Wide Angle

It’s a question that has perplexed humankind for centuries: If a tree falls in the woods and no one’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?  Now Marketing may not be known for its penchant for solving existential conundrums, but the same line of reasoning can be applied to the customer experience.  If you identify a set of benefits but the organization fails to demonstrate them, do they really exist?

We’re a biased group, so while differentiation may be the bread and butter of our world, the sad truth is that that simply isn’t the case within many B2B organizations.  Marketing can (and should) take the lead to identify the core set of unique benefits that set the company apart from competitors.  But when it comes to embedding these throughout the customer experience—that requires coordination of many moving pieces across the enterprise. Read More »

Advance warning: this post will likely open more doors than it closes. But they are important doors that need opening, especially if they aren’t already. Haniel Lynn pushed the first one open with his earlier post, asking if Marketing could foment a corporate cultural revolution through social media. Member conversations I’ve had over the past week have demonstrated there is a root-cause question that must come first – where does Marketing fit in the organization? Better yet, where should it? Read More »

Delivering a preferred customer experience boils down to three easy steps:

• Step One: Clarify what’s unique about your experience and the distinct benefits you provide to customers.  Check.
• Step Two: Understand how customers interact with a variety of touchpoints and emphasize your unique benefits at the touchpoints that matter most.  Got it.
• Step Three: Make sure the dozens (and dozens) of other touchpoints in your customer experience reflect your unique benefits.  Hmmmmm…

We see a lot of breakdowns when it comes to this final piece of the puzzle.  To ensure that customers really understand and appreciate your unique benefits, every touchpoint must be viewed as an opportunity to reinforce or support them.  The problem, as marketers are quick to point out, is that Marketing doesn’t have enough time, money, or control to manage all the different customer touchpoints.  While it’s easy for Marketing to adjust collateral or update the Web site to better reflect benefits, it’s a different story when it comes to modifying packaging or customer service touchpoints.  New set of stakeholders, new set of rules, a whole new ballgame. Read More »

Watch a 5-minute video showing how Texas Instruments identified critical touchpoints in the customer experience.

Marketers typically use VOC as a barometer when weighing different investments in the customer experience.  But this reliance on customer voice biases marketers to only consider improvements to the existing set of touchpoints.  Existing touchpoints aren’t necessarily the best ways to engage customers and, moreover, “fixing” touchpoints that rank highly on the customer gripe list generally leads to an experience that’s comparable, not differentiated.  That’s not to say that VOC is always going to lead you astray, but its implications should be taken with a grain of salt. Read More »

When B2B marketers look for ways to improve their customer experience, they typically rely on voice of the customer (VOC) to direct their investment decisions.  More often than not, marketers tackle touchpoints that customers gripe about most frequently or fix issues mentioned by the largest customers.  But as far as helping companies demonstrate their unique benefits, this is rarely the best approach. Read More »

Articulating the unique benefits we provide to customers should be second nature for marketers, but this is much easier said than done.  Too often we get tripped up on the arms race for common benefits (e.g., “Our company is the most reliable … no REALLY!) or we fail to deliver benefits that truly resonate with customers.

Let’s table execution problems until after the holidays and turn for now to a slightly more existential challenge: what is your company’s unique identity?  This may sound trite, but here’s a quick gut check: can you articulate it in 50 words or less?  Likely not, and you’re not alone. Read More »

I’m no wine connoisseur, so the marketer in me kicked in on a recent trip to my local liquor store.  I considered the attributes I wanted – under $15, preferably red, not too sweet or fruity, a familiar brand name and something that connotes a fun experience. Faced with an array of wines from California to Chile, from Merlot to Bordeaux, I was struck by the enormous difficulty marketers face in differentiating their brands and creating a connection with consumers in the moment.

Granted, I was probably a little outside of the target segment for most wine makers, but what would have altered my decision? A catchy label or even a suggestion from one of the sales people could have nudged me in a different direction. The lesson for me here: while there is immense opportunity to influence a brand decision before a consumer goes shopping, the importance of the in-store experience—whether through product placement, point of purchase signage or a well trained store employee—cannot be minimized. Read More »

Only 14% of the unique benefits we tested achieve both relevance and consistent delivery.

Building loyalty with your customer experience is simple: identify a benefit your company provides that differs from that provided by the competition and deliver.  Sounds easy enough.  So why do B2B marketers get this right only 14% of the time?

Let’s assume we’re beyond the “innovative reliable partner” language and have identified a benefit that our company can claim is 100% unique.  The next questions to ask become: 1) do customers care about the unique benefit? and 2) do we actually deliver on the promise of the benefit? Read More »

Click Image to Enlarge | A Unique Benefit-driven approach selects and improves touchpoints in a way that delivers a Unique Benefit to customers.

We know by now that leading B2B companies build customer loyalty by focusing on unique benefits—not touchpoints—as they look to enhance the customer experience.  Check out MLC’s video for a quick refresher on the research behind this.

Again, we’re not saying to let your touchpoints go by the wayside.  But while a touchpoint-driven approach to the experience seeks to optimize each touchpoint individually, companies with the highest levels of loyalty instead isolate the benefits their company can uniquely provide to customers.  They select and improve touchpoints to ensure that customers actually perceive this benefit throughout the experience. Read More »

I’ve just left the lush autumn of the Pacific Northwest, having visited Microsoft to talk social media shop with the leaders of their customer support group.  Microsoft is working on some impressive social media tools, to be sure.  But they were quick to point out that social media is about conversations FIRST, not the platforms (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) or the management tools.

Click Image to Enlarge

It’s a point worth underscoring, especially for marketers.  From the data we’ve gathered via our Social Media Maturity Diagnostic, we know that Marketing and/or Corporate Communications are leading the social media charge in large (i.e., Fortune 1000) enterprises 65% of the time.  But when it comes to Customer Support involvement, more than 40% of large companies don’t involve support peers at all!  In another 50%, they are only moderately involved. That’s a huge problem. Read More »