Amazon is the perfect example of this. Its massive growth has been driven in no small part by its painless one-click payment system and excellent customer service. Amazon.com is a fine example of great customer experience. This company’s ongoing phenomenal growth is largely due to delivering the ultimate (online) customer experience. Closer to (dutch) home Wehkamp and Coolblue set their standard. Schuberg Philis to me constitutes a fine business to business example of consistently delivering the ultimate customer experience.

This infographic [source: Monetate] shows that a staggering 73% of customers would repeatedly buy from the retailer having had a superior customer experience. In contrast, an ever greater number of 89% would turn their back on a business after a bad customer experience.

The infographic also visually makes clear how to start moving the offline customer experience online as well.

Corporate blogging – 2 to 5 years of mainstream adoption
2009: on the slope of enlightenment
2012: off the Gartner hype cycle (yet no mainstream adoption yet when it comes to B2B business).

Microblogging (Twitter) – 2 to 5 years of mainstream adoption
2009: on the downside of the peak of inflated expectations, (…) is starting to earn its place alongside other channels such as email, blogging and wikis
2012: off the Gartner hype cycle (yet no mainstream adoption yet when it comes to B2B business)

Online Video (YouTube and others) – 2 to 5 years of mainstream adoption
2009: in the peak of inflated expectations
2012: off the Gartner hype cycle (yet no mainstream adoption yet when it comes to B2B business).

Social software suites – 2 to 5 years of mainstream adoption
In 2009, according to Gartner: ”Within businesses, there is strong and rapidly growing evidence of experimentation and early production deployments. (….). Disillusionment is beginning based on the realization that, even with a suite, much work must be done to build an effective social software deployment“.
In 2012 social software suites are sliding into the trough: disillusionment indeed has materialized, when looking at Gartner’s Hypecycle for Social Software.

[1] The Gartner hype cycle describes a one-off picture of the maturity, adoption and business application of over 1900 specific technologies and trends.

Gartner’s Hypecycle for Social Software 2011.
Whilst the overall 2011 Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies contains fewer social technologies, the dedicated hype cycle for Social Software is a source of new social abundance. The entries in bold are the ones that B2B commercial executives eg marketing directors and sales directors to my opinion should seriously keep track of and consider to timely take advantage of in their business to business sales, marketing and service efforts.

On the rise
On the Rise in the social software hype cycle are MDM of Social Data, Video Content Management and Delivery, Social Content, Security Applications Embedded in Social Media, Social Media Compliance, The Collective Social-Learning Platform, Crowdsourcing, Enterprise Internet Reputation Management, Simultaneous Collaborative Editing and Social Media Metrics.

At the Peak
Expertise Location and Management, Social Network Analysis, Social Software Standards, Cloud Collaboration Services, Social Analytics, Social Profiles, Activity Streams, Cloud Email, Mobile Collaboration Client.

Sliding Into the Trough
External Community Platforms, Content Analytics, Social Media Consulting, Unified Communications and Collaboration, Personal Subscriptions, Social Software Suites,  Internal Community Platforms.

Climbing the Slope
Consumerization, Idea Management, Mobile Social Networks, Social-Media Monitors, Dedicated Email Services

Entering the Plateau
Folksonomies/Social Tagging, Social Search

1) What happened to social media technologies?
Several social media technologies have moved off the Gartner hype cycle, which equals they have reached widespread adoption within 30% or more of the potential audience. Surveys by Accenture and Webmarketing123 however indicate B2B marketers are very slow in adopting social media technologies. It makes one wonder what the Hype Cycle would look like in business to business (B2B).

2) Speed of adopting technology goes up
When comparing the 2009 to 2011 hype cycles, the amount of emerging technologies that get adopted within a 2 year-timespan has more than doubled from 2 to 5 technologies. No exponential trend reminiscent of Moore’s Law yet. This is however a sign of some acceleration in overall emerging technology adoption.

