As the customer experience profession matures, one thing has become clear: CX professionals can’t have a strong impact unless the surrounding culture is supportive. And creating such a culture is difficult.
In a forthcoming study by Walker, CX professionals listed “developing a customer-centric culture” as the most effective way to meet customers’ changing needs. Fewer than half, however, stated that customer focus has a significant influence on their company’s culture. In other words, CX professionals believe a culture focused on customers can make a big difference, but they don’t feel their colleagues are catching on.
http://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Columns-Departments/Voice-of-the-Customer/Who-Makes-a-Company-Customer-Focused-120042.aspx/
Your ability to understand how to meet customer expectations has a significant impact on business strategy and overall success. A voice of the customer program provides you with insights that help deliver a superior customer experience. So, who owns the Voice of Customer? Think of the customer experience as a car. Voice of the Customer data is the fuel that allows that car to move. If you own the car you sure own the gasoline in its tank. Therefore, whoever owns the customer experience owns the voice of customer.
https://www.surveypal.com/blog/who-owns-the-voice-of-customer-success-starts-at-the-top/
In the ‘Customers 2020 Progress Report’ (Walker), it is predicted that Customer Experience (CX) will surpass price and product as the key differentiator by the year 2020. Right now, CX and Voice of the Customer (VoC) are considered to be the two most important areas of improvement if a business wants to remain competitive.
For a B2B company, the ability to retain clients can be the difference between success and failure. So understanding the Voice of the Customer and using feedback to inspire meaningful change is paramount. Here we look at why VoC is important for B2B, and how it should be used in order to be provide value.
https://www.iris.xyz/sell/client-experience/voc-program-vital-your-b2b-business/
In the mid '90s, Penny Wilson and the developers at Alias Wavefront took notice when consumers complained about the fake hair on characters in their video games. By listening to their customers and creating realistic "digital hair," Wilson recalls that "it really leapfrogged us above any of the other competition" and within three years the upstart Canadian company sold to Silicon Graphics for $450 million. That's the kind of profitable lesson one doesn't soon forget.
http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy-columns/businesses-listeners/312035/
B2B mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are unlikely to slow down in 2018.
Deloitte estimates that M&A activity will accelerate in 2018, in part driven by new M&A technology and tools.
Low economic growth also pushes B2B leaders to rely on M&A as a central part of their growth strategies.
But it remains to be seen whether these deals will be as successful as leaders hope.
Many factors can improve M&A performance, but one critical factor is often overlooked: customers.
http://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/225068/why-b2b-customers-important-part.aspx/
According to a study carried out by RTE, over 30% of companies do not monitor what is being said about them online – whether it’s on their website, mobile app or social media profiles. And interestingly enough, much of this hesitancy is attributed to their fear of negative online feedback.
https://mopinion.com/why-businesses-shouldnt-fear-negative-online-feedback/
Being a CMO used to be straightforward, with a laser focus on branding, advertising and lead generation. Enterprise functions outside of marketing "ownership" were not a problem, as the CMO didn't report the financials, wasn't responsible for deploying technology, didn't have to approve all hires and really didn't "own" the sale in many cases.
https://www.marketingdive.com/news/why-cross-collaboration-is-critical-to-the-modern-cmos-success/513762/
When retail brands started measuring CX through emails or SMS, they thought they would be rewarded with several benefits. For one, they would constantly monitor the pulse of their CX and react quickly to solve customer problems. Besides, CX conversations would start to happen across the organization and brands would have access to a benchmark. Customers would also be rewarded as they would be offered a new way to highlight issues or pass compliments. And, to a certain extent, some of those benefits did materialize.
It was the time when some software vendors were claiming CX would improve if companies simply launched a CX measurement program (be it NPS or something else, as long as it used their software) that encompasses those metrics across the organization.
http://customerthink.com/why-customer-experience-measurement-is-biased-and-how-to-fix-it/
As a reader of the Userlane blog and someone who is interested in customer success, you probably already know that this particular discipline is mostly found in business-to-business sector where companies sell their products or services to other companies. Of course, there are some forward-thinking business-to-customer companies who are trying their hand at customer success, but for the most part, it is a B2B kind of a game.
https://blog.userlane.com/customer-success-must-business-government-ecosystem/
Do you feel like you’re not making the progress in your customer experience transformation efforts that you thought/hoped you would by now?
You started years (not months – it’s a journey – it takes time!) ago, but you don’t think your organization has evolved.
What’s the reason for that?
http://customerthink.com/why-cx-transformations-fail/
Voice of Customer News is a global community of people working or interested in Voice of Customer, UX and technology.
