to SERIES DRIVING SALES LEADS WITH VoC GENERATE NEW LEADS FROM EXISTING CUSTOMERS WITH VoC STRATEGIES
to SERIES B-TO-B CUSTOMER STRATEGIES Not all companies are alike, and most organizations can t identify with the strategies of large, consumer brands often used as case examples. At Walker, we feel the unique nature of B-to-B customer strategies does not receive adequate focus, and that s why we re developing a series focused on voice-of-the-customer strategies for B-to-B organizations. We recognize the unique challenges associated with complex accounts, complicated purchasing processes, layers of supply chain relationships, and other characteristics that affect customer relationships. We ll address these issues, provide real examples, and cite best practices to help customer strategists. Join in the conversation! Let us know if you have a best practice to share or a topic to request. You can contact me at pgibbons@walkerinfo.com. Patrick Gibbons Principal, Senior Vice President
A NEW FORM OF LEAD GENERATION When most people think of lead generation they immediately think of new business development. In fact, B-to-B sales and marketing teams spend a great deal of time, energy, and money to build a pipeline of leads for new business. The most obvious source of leads is often the most overlooked your current customers. Why does this happen? Often, account managers are too busy managing their current book of business and are not focused on growing these accounts. Sales and marketing teams are typically not accountable for the growth of the existing customer base. Operations and systems are not usually in place to manage leads from existing customers. While all of these reasons may be common, it is no reason to ignore the huge opportunity that exists. A company s voice-of-the-customer program can be the answer a systematic approach to getting more out of your existing customer relationships. CLOSING THE LOOP CAN OPEN NEW DOORS A number of B-to-B companies have achieved success by embedding questions about emerging product or service needs into their customer surveys. Responses to these questions generate automated alerts that account managers can use for follow up. It s an ingenious way of giving account teams the sales tips they need to say to current customers, Are there other ways we can help you? or Can I send you more information on our new product offerings, or perhaps even a quote? The type of follow-up program described above a close-the-loop system. While these programs are commonly used with a high degree of success to alert sales teams to customer problems or issues for resolution, they can be equally compelling as a means to generate new business. Often called opportunity alerts, these electronic flags are built into the program software and designed specifically to send an e-mail tip to the account manager when a customer responds favorably to a cue for a new product or acknowledges a need for additional service. A CLOSE-THE-LOOP PROCESS HAS SEVERAL KEY STEPS: SETTING ALERTS Feedback programs are designed to include triggers that signal the need for immediate follow up. DIRECTING FEEDBACK Process flows are set up to deliver alerts to the account manager responsible for the customer relationship. FOLLOW-UP PROTOCOL IN PLACE Participants are trained and a process flow is set up to drive action. DOCUMENTATION OF RESULTS Results are recorded to document the impact of the program. 3
B-TO-B SERIES DRIVING SALES LEADS WITH VoC A SUCCESS STORY For more than a decade, Walker has collaborated with a leading B-to-B technology solutions provider to develop and facilitate a multi-dimensional Customer Loyalty and Experience Program. Through a series of survey programs, the company invites close to a million customers to register responses annually. In addition to flagging problems, providing tailored feedback for executive sales reports and tracking customer loyalty, the program also generates hot alerts to follow up on sales opportunities. The followup aspect of this program was incorporated about three years ago, and today, nearly every survey that s issued embeds some type of follow-up or close-the-loop component. Surveys are sent monthly to customers asking for their feedback on the customer experience topics such as the product offering, sales rep performance, and delivery. In addition, customers are asked to select from a list of products and services any areas they would like to discuss further with their sales rep. When any are selected, the follow-up process is initiated and the sales lead is sent to the proper sales rep so they can contact the customers. The sales rep is required to document in the closed-loop system more details on the potential for the lead to convert to a sale, the buying time window, and estimated sales value. This process assures that not only does the lead receive follow-up, but also provides good record-keeping that can be used to oversee the entire process. EYE ON RESULTS: During the recent economic downturn, this large company used its customer survey program to identify thousands of customers interested in specific product offerings. The firm was able to convert these opportunities into quotes and placed orders, resulting in millions of dollars in additional revenue. This was all achieved through the ongoing customer survey program, without any additional marketing or sales programs. SEGMENTING CUSTOMERS Triggers for identifying at-risk customers can be set up in a variety of ways. One of the most practical and common ways is to use a framework to segment customers based on their level of loyalty. The Walker Loyalty Matrix is structured so two axes represent two aspects of loyalty attitude and behavior. This forms four quadrants to classify each individual contact. Truly Loyal Customers who have every intention of continuing business and have a positive attitude toward your company. Accessible Customers who have a good attitude of working with you, but do not plan to continue their relationship. This typically means something has changed and they don t need your product or service any longer. Trapped Customers who show every indication of continuing business with you, but they re not happy about it. They feel trapped in their relationship. ATTITUDE ACCESSIBLE HIGH RISK TRULY LOYAL TRAPPED High Risk Customers who do not intend to return and do not have a healthy attitude about their relationship with your company. BEHAVIOR This breakdown provides a very practical way of segmenting customers and is often used to identify those customers where immediate follow up is critical. 4
