B2B tech brands rethink the XaaS customer experience

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The buying and selling of B2B technologies is rapidly evolving. One of the main reasons is that technology customers increasingly expect the same types of continuous and consistent interactions that they experience as consumers. At the same time, as technology companies shift their business models to sell everything as a service (XaaS), they have focused more on improving the overall customer experience and helping customers achieve broader business goals.

In the XaaS environment, customers no longer purchase a product or service; are looking for a partner to achieve the desired results, says Deepak Sharma, managing director of the Customer Success practice at Deloitte Consulting LLP.

In light of these expectations, many B2B technology companies are changing their customer experience strategies, a move that can benefit both customers and sellers. In fact, Deloitte’s research on B2B buyers and sellers shows that brands that deliver an excellent experience are 18% more likely to exceed their revenue targets. Additionally, customers are 34% more likely to buy and 32% more likely to renew from B2B sellers offering great experiences.

A Deloitte assessment of B2B technology companies in the XaaS space reveals some practices designed to improve customer interactions, including making trust a focus and adopting more holistic measurement programs. Through these and other tactics, tech companies can deliver more rewarding experiences, help customers achieve their business goals, and build long-term loyalty.

“In the XaaS environment, customers no longer buy a product or service; they are looking for a partner while driving towards desired results. ”

Deepak Sharma, CEO of Deloitte Consulting LLP

Leading Customer Experience Practices

In its assessment of B2B technology companies, Deloitte interviewed customer experience executives, technology users, and IT decision makers from various companies. Based on that research, three key strategies have been identified that could improve engagement and retention.

Design a human-centered experience. Customer experience leaders can begin by establishing a shared vision of the customer journey, including pain points of engagement and expectations at each stage. From there, they can define how internal functions collaborate to orchestrate experiences and map critical engagement points to required business capabilities and enabling technology systems.

It’s also important to design engagement models that serve people in ways they prefer to interact. Today, people expect a mix of self-service access, predictive automation, and personalized interactions that elevate their human experience at every point of engagement, says Jeff Navach, leader in Deloittes Customer Success practice and senior manager at Deloitte Consulting LLP. Meeting these expectations requires technology vendors to leverage the power of data and information to enable large-scale personalized experiences.

Take a holistic view of the customer experience. Many companies use a customer health score to evaluate relationships. Typically, that score includes product usage and adoption measures, as well as sentiment indicators such as net promoter or customer satisfaction scores. However, the following considerations have become important in gaining a comprehensive perspective of the customer experience:

Emotion. Customers want an ongoing relationship that goes beyond buying, and that relationship depends on a feeling of trust. In the Deloittes survey of B2B buyers and sellers, both groups of respondents ranked trust as the most important contributing factor to the customer experience. To build trust, companies can demonstrate how they take customer input into account. For example, XaaS sellers can reconnect with customers who have provided feedback to update them on how the company is solving a particular problem. Effort. Customers expect to be able to access support quickly and easily, and most importantly, they can become dissatisfied when they have to work harder than they expect. The most effective tech brands measure effort at every stage of the customer journey, aligning teams to ensure a seamless experience. For example, it’s important for sales to set the right expectations for the effort upfront, while product and customer teams should also work together to identify and address pain points during the experience. Engagement: To improve engagement, companies can compare data on customer sentiment and product performance with product usage analysis and training completion rates, among other measures. If, for example, a client isn’t conducting critical adoption training, that’s a signal for action. Operational and product data can help predict engagement issues in advance and indicate when it’s time for customer success representatives to take action, says Melody Liu, team leader with Deloittes Customer Success practice and senior consultant with Deloitte Consulting LLP.

In addition to emotion, effort and engagement, leading B2B technology vendors are also incorporating value realization metrics into their customer understanding to create a more complete picture. Companies should ask themselves what results customers expect and how will they measure the effectiveness of their business investments? Navach says.

Align leadership around the customer. Increasingly, many B2B technology companies are combining customer-related capabilities under a chief customer officer (CCO) or chief experience officer (CXO) to deliver consistent, seamless experiences. Typically, the CCO or CXO oversees client success, support, renewals, professional services, and educational services functions, all of which work together to deliver a range of outcomes and collectively orchestrate a seamless experience.

It’s also important that customer experience leaders work closely with sales and marketing to design a consistent experience from the first point of engagement through to purchase, adoption, and renewal. When the three functions are aligned, they can help incorporate a focus on measuring emotion, effort, and engagement into the corporate culture.

Building relationships, guaranteeing value

Improving customer interactions typically requires executive collaboration, more holistic measurement tactics, and an emphasis on human experience. Sharma points to Salesforce, the cloud-based application provider for customer service, marketing automation, and analytics. Salesforce has integrated most of the customer’s functions under a CCO and made trust central to its strategy, he says. Feature alignment allows the business to streamline customer interactions across the business, while focusing on trust helps deepen brand loyalty.

Salesforce is also developing a new approach to help customers achieve business results. The company is creating industry-specific guides which are available on its training portal. A health care guide, for example, will offer insights to improve patient interactions based on Salesforces’ experience with hundreds of its healthcare customers. Ultimately, the goal is to get customer success back into customer hands, says Neeracha Taychakhoonavudh, executive vice president of global customer success and strategy at Salesforce. We want to enable rewarding interactions throughout the customer journey.

The investments Salesforce and other B2B technology companies are making in the XaaS customer experience can help these brands meet rising expectations and drive future revenue growth, Sharma adds. By focusing on emotion, commitment and engagement, B2B technology providers can deliver consumer-grade experiences, help their customers achieve business goals, and build long-term trust.

by Jennifer D. Fisher, writer, Deloitte Insights for CMO Today

Copyright 2021 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All rights reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

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