What do you think?
Rate this book
Customer Experience: It's Not That Easy: Customer Experience Programs for B2B Companies
Customer Experience programs are gaining momentum in small and large companies but most have been designed for the Business-to-consumer (B2C) model. When the approaches that work for B2C are applied in the Business-to-business (B2B) world, they fail. Based on 27 years’ experience consulting to major, global B2B companies including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Dell, VMware, EMC, Samsung, AT&T, Verizon, BT, Telefonica, Honeywell, Motorola, Accenture, Nokia, Siemens, Fujitsu and Xerox, Harry Bunn sets out practical approaches to getting it right in the B2B world. This book shows how Customer Experience can be built into the culture, the strategies and the actions of companies together with the mechanics required to “get it right”. It shows how current customer satisfaction programs can be transformed into Customer Experience programs providing companies with sustainable, competitive differentiation.
196 pages, Paperback
First published July 14, 2014
1 person want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 19, 2014
The customer experience, the art of keeping the customer happy, satisfied and enchanted with your product, service and brand is self-explanatory, right? Who doesn’t want to do this? Yet why is it still a relatively unknown, badly applied concept for many!
Some companies have got the memo and have a laser focus on their customer experience (business to customer/B2C) such as Apple, whilst other companies tend to drop the ball, assume its market success will continue and end up being a shadow of its former, successful self. Yet still keeping the customer happy is often forgotten when doing business to business (B2B). Sure if you are Megabank you might get prompt, fawning prompt service from a supplier because of your size and your yearly spending commitment yet is it really a true, total experience? It can be a façade, especially if smaller “less important” companies are ignored and given second-class treatment. Today’s small business can be tomorrow’s success story. Plus people do move from smaller to larger companies and if key influencers have been badly treated at one company, why would they suddenly change their viewpoint to your company just because they now work for a company you try to fawn over? It can be a balancing act though. Think the 80/20 rule. Yet the 80% of smaller customers need not be treated badly.
So this little book might be the thing to kick your corporate backside into gear and to get you thinking about the customer experience, for ALL customers! Yet it needs top-down support. It needs to form part of an organisation’s DNA and be more than just a slogan passed about and plastered on a cheap tacky pen or badge. Many misunderstand and assume customer satisfaction is the same as a customer experience. Close but no cigar. As the author notes: “customer experience is an emotion (normally based on fact), it is holistic, it is relative, and it is based on expectations … customer satisfaction programmes typically test the satisfaction level of the account team’s main contact (and) customer experience is the total experience of all people within the customer organization.” Does that make sense? Has the penny now started to drop?
The world is getting smaller. It is getting easier and easier for end-user customers to select from a larger pool of potential suppliers. Resting on one’s laurels should not be a valid or responsible course of action. Yet there are differences between B2C and B2B customer experience programmes and not necessarily so much crossover. This book will help focus your thinking. You can possibly serve both groups but you need to tailor your approach. B2B can be a more complex beast yet it can generate more revenue with less (per unit) work.
The author sets out to help you identify, define and implement a customer experience strategy. It won’t be a quick and easy process necessarily but the book manages to concisely get over the core mantra. The harder work falls to you!
It was an interesting, jargon-free read that certainly will have you thinking a bit closer about how your business is operated (should you not already have a customer experience programme). It could be, or should be, a catalyst for change.
It’s Not That Easy, Customer Experience Programs for B2B Companies, written by Harry F. Bunn and published by RONIN Corporation. ISBN 9780615993706, 196 pages. YYYYY
Some companies have got the memo and have a laser focus on their customer experience (business to customer/B2C) such as Apple, whilst other companies tend to drop the ball, assume its market success will continue and end up being a shadow of its former, successful self. Yet still keeping the customer happy is often forgotten when doing business to business (B2B). Sure if you are Megabank you might get prompt, fawning prompt service from a supplier because of your size and your yearly spending commitment yet is it really a true, total experience? It can be a façade, especially if smaller “less important” companies are ignored and given second-class treatment. Today’s small business can be tomorrow’s success story. Plus people do move from smaller to larger companies and if key influencers have been badly treated at one company, why would they suddenly change their viewpoint to your company just because they now work for a company you try to fawn over? It can be a balancing act though. Think the 80/20 rule. Yet the 80% of smaller customers need not be treated badly.
So this little book might be the thing to kick your corporate backside into gear and to get you thinking about the customer experience, for ALL customers! Yet it needs top-down support. It needs to form part of an organisation’s DNA and be more than just a slogan passed about and plastered on a cheap tacky pen or badge. Many misunderstand and assume customer satisfaction is the same as a customer experience. Close but no cigar. As the author notes: “customer experience is an emotion (normally based on fact), it is holistic, it is relative, and it is based on expectations … customer satisfaction programmes typically test the satisfaction level of the account team’s main contact (and) customer experience is the total experience of all people within the customer organization.” Does that make sense? Has the penny now started to drop?
The world is getting smaller. It is getting easier and easier for end-user customers to select from a larger pool of potential suppliers. Resting on one’s laurels should not be a valid or responsible course of action. Yet there are differences between B2C and B2B customer experience programmes and not necessarily so much crossover. This book will help focus your thinking. You can possibly serve both groups but you need to tailor your approach. B2B can be a more complex beast yet it can generate more revenue with less (per unit) work.
The author sets out to help you identify, define and implement a customer experience strategy. It won’t be a quick and easy process necessarily but the book manages to concisely get over the core mantra. The harder work falls to you!
It was an interesting, jargon-free read that certainly will have you thinking a bit closer about how your business is operated (should you not already have a customer experience programme). It could be, or should be, a catalyst for change.
It’s Not That Easy, Customer Experience Programs for B2B Companies, written by Harry F. Bunn and published by RONIN Corporation. ISBN 9780615993706, 196 pages. YYYYY
Displaying 1 of 1 review