confirmit for b2b › wp-content › uploads › 2019 › ...what makes b2b different? businesses...

Copyright © 2018 Confirmit

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Confirmit for B2BGrowing your B2B profits is easy when you LISTEN


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“Its reference clients, who are often in B2B industries where the vendor has deep expertise, praise the flexibility and reliability of Confirmit’s execution.” Forrester Wave™: Customer Feedback Management Platforms, Q2 2017


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What Makes B2B Different?Businesses that sell to other businesses have unique needs. Relationships in B2B often go deeper, are longer-

term, and result in recurring sales. The B2B purchasing cycle is longer, the customer journey more complex,

and many more stakeholders are involved as opposed to a standard B2C journey. Furthermore, the stakes

are usually much higher in B2B deals. Individual customer relationships can be worth millions of dollars, yet

organizations may not always realize how tenuous their hold on clients is, due to high switching costs. B2B

organizations will go to great lengths to keep profitable customers happy and loyal, but tend to be unsure of

how to quantify this and act upon it.

Historically, price, product features, and delivery speed were areas on which B2B companies would focus as

their competitive advantage. Today, however, technology has flattened the competitive landscape and B2B

organizations are seeking new ways to differentiate. The customer experience is rapidly emerging as a key

competitive differentiator for good reason. Over half of B2B organizations (54%) say that customer retention

is one of their top five business challenges. And considering that an individual B2B customer relationship can

easily be worth millions of dollars, the loss of even a single customer can have disastrous consequences.

The effects, however, can be far more reaching than just the individual customer. When one considers the

fact that an unhappy customer is 75% more likely to share negative feedback with up to 16 friends or

colleagues than a happy customer is to share a positive review, it becomes clear that the lifetime cost of a

detractor is significantly greater than the lifetime value of a customer.

B2B customer experience leaders, on the other hand, consistently achieve higher-than-average revenue growth

as a result of improved retention, new customer acquisition, cross/up-sales, and cost reduction. According

to McKinsey research: “We have seen companies substantially raise customer satisfaction scores through

significant improvements in operational performance. These improvements can lower customer churn by 10%

to 15%, increase the win rate of offers by 20% to 40%, and lower costs to serve by up to 50%. In parallel,

as customer experience improves, employee satisfaction tends to increase as well, because a more direct

connection with customers adds meaning to employees’ work and helps them witness customer satisfaction.”

A challenge remains, however. Few companies are achieving strong returns on their CX investments. As

executives struggle to see the ROI in the form of tangible business outcomes, they question the value of the

CX program and the budget dedicated to it. This is complicated by the fact that B2B CX programs are not

as mature as B2C in many cases. While companies may have a relationship or a few transactional surveys in

place, many CX programs have not matured past simple VoC collection and simple reporting. CX strategies

are rare, and few B2B companies have CX councils or other governing systems.

–CX to Drive Business Outcomes

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/finding-the-right-digital-balance-in-b2b-customer-experience

https://www.accenture.com/us-en/insight-managing-b2b-customer-experience

https://www.inc.com/dana-severson/how-a-detractor-can-damage-your-company.html

https://www.retently.com/blog/detractors-ruin-business/

https://www.retently.com/blog/detractors-ruin-business/

http://www.trackur.com/lifetime-cost-unhappy-customer

http://www.trackur.com/lifetime-cost-unhappy-customer

https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/finding-the-right-digital-balance-in-b2b-customer-experience


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The Confirmit Difference

Confirmit helps businesses realize CX ROI through a combination of technology and services that help you

achieve your business goals. Our CX strategies start with the end-goals in mind.

Rather than building a Customer Experience program that only considers the customers’ wants and needs,

we work with you from the outset to identify the intersection between what matters to your customers and

what matters to your business. Then we design a program based on that “sweet spot,” ensuring maximum

ROI through the ultimate realization of your desired business outcomes.

“About 70% of Confirmit’s clients are B2B firms, the largest percentage of any provider in this evaluation.” Forrester Wave™: Customer Feedback Management Platforms, Q2 2017

What Matters to Your

CustomerWhat Matters to Your

Business


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To accomplish this, we’ll help you identify and join together the various touchpoints across your customer

journey, breaking down organizational silos and isolating the moments that matter most to your customers.