KEYS TO SUCCESS For those B-to-B companies who have incorporated opportunity alert follow-up into their survey programs, the payoff can be substantial. And while some of the best follow-up systems are customized to meet the needs of a specific business, there are some universal characteristics for plan design that can help drive success. Some of the most critical factors include: ENSURE KEY PLAYERS ARE ON BOARD. Sales teams, especially larger ones, have many activities competing for their time. It is important to ensure that sales leadership proactively endorses the program and that account mangers and sales teams are held accountable for participating. Also, this type of program works best when a firm s sales and research teams work in partnership, and follow up is viewed as a coordinated activity between both disciplines. DEFINE THE PROCESS FROM OPEN TO CLOSE AND MAKE IT ACTIONABLE. The company highlighted receives thousands of returned surveys each quarter and a percentage of these require some sort of follow up. It s crucial to develop clear directives for how each follow-up request is handled from open to close. Each week the completion rate is reviewed and regular reminders are sent for those cases that have not yet been closed. RESPECT THE SALES ENVIRONMENT. Although this type of follow up has the opportunity to generate new sales leads, it s important to remember that sales is a demanding field. The most effective programs are ones that sales teams readily buy into and for which they are accountable. To achieve this, the program should be straightforward and preferably built into systems the sales teams are already using. Commit to constant evaluation and tweaking. As fast as business conditions change, operational programs must ride the tide. Although considerable B-to-B planning goes into launching follow-up programs, the process doesn t end there. Companies should commit to frequent assessments and be prepared to modify the program accordingly to achieve maximum results. BOTTOM LINE ON LEAD GENERATION Mining new business from existing customers is an activity companies put into practice every day in a variety of ways. Combining it with a customer survey program formalizes it, and casts a wider net than sales teams with large customer bases could accomplish with sales calls alone. It s a way to gain even more out of a survey program and with significant revenue potential. 5
B-TO-B SERIES DRIVING SALES LEADS WITH VoC ABOUT THE AUTHORS BRAD LINVILLE Principal, Senior Vice President As senior vice president, Brad is responsible for the management of client relationships in the communications and technology industries. This includes all aspects of the relationship, from business development through design, implementation and analysis of specific programs, and strategic deployment and alignment consulting to maximize the use of the information. In addition to his client services responsibilities, Linville is a leader in process improvement and re-design. CHRIS SEGO Vice President Chris serves as the senior client service contact for assigned customer feedback engagements, with an emphasis on industry knowledge, research expertise and creation of valuable insights. She is especially trained to assist clients in translating findings into meaningful conclusions, developing recommendations, and facilitating client organizations in pursing action plans that will have a favorable business impact. 6
RELATED BLOGS The following pages include blogs related to the topic of driving sales leads with voice-of-the-customer strategies. Hopefully these will prompt additional ideas that you can put to use in your organization. Want more? Visit our extensive collection of blogs at blog.walkerinfo.com. Or check our Knowledge Center to find additional resources including Blog Books, white papers, and videos. walkerinfo.com/knowledge-center
B-TO-B SERIES DRIVING SALES LEADS WITH VoC USING CUSTOMER FEEDBACK IT S LOGICAL Kitty Radcliff Vice President, Consulting Services Customer Loyalty programs uncover insights about the health of customer relationships, and they can even provide sales leads to generate additional business. Recently a Customer Experience Manager discovered 90% of the leads generated from their VOC program have not been acted on. Sales has obviously not done anything to convert the opportunities. That s not logical - ignoring opportunities doesn t make sense. Or does it? The hierarchy of engagement points to the three elements required for Sales to take action. They need to: 1. Be aware the lead exists. 2. Understand how to act on the opportunity. 3. Believe the opportunity is good and worth investing their time in pursuing. In this case, they identified process issues such as team member transitions, missing information, and inaccurate coding. Those process issues lead to a failure to communicate. Sales was not aware of the leads. That failure to communicate meant nothing happened. Ultimately the process was completely restructured to improve the process and the communication. Sales is now aware of the leads coming from the VOC program. In turn, the leads are acted on instead of going to waste. What about your customer experience effort - do you have customer insights going to waste? ACTION BELIEF UNDERSTANDING AWARENESS The Hierarchy of Engagement is a framework that helps make sense of how customer strategists can prompt more action from customer listening programs. Good customer strategists do much more than gather insights and crank out reports. They promote customer initiatives, train users of customer insights, and show employees how it all makes a bottom-line difference. In other words, they prompt action. 8
