Author: Editor

Renewable Differentiation

Commoditization of products and services is occurring more quickly today than ever before, and nobody is feeling the pressure more than businesses that generate the majority of their revenue by selling into other organizations, otherwise known as Business to Business (B2B) firms. Commoditization occurs when products and services become indistinguishable from, or inferior to, the competition’s offerings, thereby eroding a company’s ability to charge a premium.

This cascades down into missed revenue and margin targets, a limited ability to produce an ROI on R&D, and the evaporation of market share. While the challenges of commoditization have plagued businesses for decades, the accelerated rate of commoditization (RofC) in today’s fast-paced economy, is making these problems increasingly difficult to manage.

While commoditization benefits customers – the products and services available in the market are continually getting better or cheaper, and they are doing so at an ever-increasing pace – it wreaks havoc on businesses, especially those with high-priced items that have a long time between buying cycles (e.g., MRI machines), hence why B2B firms are impacted most significantly. If a company isn’t creating the most recent, advanced version of a product or service, then their existing offerings quickly lose out to better or lower-cost competitors.

Achieving Renewable Differentiation and competitive advantage is now based on a company’s ability to remain relevant in the eyes of their customer. This requires companies to:
• Deeply understand their buyer.
• Know how to solve their buyer’s problems.
• Maintain a reputation as a trusted advisor who is capable of helping the buyer capitalize on opportunities and overcome challenges to win in the future state.
To learn more about how to combat commoditization, click here.

Written by: Anthony Paluska

More from this Author

About the Author: Anthony Paluska is a Partner at McMann & Ransford with experience helping organizations overcome commoditization by developing stronger, more intimate, relationships with their customers. He has leveraged his management consulting, problem solving, and change management skills to support 15+ Fortune 1000 organizations, across a multitude of industries.

Healthcare Case Studies

Renewable Differentiation allows companies to work above the Safety Line as an advisor, a solver of pressing customer issues, and to pull through the commoditized portion of customers’ portfolios.

The following synopses describe how we have helped healthcare clients drive Renewable Differentiation to combat commoditization and power financial results.

Access the Healthcare Case Studies

Written by: Doug Long

More from this Author

About the Author: Doug Long is a Partner with McMann & Ransford and has more than 26 years of experience in consulting across various industries, topics, and client challenges. Prior firms include Deloitte and GE. He currently leads our Healthcare Practice.

 

 

Account Management Introductory Blog

This is the first blog in a series on the topic of Account Management.

You may be wondering, “Why a series of blogs?”. The answer to this question is simple: Account Management is seemingly a straightforward topic yet time and again, we see Account Management being a misunderstood and/or sub-optimized business function. It is perhaps a more complicated and multifaceted core business function that therefore warrants additional time and pages than one blog can cover.

So, let’s start by defining what we mean by Account Management.

What is it? As stated above, Account Management is a core business function that is a part of every B2B business model. It is the process and actions to deliberately manage customer accounts along their lifecycle journey to achieve their strategic outcomes. Even if you disagree with this basic definition, I hope you can agree with me on the target goal and outcome: Driving your customers’ success is at the core, and you and your company succeed in return. Naturally, a high-performing Account Management business function is a system that includes but is not limited to:

  • The tools and methods for building specific account strategies and plans.
  • Properly equipped and enabled talent to build and execute those strategies and plans.
  • Metrics and procedure for holding each other accountable for executing those plans to achieve the target goals and outcomes.

Why is Account Management so important?

Most (if not all) attribute its importance to a financial outcome such as revenue growth. And that is true. However, it is critical for many other reasons related to financial performance such as customer retention, selecting the “right” strategy for engaging each customer account most efficiently, and enabling your resources to successfully sell into and manage accounts.

There is one additional aspect to Account Management that makes it so jugular to your business: to drive intimacy and differentiation. This should not come as a surprise if you have been reading and following other McMann & Ransford blogs. Assuming competitive products and services being equal at the same customer account, the opportunity to truly differentiate is:

  • The continual and relentless focus on solving your customers’ biggest challenges and/or creating new opportunities with and for them.
  • Being there with them to realize and achieve the outcomes.