Simultaneously, we will help you align those important customer moments to your business goals and KPIs so

you can achieve stronger business outcomes, such as improved:

■ New client acquisition

■ Cross/up-sales and share of wallet

■ Client retention

■ Organizational processes and cost reduction

■ Word-of-mouth advertising and customer advocacy

■ Company culture and employee engagement

Based on your unique business needs Confirmit can help you drive improvements in virtually every area of

your company:

■ Helping cross-functional leaders to identify and improve the moments that matter most to the customers

and the business

■ Providing a holistic view of the customer experience to executives and managers

■ Facilitating proactive account management and driving positive word-of-mouth

■ Driving product innovation and process improvement

■ Engaging your employees to deliver a purpose–built experience

■ And more

B2B organizations are always eager to know what other B2B companies are doing in the CX space. They

often look to Confirmit for answers, based upon our deep experience in B2B. In the following pages, we’ll

explore some of the ways Confirmit B2B Customers are maximizing their CX program ROI and provide best

practice tips to show you how to leverage CX to drive business growth.


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B2B Sales and Marketing

–Did you know?

n 91% of B2B buyers are

influenced by word-of-

mouth when making their

decision to buy.

n 74% of consumers

identify word-of-mouth as

a key influencer in their

purchasing decision.

Business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing professionals face a unique set of

challenges. For example, most prospects don’t engage with your sales teams until

90% of the B2B purchase process is over.

Worst still, more than 50% of vendors are eliminated before a sales

representative even knows an opportunity exists. A brand’s reputation is one of the

top factors that can make or break a sale. With that, it is imperative to know what

customers and end-users are saying about your brand and your products.

This, however, is further complicated by the fact that B2B organizations need

feedback from multiple levels in their customers’ organization, including decision

makers, influencers, and users in order to avoid unwelcome surprises regarding

retention, renewals, and future sales.

Voice of the Customer is the heart of a business’ Customer Experience program,

helping you ask your customers the right questions at the right time so you can

gain insight into your customers’ experiences, expectations, and preferences.

Beyond a simple survey, a strategic Voice of the Customer program helps you

listen to the customer’s voice via multiple channels and at every touchpoint

throughout the customer’s journey with your organization. The information

you collect is then aggregated and analyzed alongside relevant contextual

information, such as business system data from your CRM or financial system.

This produces deep insights that help you to identify accounts that are risk

for churn and drive corrective action to improve customers’ opinions of your

company and positive word-of-mouth advertising!

Sources:

http://marketing.linkedin.com/blog/the-top-challenges-facing-b2b-marketers-if-these-sound-familiar-whats-your-next-step/https://growthhackers.com/posts/over-40-word-of-mouth-marketing-statistics-compiled

–A Voice of the Customer program is a strategic activity that

can help you uncover customers’ opinions about your company and products.


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Actuate Corporation operates in the B2B space providing reporting,

analytics, and customer communications software. Their VoC program,

powered by Confirmit, measures their customers’ satisfaction in

all areas of support. With the data they collect, they are able to

drive improvements to customers’ overall satisfaction with support

transactions. Since implementing a VoC program their worldwide

customer satisfaction score has increased by 25% !

By implementing a VoC program powered by Confirmit, a B2B

Commercial Manufacturing Company that prefers to remain

anonymous enjoyed a lasting $10M increase in business.USE CASE


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STRATEGY ONE

Strategically employ multi-channel customer data collection, aggregation, and analysis of the

combined data from multiple channels. Then display real-time insights on dashboards tailored to

individuals’ areas of interest and influence.

Expert Strategies for Successful Sales and Marketing

ANSYS implemented a 7-touchpoint Voice of the Customer program.

Through Confirmit’s live dashboards, insights are fed directly

to managers, providing company-wide data by customer type,

business unit, region and office. With this program the company has

experienced a 23% increase in the number of customers willing to

recommend their services to others.

HOW CONFIRMIT CAN HELP

Confirmit facilitates advanced analysis and holistic reporting across all of your data. And Confirmit’s

role-based reports, dashboards, and alerts guarantee that the right people receive the right

information in real time!

Sample Confirmit Sales/Account Management Dashboard


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STRATEGY TWO

Be sure to include an automated analysis of the sentiment within unstructured text from

survey feedback.

In addition to a variety of structured survey questions, RS Components

tracks and analyzes all of the verbatim comments from customers

which often hold the most useful insights for the business and its

employees. The VoC program at RS Components has proven to

be truly innovative, partly due to its sheer scope to cover a global

business with multiple customer touchpoints in all regions. Specifically,

the innovation that has driven this global capability and the company’s

‘global to local’ customer view is Confirmit’s ability to facilitate local

language coding for key verbatim questions. This supports RS

Components’ commitment to understand and act upon the voice of its

customers consistently, everywhere it operates.


