shows that 56% of them have the goal of delivering industry-leading customer experience within three years. To understand how B2B organizations are improving their customer-centricity, we compiled case studies of five organizations that are raising the bar in CX: Ciena, Crowe Horwath, Fiserv, Genworth Financial, and Oracle. To assess your organization’s CX maturity, use Temkin Group’s Customer Experience Competency Assessment, and compare the results to data from other large B2B firms.

Download report for $195

The report provides 40 pages, including rich details on B2B CX and benchmark data to evaluate your B2B CX against other large organizations. Some of the data points in the report include:

• 12% of large B2B organizations are in the highest two levels of CX maturity (out of six levels).
• 8% of large B2B organizations have very good ratings in Compelling Brand Values, the lowest rated CX competency.
• 79% of large B2B organizations identify “other competing priorities” as a key obstacle to CX success, compared with 65% of non-B2B firms.
• 56% of large B2B organizations have a goal to be CX leaders in their industries within three years.

The five case studies go deep into how some great practices for infusing good CX across B2B organizations:

• Ciena: When Ciena began its customer experience journey 18 months ago, it set out to “engage, inform, and transform” the organization. It started its journey by using deep customer insights to hone in on what matters most to customers and now focuses on strengthening its culture and continuously improving.
• Crowe Horwath: As a professional services firm, Crowe’s employees are its customer experience. Therefore, Crowe focuses its efforts on capturing and sharing all client feedback with its employees, and it uses a variety of tactics to involve them in shaping its CX efforts.
• Fiserv: While technology underpins the customer experience tools, analyses, and reporting that drive Fiserv’s CX efforts, the company also integrates a human element into its efforts by using employee coaching, performance management, and rewards and recognition programs to engage employees in their work.
• Genworth Financial: The CX team at Genworth uses a combination of approaches—from customer journey mapping to service dashboards to innovation ideation—to involve employees across the organization in its customer experience efforts.
• Oracle: Oracle continues to raise customer-centricity across its global footprint by listening, responding, and collaborating with customers to identify and take action on customer experience improvement opportunities.

The case studies highlight practices affecting all four customer experience core competencies:

Download report for $195

The bottom line: B2B firms need to improve customer experience.

Where’s All The B2B CX Data?

Readers of this blog see a lot of consumer data which we use to rate and benchmark companies. This data shows up in research such as Net Promoter Score Benchmarks, Temkin Experience Ratings, Temkin Forgiveness Ratings, Temkin Customer Service Ratings, and Temkin Trust Ratings.

Almost every time we publish one of these consumer-based studies, I receive some form of the questions: What about B2B (business-to-business)? When will you have that type of data for B2B? Since these questions always seem to come up, I figured it was worthwhile to write a post with my answer.

First of all, we do have B2B data. For the tech sector, we have an NPS benchmark, the Temkin Experience Ratings, and the satisfaction of products and relationships to name a few. This research is based on feedback from a key customer group:  IT decisions makers within large North American organizations. Our data about what companies are doing, such as The State of CX Management, includes a large sampling of B2B (along with B2C and many that have both B2B and B2C). We sometimes break out the B2B data in reports like Best Practices in B2B Customer Experience and posts such as B2B Versus B2C in VoC.

However, there is certainly a lot more data available for B2C than there is for B2B, especially with customer-driven feedback. This does not reflect the lack of CX effort in B2B companies; as a matter of fact, a large portion of Temkin Group’s client work is in B2B. So why is there such little data in this area? Because of some basic structural constraints of B2B CX:

• B2B requires specific respondents. While you can ask a consumer about a bunch of things from hotels to retailers to fast food restaurants, you can’t do the same in B2B. It would make no sense to ask an accountant about the performance of an infrastructure tech vendor or to ask an IT professional about the quality of a bank’s treasury services. As a result, studies must be targeted at individual sectors, one at a time.
• B2B data is more expensive. If you want to survey a B2B customer group (such as IT decision-makers), then you will likely have to purchase the sample from a vendor who manages B2B panels. Since Temkin Group does a lot of research, we are able to receive pretty competitive pricing for our studies. Yet, the cost of a single B2B respondent costs us about 10-times what it costs for a consumer respondent.
• B2B serves a variety of roles. When selling to a large company, there are often many people involved in the relationship, fulfilling roles such as decision-makers, influencers, end users, and economic buyers. The results from any study can vary widely based on which of those customer audiences you survey. A complete B2B study often needs to cover multiple audiences within each client company.