3) Keeping track of technology over the years 
The speed of adoption may have gone up somewhat. This to me does not explain why only some 9 emerging technologies[1] show up in both graphs. One of which interestingly has tracked back on the curve from 2009 to 2011, i.e. 3D bioprinting. All other emerging technologies shown in the current Gartner hype cycle valid up until July 2012 appear did not show up on Gartner’s radarscreen almost three years back. Either this would indicate they became obsolete before reaching their plateau. Or Gartner’s accuracy in predicting emerging technologies future life is simply deteriorating.

4) More emerging technologies 
The very amount of ‘dots’ i.e. emerging technologies tracked in Gartner’s hype cycle has steadily grown almost by a quarter (up from 34 to 42 in 2 years’ time).

5) One overall Gartner hype cycle does not suffice in the longtail era
The significant differences between B2C vs B2B uptake of emerging technologies and social media in particular in the past 3 or more years defeat the purpose of one overall Gartner hype cycle in emerging technologies. In this longtail age, when does Gartner start applying the hype cycle concept to a number of verticals or at least draw a comparison chart in B2B vs B2C?

[1] 3D printing, Human Augmentation, Quantum Computing, Augmented Reality, Internet TV, wireless power, cloud computing, idea management & speech recognition

2009 Hype Cycle emerging technologies

2011 Hype Cycle emerging technologies

B2B
Customers in business to business are increasingly elusive. They choose their own time, place and channel to orient, select and buy. Leveraging social platforms to obtain relevant recommendations as to what company to trust, and what experts to friend. Or unfriend.

The e-lusive customer
With customers (re)searching, reviewing, selecting and buying more and more online, one could speak of the e-lusive customer. These days, more and more B2B sales managers and marketing executives realize inbound marketing can play a pivotal role in building awareness and building relevant leads in their market populated by elusive customers and prospects.  The challenge B2B marketeers around the globe face therefore is not to throw more fishing nets i.e. advertising at the elusive customer. It’s all about finding the best possible bait: content, propositions and recommendations so appealing the elusive customer comes to you. Exclusively.

Google ‘juice’
In his book ‘What would Google do’ Jeff Jarvis proverbially referred to online content as ‘Google juice’. Getting found better on the web as company or professional. Based on unique content that meets a need. Attractive content which gets so much traction that fans start sharing and referring to it via blogs, fora and comments. Which in turn leads to a higher appreciation (and therefore a higher weighting by Google or BING).

High-involvement purchases in B2B
Content is therefore king. This applies especially to those companies and professionals that sell expertise and/or are in the business of high-involvement products or services. Here the interests, investments and just as substantial as the fear to making the wrong decision. This infographic (source: Saleschase, based on research by Content Marketing Institute) beautifully illustrates the importance of content to b2b marketeers. And how they put belief into action.

90%
Case studies, articles and microsites cannot exist without (great) content. Content marketing therefore is not new. A staggering 90% of all b2b marketers therefore already is involved in some form of content marketing. Intentionally or unintentionally.

Reflex or strategy
Some b2b players start to adopt new channels or new instruments in their content marketing mix almost from a kind of reflex.  “We should do something in social media!” “Our customers would just love an app for mobile use”.

Content marketing strategy
It’s therefore imperative to set a clear content marketing strategy. A strategy that meets the company’s objectives. What is the priority: boosting awareness, improving image or generating better and more leads? The instruments to be deployed in content creation and content management only then follow suit: will we leverage facebook or LinkedIn? Will we keep using separate tools in content management and reporting or do we prefer to enjoy the benefits of an integral tool such as HubSpot?

Content: briding company and customer 24/7 
Content therefore offers professionals the opportunity to share their vision and contributions 24/7 online. Content that puts colleagues in the spotlight. And above all content with insights, best practices and answers befitting the needs of customers, prospects and other stakeholders. Well chosen also in terms of form, impression, usability and channels available in. “As a prospective customer whenever I cannot read a whitepaper on my iPad it’s game over for me”. “I do trust this company but I really want a 1 minute summary in video or pictures prior to investing the time to spend reading a 5 pager case study”.