Confirmit Genius is an advanced Text and Social Analytics platform that helps you draw meaning

from unstructured content by categorizing feedback and measuring its sentiment. It’s tightly

integrated with Confirmit Horizons, our flexible software platform for Customer Experience, Employee

Engagement, and Market Research programs, so you can easily combine structured data from

surveys and other sources with the depth of insight and unprecedented level of detail only available

in open-ended feedback.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m4y2T9Cs7U


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STRATEGY THREE

Leverage Action Management to ensure that no customer feedback goes unattended.

“Our revenue retention team identified an at-risk account, rectified the situation and secured a new five-year contract. Confirmit’s closed-loop alerting system enabled us to take immediate action and resolve the problem. The result? A stronger relationship and renewal of a multi-million dollar contract.” Lisa Nakano, Director of Global Customer Experience, Equinix


Reporting and analysis of your Voice of the Customer (VoC) programs is of no use if you can’t take

steps to improve the customer experience. With Confirmit Action Management, customer issues are

automatically flagged and assigned to the appropriate department or individual.

Confirmit Action Management watches your survey results for you, assigns issues and appropriate

actions to the correct department or individual, and allows you to report on the company’s case load

and ROI – so you can turn an unhappy customer into a happy one and track the costs and benefits

of doing so. Action Management provides businesses with configurable workflows and automated

escalation processes which are highly configurable to meet all business needs. As a result, you can

ensure your survey results are more than just measurements, and are used to take positive action in

potentially negative customer situations.

Click here to learn more about Confirmit’s Action Management

https://www.confirmit.com/library/product-info-insights-action-factsheet-f2b/??kui=AFmuuH0LAaG_UMbo6EFeqg


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–Did you know?

n 45% of customer-driven

business cases can

become new products or

features.

B2B Innovation

Generally, B2B organizations have more focused target audience than B2C

organizations. Though sales prospects are limited by comparison, the competition

to get those prospects attention and win their business is fierce! To that end,

product or service development and innovation are an important part of

developing a strong competitive positioning to grow your business.

To maximize your results and innovate effectively, you need feedback from all

stakeholders, including but not limited to customers, partners, distributors, and

employees! And, that stakeholder feedback should guide your innovation efforts

to save your teams from wasting countless hours of misdirected labor.

Opportunities for innovation can often be found in stakeholder interactions, such

as how your customers find, select, purchase, and actually use your products

and services. Voice of the Customer programs are a powerful way to collect

information to feed innovation. But in today’s fast-paced and hyper-competitive

business environment, you need to approach your customers and gather

feedback in real time – in-the-moment when the experiences, the product, or

the purchase experience are fresh in their mind. For some B2B organizations,

particularly B2B2C* organizations, technology has finally presented a way for

companies to get that in-the-moment feedback they so desperately need. And

the solution was already in just about everyone’s pocket.

*Business-to-business-to-consumer

Source:http://www.giluniversity.org/files/9713/8692/2432/Best_Practice_Guidebook_-_Harnessing_Voice_of_Customer_for_Incremental_Innovation_-_Citrix.pdf


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–GPS-enabled mobile technology and Bluetooth have opened the door to real-

time feedback by enabling surveys to be triggered by beacon and location

technologies. This has the potential to supercharge B2B innovation via the

collection of in-the-moment feedback.

–How does it work?

Confirmit Horizons is able to deploy surveys to participants who have opted

in based on GPS location or proximity to a beacon. Using this technology,

participants can receive a notification and survey through a fully-branded app at

a location of your choice. Location triggering can identify when a participant is

near, has entered, or exits a particular location. Beacon technology, on the other

hand, is used for more precise triggering. For example, by strategically placing

a small device, called a beacon, near a store display, B2B2C companies can

deploy survey notifications to participants within the proximity you specify. B2B

wholesalers, for example, also benefit in a similar fashion. The fully-branded app

is constantly “listening” and when a panelist is within your specified proximity,

your survey or message is deployed. It’s that easy!

“If you are not employing VoC to generate new product ideas, then you are missing some major innovation opportunities.” Robert G. Cooper, President of the Product Development Institute

Inc., and Professor Emeritus at McMaster University’s School of

Business, Ontario, Canada


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STRATEGY ONE

Collect feedback from all your stakeholders to drive innovation and improve

your products and services.

“The customer panel we’ve built using Confirmit means it’s now

possible to create and deploy a rapid survey to a targeted group of

customers, who we’re confident fully understand the issues we need

to talk about. This is a greatadvantage!”

Market Research Manager, Alitalia

Expert Strategies for Successful Innovation

STRATEGY TWO

The biggest competitive advantages can come from collecting in-the-

moment feedback.