In other words, managing accounts throughout their lifecycle with you and your organization.

So again, this all seems fairly straightforward, right? And yet, I regularly see B2B companies struggle.

Why is Account Management so difficult and challenging? The reasons are many, and I often find that there are varying points of view on what Account Management truly is. I often see companies solving for something different such as Customer Experience Management and Customer Satisfaction and categorizing these initiatives under the umbrella of ‘Account Management.’ In addition, many companies struggle with answering key questions such as:

  • What is our standard model?
  • Our markets often feel underserved/under-communicated to because of the sheer number of accounts – many would buy more but are not enabled to do so. How do we enable them?
  • Who “owns” Account Management? Is it the Selling organization? Is it the Customer Support and Service team? Overall lack of accountability for key account management components – such as setting Account Strategies and creating Account Plans, executing Account Journeys, etc. prevents us from being best in class.
  • Who coordinates and navigates customers within our company?

Through this series of blogs, I hope to dissect the topic into meaningful pieces so that we can explore Account Management through different lenses, points of view, experiences, and examples to answer these and other related questions together.

Written by: Mark Slotnik

More from this Author

About the Author: Mark Slotnik has spent nearly 20+ years advising clients in the areas of designing and taking to market high value business solutions, solution portfolio management, talent development, resource management, business process re-engineering and commercial software.  

Unlocking the Value of an Embedded Professional Services Firm

As we work with embedded Professional Services (PS) organizations seeking to better play their strategic role in differentiation, pull-through, intimacy, and growth for the entire company, many wrestle with how to meet their near-term financial commitments to the business while transforming to this more impactful, strategic role.  For most organizations, both goals are important, but both cannot be most important – so a critical initial decision in the transformation is which goal is truly “the first among equals.”

If planned and performed with deliberate focus, both approaches can be successful, but have implications on timing, investment, and sequence of activities.  Because most organizations are seeking the correct balance to progress both goals, we often find a major-minor framework to be a helpful construct for the decision.

By applying this framework, you can set the correct expectations, establish milestones, and maintain momentum to achieve your transformation, but the mechanics of each approach work differently and have different timelines.

To understand the decisions, stages, and implications of each approach, access the full whitepaper.

Written by: Doug Long

More from this Author

About the Author: Doug Long is a Partner with McMann & Ransford and has more than 26 years of experience in consulting across various industries, topics, and client challenges. Prior firms include Deloitte and GE. He currently leads our Healthcare Practice.

 

 

Getting Strategic Alliances Right – Capitalizing on a Collaborative Advantage

Roughly 70% of all strategic alliances fail.[i]  For most companies, the concept of a strategic alliance makes sense and seems simple, so why do they consistently get it wrong? While partnership may sound straightforward, companies often commit four mistakes in selecting and executing alliances:

  1. They choose the wrong partners with misaligned strategies,
  2. They don’t clearly define roles or decision rights,
  3. They fail to implement a governance structure and review process to make sure the alliance is working as they’d like, and
  4. They ineffectively manage the partner relationship.

When an alliance works well, it can drive significant revenue and serve as a market attachment strategy. This allows you extend your reach in the market by expanding your suite of services without having to invest and develop them internally. It also lets you engage and become relevant in new ways with additional offerings. However, if your partnership isn’t designed and executed properly, it will provide your customers with another company to bond with or will be a frustrating, fruitless experience for both partners.   If you want to succeed and avoid the four common mistakes, there are some key things you must consider.

  1. Selecting the Right Partner

Defining the Alliance Strategy

The first mistake companies often make is in picking the wrong partner. A company might choose a partner with different strategic goals or one that is unwilling or unable to do what is expected.  Effective strategic alliance strategy requires you to understand what you are trying to achieve with the strategic alliance. Are you creating the strategic alliance to:

  • Provide you access?
  • Expand your solution?
  • Increase your reach?
  • Fill a capability gap?