The bottom line: The lack of B2B data does not mean a lack of B2B interest or activity

CX Tip #17: Discuss Feedback with B2B Clients

CX Tip #17: Discuss Feedback with B2B Clients
(Customer Connectedness)

A unique element to SanDisk’s VoC program is its external roadshow to meet with customers about their survey results. Following internal review and reporting, account managers work with the CX governance board to identify a subset of customers to meet with face to face. Approximately 70% of the information reviewed with the customer is drawn from their specific survey responses, and account managers also review trends and insights from across all customer feedback and the actions being taken by SanDisk to address them. Click for more info

See full list of CX Tips

CX Tip #25: Use Online Advisory Boards of B2B Clients

CX Tip #25: Use Online Advisory Boards of B2B Clients
(Customer Connectedness)

Technology solutions provider CDW has engaged clients through a private online community for over seven years. Using open-ended questions or short surveys, the company can gather a significant amount of feedback on a variety of topics including new product offerings, marketing messages, and customer technology usage—in less than a week. Members also have the ability to pose questions to each other. For example, a member recently received numerous responses to his inquiry on other members’ Bring Your Own Device policies. Click for more info

See full list of CX Tips

CX Tip #41: Create Peer-to-Peer Executive Relationships with B2B Clients

CX Tip #41: Create Peer-to-Peer Executive Relationships with B2B Clients
(Purposeful Leadership, Customer Connectedness)

Stream Global Service’s Executive Sponsorship Program charges Stream’s senior leaders with establishing peer-to-peer relationships with senior executives from one to three of its largest clients. The goals of this program are to extend the relationship beyond the sales team, to better understand the customer’s business direction and goals, and to ensure the customer is receiving the value it expects from Stream. On a quarterly basis, the two leaders meet with each other and discuss the customer’s big initiatives, functional area goals, and how Stream can support their efforts. Feedback from these meetings is integrated with other VoC captured from that customer relationship. Click for more info

See full list of CX Tips

CX Tip #43: Randomly Call Out to B2B Clients

CX Tip #43: Randomly Call Out to B2B Clients
(Customer Connectedness)

The law firm Becker and Poliakoff staffs a dedicated client care department and uses those same specially trained employees to proactively contact 2,500 randomly selected clients each year. This continuous feedback process gathers input on the attorney and other service providers involved with the account, along with an open dialogue on how the firm’s professionals are serving them and what the firm could be doing better. Surveys are timed to occur in advance of annual client renewal periods and feedback is provided to both the client relationship manager and practice group leader. These outbound calls have also resulted in the client care team more proactively addressing both minor and major issues. Click for more info

See full list of CX Tips

Report: Best Practices in B2B Customer Experience

We just published a Temkin Group report, Best Practices in B2B Customer Experience. Here’s the executive summary:

Customer experience is gaining more attention within business-to-business (B2B) organizations. Rightfully so—customer experience drives loyalty with business customers. At the same time, clients and prospects, who increasingly compare business interactions with their personal consumer experiences, are raising the expectations of B2B relationships. While our research has shown that most B2Bs are still mastering the basics, our interviews with 28 companies uncovered best practices for building a more client-oriented mindset through closed-loop voice of the customer programs, customer journey maps, and virtual client advisory boards. Using the customer insights they collect, forward-thinking B2B organizations are becoming more client-centric in how they develop new business, create account plans, and proactively provide support (or intervene when service breakdowns occur). To sustain superior customer experience, B2B firms must master four competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness.

