Any new reading matter catches my attention right from the first pages, enabling me to observe the horizon and the reflections of a business model revolution which makes no distinctions, involving every industry and type of company and transforming the go-to-market a one-customer-centric & everything-as-a-service key.
“The act of selling will undergo radical change: customers can now self-serve a huge amount of the information they need to make a technology purchase decision. Selling will become a process, not a heroic act!” (Thomas Lah & J.B. Wood, Technology-as-a-service Playbook)
As stated by the experts of TSIA – Technology Services Industry Association – selling is not a heroic act, it is not a combination of timely intuitions, strokes of genius and telemarketing campaigns that hit the mark. The salesperson’s job has changed radically, just as expectations change and the amount of information anyone can access is involved in the purchasing process, in the ambits of both B2C and B2B.
It is necessary to construct a specifically targeted process of sales & marketing, a mix of relations and interactions which provide the customer with an experience on a 1:1 scale.
We talk about empowered customers … and that’s what we all are … before buying any product or service:
… the purpose behind all of these actions is to savour the experience and decide whether the identified solution actually corresponds to our expectations and needs.
To quote a recent study carried out by the Harvard Business Review aimed at analysing the purchasing strategies of more than 1400 B2B organizations, the researchers have noticed that today’s companies complete about 60% of a typical purchasing decision process, before having an actual conversation with the supplier.
In one respect, therefore, the sales cycle as we have always known it, has become leaner with fewer steps (or clicks), while interaction between the parties mainly involves the last mile of negotiations, when the customer finally contacts the supplier, already armed with information, business cases, KPIs and market surveys which have oriented his purchasing decision.
But it is not always so simple. While it is true that for widely known and intuitive products /services purchasing dynamics follow the trends of process automation and self-service configuration, it is equally true to say that in the choice of strategic business solutions, such as a new management software or innovative technological applications, customers often find themselves having to face an excessive amount of confused and scarcely effective information along the way, resulting in a longer and more complex decisional process which paralyses any further development steps and increases the level of stress and uncertainty.
How to implement an effective process of Intelligent Customer Engagement? How to widen the profit horizon and engage customers in a durable partnership destined to be a long life service?
“You need to understand the journey you are undertaking with your customers. You will be operating much closer to your customers. You will have many more touch points per year. You are going to have new plays – even new organizations that must work together seamlessly. In short, you will need a new engagement model aimed at growing customers successfully.” (Thomas Lah & J.B. Wood, Technology-as-a-service Playbook)
Re-examining the customer journey to obtain a holistic vision of the customer, an in-depth knowledge of his requirements and aims for the future, to transform a commercial transaction into a unique experience and build a one-customer-centric relationship.
It is certainly no novelty, but the customer journey is the departure point, commonly represented as a four phase funnel, which starts from the awareness of requirements needing to be met, then continues in the explorative space of consideration, before gathering around a preference and finally reaching the purchase action.
This process is almost taken for granted within organizations … it is almost always viewed from the wrong angle, that of the supplier!
However, to be more effective in business relations and results, it is necessary to proceed in a more agnostic yet empathetic way, by re-examining the customer journey and asking yourself what really happens during the purchase decision process.
How many stakeholders are involved in the exploration of solutions to meet their needs? What role do they have in the company and how do they orient the final decision? What information do they seek and where do they find it? Which action steps do they take during the full sales cycle? Which problems do they encounter in each phase? Which additional services could simplify decision-making? How does the human-tech partnership come into play in customer relations?
In the digital economy age, the customer journey actually derives from a mix of relations and experiences, whose fruition is amplified by the empowering technologies which are able to radically transform the customer experience.
The human touch points meld with digital touch points and work together to gather sensations, emotions and actions, providing real time insights and precious sales predictions.
However, a powerful technological architecture and a cognitive & cloud based CRM are must-haves to ensure that the puchasing (and sales) process is experienced without limits, in a seamless omnichannel customer experience.
For the sales and marketing team, the use of advanced intelligent customer engagement tools constitutes a competitive advantage for staying one step ahead, for grasping expressed needs or expectations still hovering on the horizon and for presenting solutions not yet available on the market. To replace the reactive approach of a conventional sales cycle with such a proactive and forward looking vision is tantamount to being able to present customers with clear-cut business advice, with KPIs and specific vertical outcomes for their current and fast forward needs.
The aim is to build a relationship based on confidence, one which continues and goes beyond the signature on the first contract by creating effective connections that are increasingly personalized, to speak the language of the customer and flank him in the phases of purchasing, fruition and combined innovation.
Innovation is a creative and increasingly strategic activity; so why not transform it into a customer-centric-innovation?
Many brands are moving in this direction, involving customers in processes of co-creation experience, to bring a little fresh thinking into their organizations.
At the DHL Innovation Centers, for instance, customers can contribute to rethinking the entire supply chain. A “Vision Suite” welcomes them with KPIs and insights into future scenarios, showing what logistic services might be like in 2050. Instead, during the “Design Thinking Studio”, customers are directly involved in the birth of important innovations. One of many is the “Parcelcopter”, a drone specifically designed to effect urgent consignments such as medicaments, which has now been successfully tested and proven to be an authentic revolution for on-time delivery services, anywhere in the world and at a sustainable cost.
In the LEGO offices, on the other hand, there is no shortage of creativity and it actually grows every day thanks to the customer engagement programme dubbed “LEGO Ideas”: an online community open to anyone wishing to post their constructions built from plastic LEGO bricks. The coolest ideas are assessed by the R&D team and transformed into digital projects which are then put to the vote. On reaching 10,000 likes, the project is revised by Lego, engineered and marketed. The inventive customer is promoted to the rank of “creator”, starting from the packaging, with entitlement to a percentage of the profits.
As well as being successful marketing strategies, these stories of co-creation experience recount companies that wish to innovate and be close to their customers, walking a mile in customer shoes, forming development and growth partnerships for the future, to anticipate and resolve uncertainties before they become problems.
BIO
For almost 30 years, Altea Federation has been working alongside the global leaders of technological innovation through a holonic-virtual business model which embraces the professional approach and high degree of specialization of a federation of companies under one brand: different yet complementary worlds which reinforce each other while preserving a strong Group identity and an unmistakable approach to the challenges posed by new paradigms in the ambits of Consulting, Technology, Digital and Operations.