You want to recognize how these factors fit into your broader commercial plan. When evaluating these questions, we suggest you apply an integrated model that looks at the segment and geography of what you need, why you need it, and how to fulfill it. This integrated model is your strategic alliance strategy. Applying this model is what will drive you to be different than the many defective alliances.

Selecting the Right Partner to Support the Strategy

Your strategic alliance is a direct reflection on your business. Because of this, it’s important to evaluate what the partner is bringing to the table. Unfortunately, many companies we see approach partner selection as they approach vendor selection. They focus on cost, quality, delivery. Partner selection is a very different process, however. You need to look at:

  • How an alliance or partner makes money,
  • their DNA,
  • their strengths, and
  • why they want this partnership.

Compare your partner’s business and motivations to your own. What are your expectations? What are your needs? From here, you can align the interests of both businesses and conduct a gap analysis to understand what must change for the relationship to work. And, there are always things that must change.

  1. Preparing Your Organization to Support a Network of Alliance Partners

How do we make sure that the alliance is successful? In this step, you might bring an organizational chart and have a discussion around talent alignment. To enable your business, you will need more than just an organizational chart. You need to know who is responsible for doing what. You are establishing decision rights, expectations, compensation plans, executive involvement, review committees, and the support necessary for any other revenue generating function.

This is critical in enabling Strategic Alliances, because many of these activities do not naturally demand daily attention. It’s not in our normal functional structure to have quarterly operational reviews, HR reviews, financial management reviews, or pipeline management integrated with our regular pipeline.  It’s even more important to be structured, organized, and like any other new initiative such as a new program, segment, or topic, to conduct early reviews.

  1. Ensuring Successful Implementation of the Program

Once you’ve set the stage for success, you need to gear up for implementation. Ensuring success for any new or different initiative in a large company requires a great deal of focus from the executive organization and the appointment of leadership who are respected by the broader organization.  It also calls for:

  • Celebrating early wins
  • Promoting of alliance activity,
  • Educating the rest of the business on:
    • Why this is important,
    • How it fits into the organization, and
    • How to enable the alliance and partners to be successful.

Offer up unique elements and customized support to further drive your partner’s success. When looking at your partner, consider how to take the extra step toward success and ask yourself whether they need a unique solution, training, or a larger team assigned to them. Discuss whether they need group sales teams or require a different kind of education. These unique attributes or factors are either marketing-related, sales-related, or true offers that are unique to them.

The best strategic alliances we’ve seen have something unique to give their partners. You want to stand out. You want your partner to be able to explain why working with you is better than working alone or working with someone else.

  1. Managing Individual Partners

Finally, just like any relationship, the partnership must be tended to. Strategic alliances are founded on strong partner relationships. In addition to focus and effort around change, structure, and processes, it’s necessary to manage the Strategic Alliance to ensure the relationship remains mutually beneficial. Maintaining a strong business partnership entails:

Consistent and transparent communication: Review and discuss the strategic alliance’s progress. What has the alliance contributed to each of your businesses? Has it helped you achieve what you set out to? Has it progressed your strategy? If the strategic alliance has been beneficial, figure out how to keep it on that path. If it hasn’t, have the conversation about adjusting your strategy.

  • Establish a defined process for mediation: If any issues arise, you want to understand how you and your partner will collaboratively reach a resolution.
  • Update and discuss expectations for you and your partner: Revisit expectations because they will likely evolve over the course of the relationship. Ensure that you are both committed to the alliance and willing and able to fulfill each other’s business needs.

Summary

A strategic alliance, when executed correctly, can power your business forward and help you do things you could have never done alone. Working with the right partner in the right environment will drive long-term results for both businesses. Before you set out, don’t forget the importance of:

  1. Evaluating and selecting the right partner for your business,
  2. Establishing decision rights, processes, and a learning infrastructure to educate the business on the alliance,
  3. Determining where the alliance fits in the greater business structure, and
  4. Managing your partnership to ensure you are both meeting desired strategic objectives.

