A very insightful article was published by Mr. Chris Bucholtz on the 5 key technology trends businesses should adopt going forward in 2015 and beyond. Article Courtesy CallidusCloud.com.
The 5 trends in the article explores how technologies can enable firms to be more effective in their customer acquisition and retention processes:-
- Complex Price Quotations
- Customer Experience Monitoring
- Content Marketing Tracking
- Web Site Tracking
- Mobile Sales Training
I would like to explore the point on effective customer experience monitoring and making the data work for you.
In many cases; firms do have multiple data sources within the organization but are unable to leverage the same unfortunately as the data lies in silos (technology / departmental); some of these data sources are:-
- Transactional Surveys: It is essential for B2B firms to take stock after key interactions either a project milestone, product installation or program closure to understand the key expectations of customers and to what extent a firm succeeded on them.
- KPIs / KRAs: Ideally the engagement KPIs which are tracked internally by the firm’s program management team should also be validated by customer feedback by sharing them in governance meetings.
- Annual Relationship/Engagement survey: An annual engagement which polls the decision makers and influencers helps set the tone for the relationship for the next year; this looks at aspects beyond the current transaction / projects but aspects of business value, health of relationship and holistic feedback on customer touch points
- Opinions of Internal Stakeholders: Insights from stakeholders in terms of win-loss analysis, risk trackers, key account plans can also be leveraged. In many cases this is most neglected data source.
- Social Media listening: How a firm is perceived in social media forums (Linkedin /Twitter) and assessment of impact of webinars, marketing collaterals in terms of downloads & quality of leads generated is also a good indicator.
There is a lack of common framework or agreed approach to effectively draw insights from a strategic and operational perspective and also leverage the opinions of internal stakeholders to weave an cohesive action plan which can make a business impact vis-à-vis a check in the box approach.
Perhaps the agenda for 2015 & beyond is not doing new things but more about figuring out ways to “Connect the Dots” to effectively monitor our customer experience touch-points and drive customer value.