Download report for $195

The report identifies many best practices across two areas:

• Building a client-oriented mindset. Organizations have a natural tendency to operate from an internal perspective, focusing on the needs of their functional silos more than on their clients. To offset this tendency, B2B firms need to build repeatable and systematic processes for gathering, analyzing, and taking action on customer insights. The report identifies best practices in the following areas:
  • Develop Closed-Loop Voice of the Client (VoC) Programs. Having a reliable flow of customer insights across the organization is critical to driving customer-centric actions.
  • Use Journey Maps to Better Understand Clients’ Needs. To better understand how clients see their experiences, B2B organizations can use a tool known as customer journey mapping.
  • Tap Into Virtual Client Advisory Boards. Client advisory boards (CAB) and councils provide the opportunity to acquire more insight into customer needs and expectations.
• Building client-centric relationship management. Today, account management functions tend to be oriented around sales generation and firefighting. To build stronger, longer-term ties with clients, Temkin Group expects that B2B firms will head towards a more client-centric model of account management that uses client insights throughout the relationship management continuum. The report identifies best practices in the following areas:
  • Account-Level Experience Reporting. To acquire, retain, and grow B2B relationships, account managers need to understand what’s working and not working for each of their clients.
  • Insightful Business Development. B2B organizations that gather and use the right customer insights during this early stage will create a differentiated experience from the start of the relationship
  • Collaborative Account Planning. By taking a structured and collaborative approach to developing in-depth account plans, companies can tap into their enterprise knowledge.
  • Proactive Intervention and Support. B2B organizations need to use customer insights and feedback from account managers to intervene in service experiences gone wrong as quickly as possible with well-defined, robust recovery procedures.

The report provides a plethora of specific practices in these areas from companies such as Becker and Poliakoff, CDW, Cisco, Citrix, Dell, Enterasys, Equinix, Genworth Financial, Lithium, Lynden, Philadelphia Insurance Companies, Oracle, Salesforce.com, SanDisk, Stream Global, Verint, and VMware.

Download report for $195

The bottom line: B2B companies need more customer-centric enterprise relationships

 

B2B Versus B2C in VoC

In the research for the Temkin Group report Prepare for Next Generation Voice of the Customer Programs, more than 200 large organizations completed our VoC program competency and maturity assessment. This tool uses 30 questions to gauge the effectiveness of these efforts across the 6 Ds of a VoC program: Detect, Disseminate, Diagnose, Discuss, Design, and Deploy. The tool also identifies the level of maturity of these programs.

I took a closer look at the results from the 75 B2B companies and 62 B2C companies that completed our VoC assessment.

The data shows that:

• B2B firms have more mature VoC programs. Over half of the B2B programs with formal VoC programs are at least Analyzers, the third stage of VoC maturity. B2C firms are slightly less at 47%.
• All competencies need work. Across all six Ds, only a small portion of B2C and B2B firms—ranging from 10% to to 26%—are rated as good or very good.
• B2C is best at Discuss. B2C firms perform the best at communicating feedback in a cross-functional setting. This is also the place where they most outperform B2B firms.
• B2B is best at Discuss and Disseminate. B2B firms get the highest score, 21%, for these two phases.
• Design is weak for both B2B and B2C. Very few B2B or B2C companies are good at using user-centered approaches for making improvements based on voC insights.

The bottom line: B2B and B2C Need to Improve VoC

B2B Firms Lag B2C Firms in Customer Experience

As I’ve said in the past, many of the underlying tools and techniques for CX work across B2B and B2C settings. But how effective are the CX efforts for these types of firms?

I examined results from Temkin Group’s CX Competency and Maturity Assessment from The State of CX Management, 2012 for B2B and B2C firms. The assessment rates companies across our four CX competencies: Purposeful Leadership, Compelling Brand Values, Employee Engagement, and Customer Connectedness. As you can see in the chart below:

• Less than half of both types of firms are “good” at any of the four competencies
• B2C firms are much stronger with Compelling Brand Values (+17 points) and Purposeful Leadership (+8 points)
• B2B firms are slightly better at Employee Engagement (+3 points)
• B2B firms struggle the most with Compelling Brand Values (24%) while B2C firms struggle the most with Employee Engagement (30%)
• When I examined the overall results, 68% of B2B firms and 63% of B2C firms are in the two earliest stages of CX maturity

The bottom line: B2B and B2C firms have a lot of CX work to do