[i] Danielle Twardy, “Partner Selection: A Source of Alliance Success,” University of Technology.

Written by: Marc Cottle

More from this Author

About the Author: Marc Cottle is an experienced sales leader with 15 years of experience; he is a Principal with McMann & Ransford and leads the Commercial Practice at the company.

No More “WAGMs” – Driving Results with Idea Selling

In 18 years of commercial experience both as a consulting leader and sales executive, the typical response to “how did it go?” is “We had a good meeting.”  Early in my career, I thought this was good news: we gave a great presentation or demo, everyone was engaged, they asked insightful questions, and they wanted to learn more.  I considered these to be the reactions and information that should be driving the deal forward and closing the gap on your sales goals.

Soon, I got an inkling that these meetings while good, weren’t very productive for either party.  Also, I began to realize “bad meetings,” where people are disengaged or confused about the topic, rarely happen in sophisticated client conversations. Everyone is highly-educated, experienced, and has done their homework.  They know who will be in the meeting and always have some sense of the customer’s needs.  Due to these factors, everyone ends the meeting feeling as though they have inched closer to an understanding and furthered their agenda on the prospect of the deal.

As I gained more experience and witnessed the consistent outcomes of “We Had a Good Meeting”(s) (WAGMs), I began to realize that these really weren’t that good of meetings.  WAGMs are typically an entry point into an endless cycle of further WAGMs, where we continue to present information to a growing circle of stakeholders at the client, who may have intentions of doing something, but don’t have the authority or power to either sign the deal or progress it to the next level.  In some cases, we were chasing our tails as the lead-generating salesperson had not properly vetted his or her contact. Other times, it became clear that we were not working on an important problem, a “burning platform”.  In most instances, there was resistance by the stakeholders to allow access to key buying executives – executives who we refer to as being “Above the Line of Safety.”

When this lack of access occurs, which is more often than it should, it is squarely the responsibility of the sales team to work through this and set the correct expectations of these meeting so they:

  • Are productive,
  • Reduce cycle time for your organization, and
  • Speed up implementation for the client so they can receive the benefits of your products, services, and offerings faster.

The sales team will have a few people working the account: Sales or Business Development leading for a new account, an Account Manager or Client Executive for current accounts, Product or Practice Leaders providing subject matter expertise, not to mention commercial operations and customer support people. Whoever falls into the above list, the sales leader for that client must take the initiative to drive a client strategy and move away from the endless succession of WAGMs.

At McMann & Ransford, we consult in this area as a part of our overall Service Chain offering.  While the offering covers complete solution development, account pathways and journeys, and portfolio analysis as part of an overall Customer Intimacy strategy, we can address WAGMs with very tactical aspects of our Idea Selling Concepts and commercial strategy.

The two aspects of Idea Selling that directly combat the WAGM cycle are execution and development of the Idea Meeting and the Stakeholder Meeting:

The Idea Meeting is a 20 to 30-minute meeting between the sales lead/ client executive and a key stakeholder Above the Line of Safety who has some decision authority or access to decision authority.  The meeting is small and personal at this stage to drive the concept without engaging multiple viewpoints.  The goal of the meeting is to present a concept to a key stakeholder and get his or her reaction.  The sales leader should address the questions outlined below:

  • Is the offer something that would benefit the organization?
  • Is this an important issue to address and overcome?
  • Who else should be involved in the discussion for us to begin to solve the problem?
  • Can we get them together?
  • When?

As you can see from the questions above, this meeting is about setting the stage with the right decision makers to move forward with a concept.  Once the stakeholder agrees in response to the above questions, the Stakeholder meeting is scheduled.

