B2B Customer Experience Management

The Annual ClearAction Business-to-Business Customer Experience Management Benchmarking Study monitors the implementation of best practices in customer-focused management for sustainable high profitability. This is a study of the journey to world-class performance in how business-to-business firms (1) listen to customers, (2) view customers, (3) center employees on customers, and (4) center business on customers. It explores the motivations behind customer experience management (CEM) and its linkages to corporate goals, strategy, culture, processes, and business results.

Trends: Success factors to world-class customer experience management appear to be:

• Profit as one of the top three motivations for CEM.
• CEM as a determinant of corporate strategy.
• Coordination among managers of CEM methods.
• Presentation of survey results to all employees.
• Action on survey results by owners of CX key drivers.
• Calculation of customer lifetime value (CLV).
• Funding of cross-organizational collaboration.

Obstacles: Budget restrictions (59%) and low employee morale (49%) are the greatest obstacles to the success of customer experience management. Limited bandwidth (43%) is also a key obstacle. Top management plays a direct role in most of the obstacles to CEM success, including weak CEM know-how among executives (44%), lack of strategy for CEM (36%), lack of executive sponsorship (30%), weak follow-through on strategy for CEM (25%), and unclear corporate goals (23%).

Recommendations: Recommendations for stronger customer experience strategy, cross-organizational cooperation, and business results are provided in the study.

Participants:Business-to-business customer experience practitioners responded to an online survey from May through July 2011. Industries represented include computer software, industrial automation, utilities, energy, textiles, mining, oil, semiconductors, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, research, plastics, machinery, facilities, real estate, engineering services, computer hardware and chemicals.

Respondents' companies are headquartered in North America (64%), Europe (29%), Asia, and the Middle East. Half of the participants represent companies with less than 5,000 employees; 30% of the companies have 5,000-49,000 employees; and a fifth of participating firms have more than 50,000 employees.

Job titles of participants include Vice President of Customer Experience, Vice President of Customer Operations, Vice President of Customer Care & Support, Customer Engagement Champion, Director of Client Experience & Loyalty Development, Director of Customer Care, Director of Client Experience & Voice of the Customer, Director of Strategic Accounts, Director of Sales, CRM Department Leader, Manager of Business Excellence Deployment, Customer Experience Program Management, Project Manager, and Group Manager.

This study was sponsored by ClearAction and The Insight Advantage. The third annual B2B CEM study is scheduled for publication in mid-2012.

Sponsor: The Insight Advantage
The Insight Advantage is a full-service research firm, providing a wide range of services (web surveys, focus groups, telephone interviews) to help companies implement customer research for ongoing insight into their customers' evolving needs and expectations. Jennifer Berkley Jackson, head of The Insight Advantage, is an extension faculty member of University of California - Santa Cruz.

Sponsor: ClearAction
ClearAction is a customer experience consulting firm that helps organizations build enterprise-wide customer-focus and customer experience innovation. ClearAction's skills and pragmatic experience in customer satisfaction, quality, marketing, and organizational development catalyze value from customer feedback by applying it to daily decisions and processes company-wide. Lynn Hunsaker, head of ClearAction is author of three ebooks: Innovating Superior Customer Experience, Metrics You Can Manage for Success, and Customer Experience Improvement Momentum.

Related articles:

• Increasing Customer Focus in Voice of the Customer for Business Results
• Focusing on People in B2B Customer Experience Strategy
• Investment Patterns in B2B Customer Experience Management
• Business Customer Experience Management Stories Highlighted in 3rd Annual B2B CEM Study
• 6 Factors Identified for B2B Customer Experience Excellence
• Payoff for Coordinating Customer Experience Management Worldwide
• Big Gains by Presenting Voice of the Customer to All Employees
• ROI Opportunities for B2B Customer Experience Management
• 8 Paths to Value via Benchmarking Studies

Preview of Study Report (42 pages):