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B2B CEM
How does it differ from the B2C World
Dr. Brownell O'Connor
The Contact Center Doctor
G-CEM International Partner (Ireland)
www.brownell.ie
This article is exclusively written for G-CEM.
Customer Experience management in the B2B world is definitely more challenging than the B2C counterpart but, it must be said, that the strategically well designed, B2B customer experience management program can often reap far greater rewards in retained value and revenue generation. In my experience of B2B IT Outsourcing, the key to CEM success is to be willing to induce/overcome more pain in the acquisition/conversion phase in order to ensure more, longer-lasting pleasure during the consumption phase.
The great advantage enjoyed by B2C CEM is that the vendor is, by and large, dealing with a singular customer or perhaps a family unit (usually with similar characteristics). The consumers have, at least in theory, been attracted to the organisation as a result the brand promise and that "promise" is the foundation of their expectations.
The B2B world is very different. Effective procurement processes often employ committees to ensure the broadest possible range of individual characteristics; ensuring, in theory, that the requirements of the company will weigh fare more heavily than personal preferences.
However, those of us who have been involved in B2B sales know that after the first sales meeting with a new business prospect the vendor analyses how the bid, proposal or quotation can be tailored so that it satisfies some, of the requirements of ALL the participants in the purchasing chain. The vendor is no longer dealing with a "singular unit". Thus, to sell a new "unified CSR desktop" we would have to consider selling to:-
The CSR's
The 'C'-level executives
The CSR management
The IT department
The Accounting department
The Procurement department
The Legal department (perhaps)
Etc.
In customer experience parlance we frequently talk about 'moments of truth' and 'touchpoints' I refer to the above list as "salespoints" (the points where our sales interaction must "touch" the client). Each salespoint represents a department, group or committee formed by a group of individuals who, at face value are attempting to achieve maximum results for the areas they are responsible for.
To make matters even more difficult, each salespoint, group, committee or department are comprised of many individuals with many different attitudes, values and personalities. It is conceivable that the brand promise that is so attractive to one committee member may be completely off-putting to another.
The first and most important strategic decision of the B2B organisation, therefore, is to decide if the brand promise and CEM proposition should focus on delivering a core value to the clients' overall business organisation (assuming that all the individuals working for the organisation have only the company's best interests in mind... In my experience, this is very rarely the case). The alternative is to build a brand promise and CEM strategy that focuses on the key purchasers/end-users of the product. If I was selling a CSR system with the latter strategy, I could build a brand promise that is operationally focused. I would be hoping to leverage the voice of the users to steer the other members of the procurement committee towards my product.
When we move from sales into support we see another interesting B2B dynamic. In the B2C world we leverage the consumption phase of a product to build loyalty and increase sales. In the B2B world loyalty is often unobtainable unless it is contractual. When an organisation purchases an IT system, for example, they will often be required to sign a service, maintenance or licensing agreement that is often of fixed and renewable term. There is, of course an annual, semi-annual or quarterly fee attached to this agreement. Once the agreement expires and when it is time to replace the system, many organisations, particularly multi-nationals and public sector organisations are mandated to go right back to the full tender process. Prior good performance will benefit the vendor in most cases but it is rarely enough to guarantee that they will win the new business contract. In such instances, the value of B2B advocacy may be suspect.
I was recently retained by a B2B IT Outsource service provider (BPO). The organisation retained me to evaluate the helpdesk operation that was an integral component of their IT support services. Their clients were very large and were, for the most-part involved in the manufacture/production and distribution of commodities.
When I sat at the first project meeting I was informed of a major client who had just announced that they would be re-tendering. This client was the "anchor" client and any suggestion that they might defect was extremely disturbing. As I analysed the factors that drove advocacy in this environment I stumbled into a whole range of "apparent contradictions", for example:-
There were many more contradictions but the resulting CEM conflicts were similar in most cases:-
If the BPO maximised service efficiency and delivered a service in precise alignment with the requirements established in the Service Level Agreement (SLA) then either the users or the management were not going to be happy. At the end of the day, management decide if the contract will be renewed so the BPO is driven to focus their efforts on making senior management happy even though they may be penalised for not achieving the SLA. The converse was also true.