The Stakeholder Meeting (SHM) drives toward a decision.  It is usually two hours or more, and the bulk of the meeting is content-oriented with your subject matter expert driving the conversation.  The participants on the sales side are the sales leader and a subject matter expert (at a minimum).  The client should invite key stakeholders that have influence on the buying decision and the buyer.  This should be no more than three to five people.  The flow of the meeting is outlined as follows:

  • Introductions (5 mins.)
  • Establish specific goals for the meeting (i.e., decide on this issue) (10 mins.)
  • Present content, take questions, and engage with the customer (60-90 mins.)
  • Close with further questions (15 mins.)
  • Plan the start of the project (10 mins.)

The real work of the meeting occurs beforehand when your sales lead for the client drives the scheduling participation and agenda for the meeting. Leaving the Idea Meeting, you have a key stakeholder who agrees that a specific problem must be addressed and that you can provide a solution.  In most cases, additional stakeholders must ensure the success of a project and finalize a purchase.  The sales lead needs to ensure that he or she knows all the players who should attend the SHM in order to get to a decision.  This includes the buyer, the one who can sign the contract and write the check.

Setting the expectation is the next part and should be agreed upon before the meeting starts.  The reason you are joining all the key decision makers is so that a decision can be reached, and everyone should know that beforehand.  Anyone who is unprepared to make a decision at the meeting should be engaged prior to the meeting to understand how to get them to feel comfortable moving forward.  Again, this is the work of the sales lead to understand the stakeholders, their influencers, and the point of the decision-making process they are in (educate, understand, act, purchase).

During the meeting, the subject matter expert presents the content to gain agreement on the problem and solution. This should be an engaging process that allows for questions and brings the client into the solution so that he or she understands every aspect of it and feels confident in supporting or making a purchase decision.

Obviously, the process is not as simple as we have described above.  We work closely with clients to structure their products and offerings in Service Chains so that the Idea Selling structure is effective.  We also customize documents to support this effort: Concept Decks, Dialogue Maps, and Project Plans for the engagement.  If you want to learn more about this process, we would be happy to engage with you in a discussion about Idea Selling and Customer Sustainability.  No More WAGMs!

Written by: Marc Cottle

More from this Author

About the Author: Marc Cottle is an experienced sales leader with 15 years of experience; he is a Principal with McMann & Ransford and leads the Commercial Practice at the company.

 

Talent Development & Customer Intimacy

Talent Development & Customer Intimacy

As I stated in my last post, talent is always important and is one of the key drivers of building and sustaining customer intimacy. Your people will constantly be generating new Ideas, then taking those Ideas to your customers and delivering on the promises made. In addition, these teams are accountable for developing intimacy at the account level. Therefore, most companies moving to an intimacy-based model make talent development one of their key initiatives because in an intimacy-based business, the skills required to sell Ideas, deliver projects, and develop intimacy are different from traditional product and service company skills.

Most of our clients have existing programs around product and technical training. Therefore, when considering talent development programs, they often ask, “Isn’t that enough?”.

That’s like playing the game of horseshoes such that close enough is still good enough to score and potentially win. So while the existing program is important and useful, it usually only covers two components of a well-crafted program.

The talent base requires a mix of skills to yield well-rounded personnel to drive success as they progress in a customer-focused model and their careers:

In general, we find companies have a very good handle on the Technical side of the equation.  In addition, many people obtain their domain knowledge through their interactions with customers (i.e., the customer trains them). Where most companies, if not all, fall short is on the specific development of skills necessary for customer intimacy – those that are most closely associated with professional services skills, or “soft skills”.

In addition to integrating soft skills development, successful talent development programs also incorporate the principles of adult learning. If you are like me, you no longer absorb new, complex learnings like a sponge as we did in school by sitting and paying attention in class (and we all did that, right?).  Adult learning requires more than webinars and training guides – a successful talent program includes coaching, mentoring, hands-on training, and self-improvement to fully enable your teams for success.  People must be given the opportunity to:

  • Participate in an intellectual forum to ask questions, share examples, and learn from others,
  • Test out their new skills in a safe environment,
  • Implement the new skills supported by experienced coaches, and
  • Demonstrate successful adoption.