The brand managers from one manufacturing company (that prefers to remain

anonymous) worked in partnership with select retailers to strategically place

beacons at product displays in retail locations. When a consumer came within

a specified proximity of the beacon a joint retailer/manufacturer survey was

deployed enabling both the retailer and the manufacturer to collect immediate

consumer feedback regarding the product packaging, display, and more.

USE CASE

Toro’s Commercial Business implemented a Voice of the

Customer program powered by Confirmit which established

performance criteria for its Corporate Partners in Excellence

and Red Iron Service Certification programs. Based on

results, the company developed specific training to improve

turnaround time and ease of doing business.


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Confirmit does much more than just Voice of the Customer! As a comprehensive research platform,

Confirmit Horizons can serve virtually every department in your organization to fuel customer,

employee, and market understanding. Clients around the globe leverage Confirmit’s powerful data

collection and analytics capabilities to:

■ Power comprehensive customer and employee experience programs

■ Manage customer panels

■ Conduct diary and tracking studies

■ Perform ad testing

■ Support mystery shopping

■ Identify market trends and research emerging markets

■ Conduct competitive intelligence research

■ And more…


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B2B OperationsThe benefits of collecting feedback from customers, partners, and employees

don’t stop at sales and innovation. Many B2B organizations have found insights

that helped them improve operations too.

First and foremost, expert research has shown time and again that employee

engagement and customer satisfaction go hand-in-hand. This is likely because

companies that have mastered both employee engagement and customer

satisfaction have done so by listening and leveraging effective organization-wide

communication methods that revolve around a common goal – customer centricity.

In this age of rapid communication facilitated by the Internet, text messages, mobile

apps, social media, and email, shared goals and effective communications are

more challenging than ever before! For many businesses, internal communication

is delivered in the form of high-level dashboards and comprehensive reports. And,

while that solution is not wrong, you must question whether you are delivering the

right information to the right people at the right time.

In order to be truly effective, tools like dashboards and reports must be tailored

to the recipients’ needs and areas over which they have influence. Further,

the recipients must be able to explore the data to identify specific problems

and key drivers behind recurring themes. Once your team members have the

right information, they are able to take action to resolve problems that have a

negative impact on your organization. In this way, business-wide operations

are streamlined as employees become more productive, effectively targeting

corrective actions that have the biggest impact.

–Did you know?

n 88% of decision makers

say that making business

decisions quickly based

on real-time data is

extremely important in

today’s highly competitive

business environment.

Copart’s marketing team wanted to identify recurring themes that impacted

customer satisfaction. Using Confirmit, the company collects customer feedback

that helps the company identify key drivers of customer dissatisfaction.

Based on customer feedback the company has made improvements such as

developing member guides in Spanish, producing educational video content, and

implementing improved training and testing for payments at physical locations.

Sources:https://hbr.org/resources/pdfs/tools/HBR_Qlik_Report_May2014.pdfhttp://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspxhttp://www.stage-gate.net/downloads/working_papers/wp_40.pdf


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STRATEGY ONE

Choose a flexible reporting system that can provide everything from simple dashboards to advanced

analytics, all tailored to the user’s individual needs.

Expert Strategies for Successful Operations

“Confirmit provides a best-practices customer feedback solution that gives us the advanced analytics and reporting capabilities we were seeking. They take it to the next level by offering expertise, innovation and creativity to help us get better customer intelligence.” Trish Martin, Vice President of Customer Support, CyberSource

“Confirmit provides a meaningful and flexible reporting system via an easy- to-use dashboard; giving us and our clients the ability to analyze data using an extensive range of criteria, to drill down to the finest detail or to view high level summaries.” Rick Yarrow, Experteye’s Managing Director

STRATEGY TWO

Use reports and dashboards organization-wide to inform important decisions and strategic actions.

“Confirmit gave us the ability to collect, aggregate, and analyze employee feedback at a granular level. We use the survey data to help make important decisions about programs and initiatives that drive employee satisfaction.” Rhonda Cooper Senior Human Resources Manager, Omnicell


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STRATEGY THREE

Leverage reports and dashboards to maintain stakeholder engagement in the customer experience by

demonstrating its value to the organization.

“With Confirmit’s user-friendly and flexible dashboard, I can quickly prepare presentations that demonstrate the business value of our VoC program.” Kevin Maust, Manager of Revenue Retention, Equinix.

STRATEGY FOUR

Dashboards alone aren’t enough!

CX leaders need to drive cultural

change encouraging employees

throughout the organization to take

action of the insights displayed on

those dashboards.


