customer strategy

the language that you speak shapes the way that you think. And that gives you the opportunity to ask, “Why do I think the way that I do?” “How could I think differently?” And also, “What thoughts do I wish to create?” — Lea Boroditsky (1)

Every time you choose a model like e.g. a business model canvas or a customer journey you are choosing which information is important to you and which information is not.

e.g. if you map a customer journey for a trip from home to work using public transport you are saying that how many buss drivers there are is not a part of your problem to solve, or that you don’t need to calculate in the scarcity of busses, cost of fuel or the city’s traffic or noise pollution regulations.

For many companies, autumn is the time to review their expenditures and make annual plans. As I am writing these words, I almost hear thousands of CEOs ordering their teams to slash costs whenever possible. The crisis is coming! We need to save; profits are at stake!

For one more year our Blog is selected to be part of the top 75 Customer Experience Websites and Blogs, which should be followed. This year we are happy to be at the 43rd place and in the company of so many other amazing professionals. 

Well-run customer experience (CX) programs can help B2B companies grow the lifetime value of accounts, save them from churning, and generate warm referrals that drive new growth.

According to a McKinsey study, successful programmes lower customer churn by 10-15%, increase sales close rates by 20-40% and lower costs to serve by up to 50%.

In addition, B2B leads generated through warm referrals have on average a 4 times higher lead-to-deal conversion rate compared to sales prospecting or advertising.

In February & March 2020 we ran research amongst CX professionals, to find out what their biggest challenges were. We wanted to take the pulse of the CX community. So we reached out to 144 CX professionals recruited via LinkedIn Survey question: What are the main obstacles on the path towards improved customer experience (CX)? Data collection finished before the COVID-19 outbreak to exclude its impact on the survey results.

While we are all adapting to the new (hopefully temporary) situation it is more important than ever to keep taking the pulse of your customers.

You are shifting your contact center, your opening hours, your product portfolio and all the other things you need to do to adapt – but do you know how your customers feel about it? Are you focusing your attention where they feel it should be going?

My meetings in Germany got cancelled, so I tried to contact the airline to change my booking. Chat did not work. E-mail was not offered. Call centre kept on cutting me off for hours on end. Finally, someone in their overseas office answered. It took me more than 6 hours to get help.

What do you think would happen if during an offsite meeting, 6 members of your 10-people strong management team came up with the most brilliant brand and customer strategy on the planet. In fact it was so brilliant, that it would give Apple, Google and Amazon a run for their money. It would go down in history as the best strategy every written.

But then they decided to keep this strategy a secret, only to be shared by the worthy ones. They’d only tell 1 in 4 employees. 1 in 2 managers and none of the other four executive team members who didn’t participate in the off-site.

Well-run customer experience (CX) programs can help B2B companies grow the lifetime value of accounts, save them from churning, and generate warm referrals that drive new growth.

According to a McKinsey study, successful programmes lower customer churn by 10-15%, increase sales close rates by 20-40% and lower costs to serve by up to 50%.

In addition, B2B leads generated through warm referrals have on average a 4 times higher lead-to-deal conversion rate compared to sales prospecting or advertising.