While this example is not driven by values or promises, the principle is the same; the complicating factor of B2B CEM is the fact that the vendor is dealing with a "committee" of one form or another, comprised of individuals who, on one hand, will abide by corporate best interest but who, on the other hand, will often fall back to the basic human instinct that their critical need is more important than everyone else's.
In this particular project, I resolved the issue by focusing my efforts on the BPO sales team. The sales team were trained to identify the most common SLA contradictions and to bring them to the attention of the prospect/client. They were also trained to "teach" clients about SLA's and typical contradictions. Some clients did not like this approach but others saw it as a welcome change and a sign of professionalism. This, in turn lead to a new CEM strategy that induced PAIN in the conversion process (due to the more rigorous analysis of the RFP/SLA) and PLEASURE in the operational/consumption phase (because more people within the client organisation were happier with the service). The result for the BPO is more advocacy and a higher percentage of non-tender contract renewals.
I therefore bring one message to B2Bvendors and one to B2B clients:-
As a client, respect the fact that any contradictions in SLA's, deliverables or even specifications will result in the vendor "playing tricks" to achieve a balance that creates the best possible impression - even if the end results are not in the best interest of the client's business.
Consider, by way of example, the situation when a PC hangs on an oil production line. If the PC is not fixed quickly, the company loses money and even the oil rigs might have to be told to stop pumping (making them lose money also). If, however, the CEO's PC hangs... He can get his email from his PA's PC. Therefore, the production PC should get priority and it does according to the SLA. However, in terms of contract renewal, fixing the CEO's PC is more important and that is where the priority goes. In this case, it is not in the best interests of the Client but it is in the best interests of the Vendor to give the CEO more priority. The CEO and the vendor enjoy pleasure but at the end of the day, the vendor loses out to pain when it comes time for their SLA performance to be analysed.
As a Vendor, respect the fact that the client does not usually have the time to really analyse how each of their departments have defined their objectives so don't just respond to their needs and agree to everything in the RFP - measure the "sanity" of all their requirements and when conflicts arise, ask for clarification before submitting the bid.
The B2B world is the same as the B2C world in that the key determinant of success is based upon the client's expectations. The generic CEM rules such as the "peak end" and the "pleasure pain gap" still hold true but the B2B world is a world where one client can have different expectations on many different levels and often, the only person who has enough exposure to foresee those contradictions is the vendor.
Clients - don't chose the vendor who says "yes" - look first to the vendor who says "why"
Vendors - don't be afraid to ask "why" for your ability to analyse and scrutinise is a clear indicator of your skills, abilities and experience.
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About the Author
While his professional career began as an electronic engineer, Brownell O'Connor, The Contact Centre Doctor has earned a reputation in the world of CRM and customer contact. Brownell has been working in the customer contact industry since 1990 and in that time he has worked with over 150 call centre operations on virtually every continent. In 1989, long before CRM was a definitive Term, Brownell was developing and implementing CRM solutions in Pizza Hut call centres around the world.
Brownell sold his first call centre technology company in 1996. With an impressive array of blue-chip clients, the company provided an array of hardware and software, CRM, call centre management solutions, Computer Telephony Integration solutions and automated service solutions. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, they served a global industry with offices in North America, Thailand, UK, and Poland. Most implementations were "build, operate, transfer" contracts and it will be no surprise that the company owned and operated its own call centre in Dublin. Interestingly, Brownell had a huge hurdle to overcome in order to gain the support of the Irish government agencies - he had to introduce Government officials to the concept of call centres and now, Ireland has the reputation for being Europe's call centre capital.
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