As I stated previously, most companies going to a more customer-centric model make talent of the key initiatives.  Why?  Customer intimacy-driven companies benefit by improving their customer’s business outcomes and, ultimately, by valuing knowledge.  Developing talent benefits your company by accelerating learning of skills and abilities within the organization.  It benefits your teams by making their work experience a positive one and by helping them reach their full potential.

Remember, in an intimacy-based business, the individual’s success is the company’s success. The company that provides the framework to develop its employees is the one that wins in the marketplace. Furthermore, while the company provides the framework to develop your employees, it is still a shared responsibility as the individual must take the initiative to ensure his/her success.

 

 

Written by: Mark Slotnik

More from this Author

About the Author: Mark Slotnik has spent nearly 20+ years advising clients in the areas of designing and taking to market high-value business solutions, solution portfolio management, talent development, resource management, business process re-engineering and commercial software.  

The Talent Imperative: Why People Make the Difference in Customer Intimacy Business Model Transformations

Many of our historically product-focused clients are shifting their organizational and operational focus to address buyers’ needs in their key markets. Talent is always important but is particularly critical as businesses move to these customer intimacy-based models that require a deep understanding of the market needs.

A transformation to an intimacy-based business necessitates an array of new skills. The skills required to sell Ideas, guide clients through a journey, and develop intimacy are additional to the technical and functional skills traditionally required of product and service companies.

No matter what direction your organization is heading, any transformation should involve a detailed talent evolution plan as you transition through different stages of implementing a new business model.  Throughout the process it’s important to understand the necessary skills in each phase and identify:

  1. Today’s high-performers in the current model – it will be important not to lose these individuals as you begin this journey, but as you move forward, either you or your high-performers may determine the new model is not the right fit for their natural skill set.
  2. The flexible high-performers – mid/high-performers with dynamic skillsets who can operate effectively in the old model while also possessing many of the skills you believe will successfully translate to the new model. These individuals should serve as your player/coaches as new skills are required.
  3. Future high-performers – those capable of being high-performers with the ability to drive success in the new model.

When it comes to building a team that understands and can deliver throughout these phases and particularly in the new model, people always ask, “What percent of my current staff can I bring along and get up to speed?” “How do I identify those employees who will be successful in the new model?”

Part of the answer is captured in the following quote from Spanish philosopher, Baltasar Gracian: “Great ability develops and reveals itself increasingly with every new assignment.”

The rest of the answer depends on the existing skills and capabilities of your talent base, the types of offers in the portfolio, development and training programs, etc.  Let’s focus on the initial staffing for the transformation.

Resources will come from two primary sources: internal and new hires. Note that the endeavor for both groups is different.  Your current employees understand your existing business, and some naturally rise to the occasion, but this doesn’t mean they will all succeed in making the leap to the new model.  After all, you will be asking them to do new things in new ways and, without the support mechanisms in place, they typically revert to the “old way”. Therefore, deciding talent selection criteria first will provide you the guiding principles for making important staffing decisions.

We like to use the following criteria for building high-performing, well rounded customer-intimacy teams:

For new hires, you will likely need to re-think where and how you source the top candidates as well as the interview process. The most qualified individuals will come from leading consulting and Professional Services firms with experience in the specific industries that your solutions will focus on.

By their very nature, these consultants are analytical and skeptical. Therefore, the interview process should be carefully orchestrated to not only evaluate the candidate from your point of view but also to enable the candidate to evaluate you, your strategy, and your level of commitment. Qualified candidates will not only have to be motivated by the opportunity your new strategy represents, they will also have to buy into the fact that your strategy is sound, and you are committed to making it work. Note that even these folks may not be able to make the journey without guidance, support, development, etc. Effective change management will be imperative to all employees.

In summary, here are the two takeaways:

  1. It’s important to define a clear map of the skills required and
  2. These skills can be acquired from outside the company or can be developed within.

