How B2B companies can develop a world-class Customer Engagement Strategy?

“Customer experience” could be undoubtedly named as one of the buzz-words of 2020. At least 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as B2C customers. Today's customers expect super slick digital services and self- service options.

What are the top 5 trends in customer engagement?

1) Voice of the customer has become more important than ever.

2) Customer Centricity has become the core of the business strategy

3) Great communication & high-quality content will play a make or break role.

4) Omnichannel communication is definitely a megatrend in the customer experience sphere.

5) Personalization

The era of doing B2B business “the old-fashioned” way is gone. Now customers expect a high level of involvement and really high-quality digital services when making a B2B purchase. The differences between B2C and B2B are blurring, as customers are eager to have the same smooth modern experience in all areas of their lives, including their work lives.

How do you build a world-class Customer Engagement Strategy?

I have identified 6 stages for the development of a world-class Customer Engagement Strategy. They are:

1. Initiative Preparation- This includes an assessment of Customer Engagement Maturity & preparing a business case
2. Journey Mapping – Preparing a Customer Journey Map & Buyer Persona Template(s)
3. - Strategy Planning: Develop the Customer Engagement Strategy Scorecard, Project Plan, Budget & Job Roles
4. Technology Selection – In this stage, you need a Customer Engagement System in place. You can assess your existing systems & decide which new technologies you need.
5. Engagement & Advocacy- Monitor all touchpoints, conduct a customer satisfaction survey & create a customer advocate database
6. Measurement- Here you measure key metrics like Customer Satisfaction Index by building a Customer Engagement Metrics Dashboard

1. Initiative Preparation Stage:

In this stage, you must focus your efforts around understanding your organization’s strengths and weaknesses as related to Customer Engagement, documenting your goals and objectives, and developing a business case to gain buy-in from the senior management for this initiative. Key steps in this stage will include:

1: Understand Customer Engagement, 2: Review the Levels of CE Maturity in your organization, 3: Identify Your Organization’s Level of Maturity, 4: Build a Business Case

There is a total of 7 components of customer engagement. They are: 1) Orientation, 2) Leadership 3) Tools & Platforms 4) Customer Success 5) Alignment 6) Budget & 7) Staff Metrics

2. Journey Mapping Stage:

In this stage, you need to understand more about how your customers engage with your organization. You will identify the key buyer personas for your business and map out how each of those personas interacts with your organization.

Key activities for this stage include:

1: Review the Customer Engagement Map

2: Create a Customer Journey Map

3: Identify Key Buyer Persona(s)

1: Customer Engagement can be reviewed across 10 areas. They are Problem Identification, Research, Technology Evaluation, Validation Purchase/Acquisition, Implementation, Relationship Building, Benefits Assessment, Account Expansion & Advocacy & Loyalty

2: Create Journey Map: Here you step into the shoes of your customer and define the buying process. You need to have an in-depth understanding of the following stages:

a.  Discovery/Research

b.  Evaluation/Comparison

c.   Decision/Purchase 

d.  Implementation 

e.  Support/Renew

3: Identify Key Buyer Persona(s): Refer to my article on Demand Generation to learn more about this topic.

3. Strategy Planning Stage

In Stage 3, you plan your Customer Engagement strategy, programs, and initiatives by learning the important aspects of the Customer Engagement and identifying key roles, responsibilities, processes, technologies, content, and metrics. The key activities in this Stage are:

 1: Understand Customer Engagement Roles & Responsibilities

 2: Create a Customer Engagement Strategy

 3: Establish a detailed project plan

 4: Identify Budget Allocations

 5: Define Roles & Responsibilities

1: Understand CE Roles and Responsibilities: You need to define Customer Engagement efforts across six categories:

1.  Roles 

2.  Responsibilities

3.  Processes 

4.  Technology 

5.  Content 

6.  Metrics

2: Create a Customer Engagement Strategy: A proper customer engagement strategy document will also allow you to track your strategy progress throughout the year. Key information to include in scorecard:

a.  Objectives

b.  Programs & Initiatives

c.   Metrics & KPIs

d.  Timeframes and Goals

d.Goal Achievement

e.  Tracking

3: Establish a detailed project plan: The plan should include the following

1.  Project Overview

2.  Description

3.  Key Success Factors

4.  Risk Identification

5.  Project Stakeholders 

6.  Communications Plan

7.  Decision

8.  Approval

4: Identify Budget Allocations: The key components of this budget are: 1) Technology Implementation 2) Support, 3) Staffing, Training & Education,4) Promotions & Marketing Campaigns

5: Define Roles & Responsibilities: Crucial job functions to consider for your Customer Engagement team are: VP, Customer Success, VP or Director of Customer Engagement, Customer Success Manager(s)

4.Technology Selection

At this point, you have learned about Customer Engagement and developed Journey Maps and strategies to properly interact with your audience. Now you evaluate the technology landscape to implement your strategic initiatives. This stage can include the following steps: Evaluate Vendors and Create a Short List, Submit RFPs to Short-Listed Vendors & Conduct Evaluations and Make Decisions

5. Engagement & Advocacy:

Now that you have selected the technologies that will assist you with your Customer Engagement programs, you can begin connecting with your prospects and customers. This stage will help you enhance and track interactions as well as identify key advocates for your brand. In this Stage, you will:

1: Build Long-lasting Relationships

2: Prove Value

3: Expand Account Size and Partnership Duration

4: Identify Brand Advocates & engage with them.

1. Build Long-lasting Relationships: Here the touchpoints can include but are not limited to: Sales Cycle Calls, Customer Success Calls, Email Campaigns, Social Media Contact, Online Community Interactions
2. 2 Prove Value: Here you need to define the buying process, understand your Value Proposition create best practices for Customer Service & Support, Website etc. Websites can be personalized according to various customer segments to provide a seamless experience.
3. Expand Account Size & Partnership Duration: Think of ways to expand the account size and customer lifetime value.
4. Identify & Engage with the brand advocates: You can request referrals from the brand advocates. The benefits of the referral partnerships are it helps generate pre-qualified leads.

6.  Measurement Stage

Now that we have executed your strategy, implemented technologies, begun engaging users, and identified potential brand advocates, you can start to measure the results of your Customer Engagement program. In this stage, we will: Calculate Key Customer Metrics & Measure Your Customer Engagement Program. Some of the key metrics we suggest analyzing are # MQLs Created, SQLs v. MQLs, Avg. Deal Size Renewal Rate, Cost Per Lead (CPL), Customer Lifetime Value (CLV), Net Promoter Score (NPS) & Customer Satisfaction Index (CSI).

About the author

Shantanu is the founder of an award-winning B2B business growth consulting firm & passionate about helping startups and mid-size companies grow better & faster. He has been empowering CEOs, CMOS and Sales Leaders of B2B companies build high growth firms. As a successful entrepreneur who has successfully built & sold multi-million $ businesses, he knows what it takes to really differentiate, scale & build a high growth company. Shantanu is also involved in building thriving communities, so in partnership with Dubai Government & leading brands, he has been organizing business growth summits like SME World Summit, Global Innovation Summit, Emirates NBD Global Business series etc. Over the last 6 years, he has brought together over 20,000 entrepreneurs & business leaders to learn the battle-tested strategies of building great businesses. Reach out to him to avail a free business strategy assessment session. Visit www.spigroup.ae to learn more.