IT S NOT NOT WHETHER YOU WIN OR LOSE... Jeff Marr Vice President It s a shame to pursue a sales lead and then not only lose the deal, but not learn much from the experience, either. Gaining wisdom from win/loss outcomes is apparently an overlooked practice. It was the lowestscoring metric in the sales process, according to a recent study on sales performance optimization. The vast majority of companies eight in ten rated their win/loss intelligence as average, poor, or even dismal. From the same study, salespeople are typically making multiple calls over the course of weeks if not months, trying to close deals, but only winning half the deals forecasted. This is like paying tuition at the school of hard knocks. Sales leaders would do well then, to learn more about why bids are won or lost. Brief surveys with customers can be productive in this regard, combined with internal debriefing among sales team members to sort out the useful facts from pursuing the opportunity. The money facts are learning the main reasons for the outcome. But it s also helpful knowing the type of solution being pitched, customer business issue, size of the deal, upside potential, etc. Use the results to adjust who you target, how you screen leads and other changes to your sales process and communications. The main challenge in retrieving win/loss data? Salespeople instinctively put deals behind them and move on to the next ones, rather than dwell on post-mortems. Consider a process requiring just a limited amount of time from salespeople. Help them see the reward in debriefing each deal, including learning more from their colleagues ideas and mistakes. 9
B-TO-B SERIES DRIVING SALES LEADS WITH VoC SAMS + OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE = PROFITABLE GROWTH Jennifer Batley Vice President, Strategic Accounts While a lot of the thinking around growth focuses on acquiring new business, there is much to be gained from seeking out operational efficiencies that can drive profit and growth through more positive customer experiences and reallocated resources. In short, one of the best strategies to increase your odds of profitable growth is to ensure you are operating optimally. This applies as much to account management as it does to process and functional management: at Walker s recent Client Forum in Aptos, CA, I shared two ways to ensure account-level operations are enabling the pursuit of profitable growth. OPPERATING FOR PROFITABLE GROWTH:ACCOUNT LEVEL Resource Allocation DEVOTE YOUR RESOURCES TO THE RIGHT CUSTOMER Pursue Growth REFOCUS NEWLY AVAILABLE RESOURCES ON GROWTH At the core, it s about managing the cost to serve accounts: allocating our account management resources appropriately, and then turning newly available resources over to the systematic pursuit of profitable growth. RESOURCE ALLOCATION Quite simply, we need to match the right level of resources to the right customers. I think we would all agree that there are some accounts who are more or less deserving of our resources, but I m not sure we d all agree on which accounts are the mores and which are the lesses. Applying an established set of rules to categorize accounts based on elements beyond just their current value (ie, think about the future!) will allow SAM teams to strategically reallocate resources to improve profitability and capitalize on growth opportunities. PURSUIT OF GROWTH With our resources now allocated appropriately, SAMs are in a position to do two things. First, those assigned to accounts with growth potential can begin actively pursuing any up-sell or cross-sell opportunities. And second, newly freed up resources can be redeployed to pursue new customer acquisition. So what about your organization? Take a look at your SAM allocation and if it s out of balance, make the adjustments that will lead to greater growth. 10
ABOUT WALKER Walker specializes in customer loyalty and related customer strategies, including innovative approaches to segmenting, valuing, obtaining, serving, and growing customers. Walker s diverse team of consultants provides tailored, comprehensive solutions to help companies achieve their business objectives and, ultimately, grow shareholder value. Walker s consultants regularly conduct workshops and assessment programs to help organizations improve their ability to administer customer listening programs. $3,200 THE WALKER INDEX $2,800 $2,400 $2,000 $1,600 $1,200 $800 $400 $0 1994 1997 2000 2003 2006 2009 2011 2013 Walker Index S&P 500 Dow Jones Industrial Average NASDAQ The Walker Index is a stock index comprised of current Walker clients. Companies are included in the index only during their tenure as Walker clients. Companies attracted to Walker are committed to using the customer perspective as an impactful management tool. The Walker Index indicates these companies outperform the broad markets. For the most up-to-date Walker Index, please visit walkerinfo.com/consulting
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