The rapid growth of SaaS providers and managed services providers (MSPs) have fundamentally shifted the way that business-to-business (b2b) commerce is conducted and have heightened the expectations customers have from their providers. Combined with dramatically changing customer needs and behaviors, as well as spending cutbacks due to mounting economic pressures, smart businesses are investing time and effort in becoming more customer centric.
Today’s customer bases are as diverse as the business landscape and, as such, providers that can establish a thorough and effective customer listening program can deliver the unique solutions necessary to help grow their customers’ businesses. Traditional, well-established telecoms providers, for example, do not have a reputation for listening to or working with their customers to create success. This results in a much higher industry churn rate—22%— when compared to the SaaS industry’s 5-8% rate. As such, there is a critical industry need for providers to serve as true partners, not just distant, disengaged vendors to their customers.
There are several ways to do this and produce the advantages providers need to delight their customers and differentiate themselves from the competition. We’re going to explore some of these best practices: Establishing a customer-centric company culture, dynamic engagement, adopting a “win together” mentality, and owning the outcome.
Establishing a Customer-Centric Company Culture
None of the initiatives that follow are going to be effective if the company’s leadership and executive team do not play an active role in transforming the corporate culture. Without leadership buy-in and a firm commitment to making customer feedback a priority, it will be a struggle to produce a valuable customer listening program. The companies that have successfully established this culture have driven this way of thinking from the top down, resulting in the creation of processes and tools to enable the appropriate customer-centric actions.
Dynamic Engagement
Dynamic engagement can help service providers gain a better understanding of their customers’ needs, especially as they evolve. Doing this will only improve business relationships over time, as customers grow to trust their providers and are more willing to speak openly about their needs and challenges. To establish this relationship of trust and open communication, providers need to routinely engage and interact with their customers, so they can learn to expect regular conversations and understand that support is available whenever they need it. To maximize effective and positive outcomes based on these conversations, this engagement should both provide regular input on essential benchmarks, but also regularly explore asking new questions to unearth potential blind spots that customers may be unaware of. Surveys are an excellent tool to encourage this engagement, but there are also other ways that providers can gather feedback from and remain in communication with their customers, including email and phone check-ins from sales and support staff, as well as real-time collaboration platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams.
It’s also critical to structure the right channels for strategic customers. In addition to surveys, emails and phone check-ins, customers with complex organizational structures or complex needs tend to prefer more formal reviews at set intervals, which include members of both executive teams to ensure strategic and operational alignment. Another option is building customer communities and forums, where customers can share experiences, exchange ideas and provide feedback. These can serve as a valuable source of insights, as well as foster a sense of belonging and loyalty.
Finally, engaging employees at all levels will provide a greater sense of dynamic engagement. Leaders should encourage and empower frontline employees to collect feedback during their interactions with customers and allow them to take ownership of addressing concerns to promote a customer-centric mindset throughout the entire company.
Adopting a “Win Together” Mentality
Customers appreciate feeling like their providers are on their side and are invested in their long-term success as a business. Conventionally, service providers created a strong feeling of “us” versus “them”, where the customer was at the mercy of the provider, and the customer had to accept whatever hand they were dealt. As the voice of the customer has grown, this mentality has shifted for many, though some legacy providers still operate in the way they always have. Adopting a “win together” mentality is a cornerstone for modern service providers that helps foster a strong and trusting bond with customers. By aligning business outcomes so that customer wins are provider wins, and vice versa, providers can help reinforce to customers that they are a true partner and an extension of the business. This partnership should involve collaboration from both provider and customer, so both entities can build their desired outcomes together. This includes incorporating customer feedback into all provider activities, such as product updates, marketing campaigns, and even billing and invoicing. The end result is a true partnership and a loyal, happy customer.
Owning Outcomes
Another way to build a stellar customer relationship through customer communications is to establish transparency, and for each entity to own their outcomes. For better or for worse, being candid with customers will earn providers a more devoted partner, as customers will appreciate honesty rather than being fed platitudes and vague niceties about the strength of the business. This is also essential to aligning both customers’ and providers’ future goals and lays the foundation for the provider to widely broadcast its success when the customer’s current problems and challenges have been overcome.
Training employees to be transparent will go a long way as well. Ensure that employees have access to accurate, up-to-date information about the company’s products and services, and train them to communicate openly and honestly with customers. Encourage them to set realistic expectations and be transparent about any limitations or challenges.
Regardless of the techniques used, providers need to start prioritizing the health of their relationships with their customers. Customer satisfaction is critical to improving customer retention and attracting new business, as potential customers want to find a partner who is as invested in their success as they are. Establishing a channel of regular, open engagement with customers will help providers gain and keep their trust as well as their business, which is the ultimate goal for a successful customer listening program.