Confirmit’s comprehensive reporting suite, including ReportalTM, Active Dashboards, Instant Analytics,

Discovery Analytics, and Action Management provides organizations with access to everything they

need for reporting, data visualization, dashboarding, and alerting. Using our range of modules, you can:

■ Realize excellent ROI from your feedback and research efforts

■ Reduce the time, cost, and complexity associated with survey and feedback analysis

■ Break down the data silos that prevent your organization from achieving results

■ Deliver business insight faster, directly to those who need it

■ Gain complete control over all your reporting and analysis processes

■ Engage more people across your business

■ Keep your survey data safe

■ Drive immediate corrective actions based on the insights uncovered

Click here to learn more about Confirmit’s comprehensive reporting suite.

https://www.confirmit.com/library/ebook-insights-reporting-suite-g11a/??kui=xq_vrUzQU3UaDGU3zvuJtQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dswA_Z-hnG8&list=PLTWU2uMOUAAsKFJlTUuL_SQ-dMBPr8Vmx&index=5


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Confirmit’s B2B solution is delivered through a perfectly balanced combination of strategic guidance, CX

expertise, research science, support, and cutting-edge technology:

–Consulting & Program Management

Our flexible services model allows you to engage with us in a way that suits you best. Our consulting group

helps your CX program to mature, as many clients need guidance, expertise or external assistance in

linking the CX program to business outcomes. Our CX experts are available to help you as much or as little

as you need in a wide variety of capacities, such as:

■ Customer Journey Mapping: Understand the moments that matter to your customer, your performance at

key touchpoints, and how those moments impact business outcomes

■ Define & Design Workshops: Design a program tailored to your business needs

■ Strategic Reporting Assistance: Learn how to find and share insights across the organization

■ Action Planning Workshops: Ensure your team is taking the strategic and tactical actions required to realize

long-term return on investment

■ Compass CX Maturity Assessments: Identify areas for continuous improvement to ensure your program

delivers value long into the future

What Does Confirmit do for B2B Organizations?


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–Technology

Confirmit Horizons is a true enterprise offering that supports all of your feedback and research needs.

Our technology helps you collect, aggregate, and analyze Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee,

research, and contextual data from your internal business systems – such as financial or CRM systems.

All that data is organized in a single hub, that we call SmartHub, facilitating advanced analysis and

holistic reporting across all your data. And, Confirmit Horizons’ role-based reports, dashboards, and alerts

guarantee that the right people receive the right information in real time! Simply put, Confirmit eliminates

organizational data silos and mobilizes your team to take action that drives real business results.

■ Multi-source, multi-channel data collection

■ Business system integration (e.g. Salesforce.com)

■ Insights from unstructured data through text and social analytics

■ Powerful data analysis and reporting capabilities

■ Tailored, role-based dashboards

■ Closed-loop action management

Sources:

http://www.stage-gate.net/downloads/working_papers/wp_40.pdf

http://www.giluniversity.org/files/9713/8692/2432/Best_Practice_Guidebook_-_Harnessing_Voice_of_Customer_for_Incremental_Innovation_-_Citrix.pdf

http://marketing.linkedin.com/blog/the-top-challenges-facing-b2b-marketers-if-these-sound-familiar-whats-your-next-step/

https://growthhackers.com/posts/over-40-word-of-mouth-marketing-statistics-compiled

http://www.gallup.com/businessjournal/163130/employee-engagement-drives-growth.aspx

https://hbr.org/resources/pdfs/tools/HBR_Qlik_Report_May2014.pdf

NPS and NET PROMOTER are registered trademarks of Satmetrix Systems, Inc., F. Reicheld, and Bain & Company.

“Its reference clients, who are often in B2B industries where the vendor has deep expertise, praise the flexibility and reliability of Confirmit’s execution.” Forrester Wave™: Customer Feedback Management Platforms, Q2 2017


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Confirmit is the world’s leading SaaS vendor for multi-channel Voice of the Customer, Voice of the Employee, and Market Research solutions. The company has offices in Oslo (headquarters), Grimstad, London, Moscow, New York, San Francisco, Sydney, Vancouver, and Yaroslavl. Confirmit’s software is also distributed through partner resellers in Madrid, Milan, Salvador, and Tokyo.

Confirmit powers Global 5000 companies and Market Research agencies worldwide with a wide range of software products for feedback / data collection, panel management, data processing, analysis, and reporting. Customers include Aurora, British Airways, British Standards Institution, Copart, Cross-Tab, Dow Chemical, GfK, GlaxoSmithKline, GMO Research, KeepFactor, Morehead Associates, Nielsen, Research Now, RS Components, QRS, SSI, Sony Mobile Communications, and Swisscom. Visit www.confirmit.com for more information.

Copyright © 2018 Confirmit. All rights reserved.

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confirmit for b2b › wp-content › uploads › 2019 › ...what makes b2b different? businesses...

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