B2B Customer Experience: Don’t Be Boredinary!

According to Salesforce’s?State of Marketing 2021 , 78% of CMOs own CX for their organization. And according to a quick poll of our own CMO Huddlers in a Bonus Huddle about CX, it varied across the board. Regardless of who owns CX at your company, Huddle guest?Dan Gingiss ?pointed out the crucial role that the CMO plays in CX-land—check out our key takeaways?below!

Be CX Empowerers, Not CX Police

Whoever leads CX should empower employees, not audit them. In this regard, the marketing function is primed to lead CX initiatives. Marketing provides the experience before the experience, promising that their product or service will solve X for customers, make them feel Y way, and help them accomplish Z. Marketers simplify that promise and synthesize it in a human way, which can then trickle through to all other functions in the org when done right—more on how that works below.?

Be Extraordinary, Not Boredinary

According to Dan: “All you need to be is a little bit better than ordinary.” Marketing should empower product teams to add delight along every stage of the customer journey, and it’s all about finding little opportunities within the experience to personalize. What if your log-in landing page greeted your customer by the name they actually go by? What if receiving an invoice could be?fun?

Added delight equals reduced friction, and happier, more loyal customers. In an example Dan shared from a past job at Discover, they found that the #1 reason customers logged in was to see recent transactions, but the recent transactions page was three clicks deep. They then created a feed on the homepage, and clicks went down, but customer satisfaction scores skyrocketed.

Use a Sparkler, Not a Candle

Word of Mouth marketing is powerful. CX should aim to get customers talking about you without having to ask. It’s about giving customers a little bit more than they expect; it’s about swapping out that candle for a?sparkler.?

Dan expands on the sparkler metaphor in?this blog post —here's the gist: A restaurant used a sparkler instead of a candle when bringing out a birthday cake for Dan's son, exceeding their expectations with a small, simple change. The entire family shared the experience on their preferred social channels right away and without any provocation from the restaurant. In B2B, it’s about being helpful with pizzazz—something that customers will appreciate from the rooftops.?

Celebrate the Guest of Honor, Not the Sale

In the world of business, there’s nothing more satisfying than making a sale. And yes, it’s a great cause for celebration, but for who? If you’re toasting with your team or blowing up an internal Slack channel with self-congratulations, you’re missing one crucial element of the party—the customer.?

Dan brings us back to the foundation of CX: put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Like anyone making a large purchase, it’s natural for your customer to feel apprehensive about whether they made the right decision. So, invite them to the party. Put your arm around your new customer and welcome them to your tribe. Let them know they made the right decision by showing them you’re still there after the money has left the?bank.?

(Bonus: Have Sales stick around for the first 90 days as the customer is being onboarded.)?

Incent Customer Success, Not Upsell

Here’s a novel idea. Customer Success should be about the success of your… customers! Hard to wrap your mind around, I know, but hear me out. Here’s what customers want: to buy from a brand that they can trust, to use a product that delivers on its promise, and to see real-deal value. Bonus points if it?over-delivers.?

And do you know what a customer doesn’t want? To spend more money. So why is the CS function incented based on upsell and cross-sell? It misaligns with the goals of the customer and skips a vital step—ensuring that they understand how to get the most out of your service. If you focus on their success instead, then the upsell part will come easy. Re: Dan: “They’re going to want to invest more because they see the value.”?

Want to join CMO Huddles, the fastest-growing, most engaged community of B2B CMOs on the planet? If you’re looking to share, care, and dare with the best of them, please visit?CMOHuddles.com .