Most companies moving to the Intimacy Model see developing talent as one of the key initiatives.  Therefore, in the next post, we will share a few thoughts on talent development programs.  After that, I’ll examine how to create an outward-focused interview process for customer intimacy leaders, which will help you attract and engage the right level of talent for your customer intimacy business model transformation.

To read the next blog in the series, click here.

Written by: Mark Slotnik

More from this Author

About the Author: Mark Slotnik has spent nearly 20+ years advising clients in the areas of designing and taking to market high value business solutions, solution portfolio management, talent development, resource management, business process re-engineering and commercial software.  

How to Deliver World-Class B2B Customer Experience

 

B2B companies often struggle to deliver outstanding customer experience (CX). In a B2B environment, customer interactions are typically complex: fragmented across participants with dispersed decision-making and no unified visibility of the customer’s needs. Fostering intimacy and driving customer satisfaction requires companies to focus on the customer’s end-to-end journey. Elevating the CX can be challenging, having the right level of transparency at the right intersections with your customers will mold their perception of you and produce greater business opportunity.

B2B Customer Experience Challenges

The competitive, complicated nature of the B2B environment and the amalgamation of stakeholders on both sides of the relationship often results in a disconnected CX. Many executives relate their experiences in a B2C environment with their B2B decisions. B2B CX, however, can be harder to achieve because of the structure of the relationship and the nature of the interactions. When service falls below customer expectations, the following issues can arise:

  • You will test the tolerance of your customers, making it easier for competitors to establish a foothold with them
  • Your customers will not receive the full benefit of your solutions or products. This results in customer dissatisfaction, and ultimately, the loss of your client and the revenue stream.

The Route to World Class Customer Experience

To avoid these challenges, companies must establish a symbiotic partnership by solving current problems, sustaining continuous improvement, and generating meaningful impact for the buyer. We introduce a roadmap that defines six sequential phases that enable an organization to reach and maintain World Class Customer Experience.

Step 1: Mapping the CX Journey: The customer journey provides a longitudinal view that allows you to understand the integrated touchpoints from the customer’s perspective. In this phase, you will identify all touchpoints, determine “pain points,” recognize process chokepoints, identify responsibilities and owners of touchpoints, distinguish the linkages that occur between touchpoints, and establish a touchpoint importance rating system.

Step 2: Evaluating Transparency & Pain Points: Transparency can be defined by answering: How much insight does a customer have into a particular process, and how much should they have? Pain point identification entails looking at customer outcomes, processes, products, or communication misses and understands the touchpoints that can address these issues? You can gather this information by conducting online research, customer and employee interviews and surveys, and making secret shopper calls and queries.

Step 3: Calibrating Future Transparency: Establishing the optimal level of transparency for each interaction point helps guide and prioritize improvement efforts.

Step 4: Prioritizing Pain Points: Pain points can be mapped by the current level of pain and transparency to help organizations prioritize.

Step 5: Building Transparency: Look at root causes for your process and determine actionable steps to improve the customer’s perception. You can achieve this by leveraging different tools and techniques such as Six Sigma, Lean, 5S, Cause and Effect Diagrams, and Change Acceleration.

Step 6: Executing Continuous Improvement: Finally, you want to reinforce the framework by improving processes and interactions to ensure your persistently bettering the customer journey.

Benefits of Outstanding Customer Experience

CX can be the lynchpin to your success. Achieving world-class B2B customer experience creates a competitive advantage that leads to:

  • Increased stickiness,
  • Unpaid advocacy,
  • Greater pull-through of new products and services,
  • Larger deals,
  • More revenue opportunities,
  • Reduced sales costs,
  • Trusted advisor status,
  • and increased margins/pricing.

To access a full discussion of the components and benefits of world-class customer experience, click here.

Written by: Marc Cottle

More from this Author

About the Author: Marc Cottle is an experienced sales leader with 15 years of experience; he is a Principal with McMann & Ransford and leads the Commercial Practice at the company.