Content therefore bridges company and customers. What content management strategy and tactics does your company have?

Word-of-mouth is widely recognized as way more reliable than paid advertising. According to Seth Godin the future of marketing is in the content you create and distribute. “Be prepared”.

In a flatter, increasingly horizontal world meaningful content and expertise prevail over paid media. Content ensures buzz, recommendation, word of mouth. And indirectly sparks leads as well as business.

According to the Edelman Trust Barometer one needs to needs to hear something 3 to 5 times about a specific company to believe that the information is likely to be true? This implies your content ‘fishing net’ needs to be substantial.

Lots of content work to be done therefore. Especially in business to business companies see the opportunities in content marketing. But what resources do we free to do this? Or will we recruit another intern to fill the gap? And what content will both grab our audience’s attention and is then shared amongst friends or peers in this age of information overload? Proper content can come from any department. Even from where you’d least expect it. With the best returns when done in cooperation between various experts and managers. The CCO | Chief Content Officer vacancy: open to any colleague.

ZMOT in Business to Business
The key sources tapped into during ZMOT in Business to Business are search results, peer reviews in social media, microblogs (like twitter), weblogs, analyst reviews,  other word-of-mouth one comes across online and even advertising such as adwords, magazine ads and billboards. The 21st century, ZMOT puts the prospective customer tremendous ahead of the supplier. Even ahead of technology. ZMOT is the ultimate customer’s driving seat. Business to Business companies need to gain mindshare of their prospective customers during ZMOT in order to maintain their marketshare in the future. It’s therefore that online marketing, social media marketing, content marketing, inbound marketing and mobility no longer can be the realm of the B2C marketeer yet need to be adopted in Business to Business marketing and sales too. Fast.

Google’s Jim Lecinski
The term ZMOT was coined by Googles’ Jim Lecinski who wrote the e-book “Winning the Zero Moment of Truth”. More information can be found via zeromomentoftruth.com. Please note most examples and verbiage refers to B2C, shoppers and stores. Yet to me it’s clear B2B marketing and sales can benefit too from applying the ZMOT thinking.

——–

Who invented the ”First Moment of Truth”?
Wonder what the “First Moment of Truth” was in the first place? The FMOT (“eff-mot) was coined by P&G and refers to the three to seven seconds a shopper considered a product on a store shelf. This is the moment when all the advertising and recommendations a prospective customer had seen for a brand would either result in a purchase or not. FMOT for long has considered to be one of the ‘moments of truth’ for a product or service. The stimulus (the customer sees an ad for the product) and experience (customer uses it for the first time) complementing the FMOT as two other moments of truth. The “Second Moment of Truth” is all about the latter phase, the customer experience the product or service itself.

In B2B and B2C alike, the process of ‘helping to buy’ however essentially is all about enabling the customer (or prospect) to confidently take the steps of a flight of imaginary stairs. In order for the customer to take steps in terms of preference, buy and loyalty. Selling in B2B therefore does not need not be rocket science.

The scenes in the video embedded in this post are over the top. In Business to Business however all too often there are easily one or more similarities to the examples shown. Professional services companies that are requested to provide ‘two consultants and charge only one’. IT vendors that are expected to integrate their new mobile app free of charge in the existing ERP software. Or – recognize the situation? –  a prospect with an ill-defined assignment running a series of ‘qualification workshops’ with a number of potential ‘business partners’.

Perhaps it’s worth your while to show this video on your iPad during a difficult customer meeting. Prevention however is smarter in B2B sales and marketing. Starting off by choosing the right customers. And by determining what value to create for them.

Want to know more? Download the DutchmarQ whitepaper ‘more enthusiastic customers, by less marketing in B2B?’.

[video source: Scofield Editorial, Inc.]

Apple shows how to build an infectious movement around truly people-centric products and solutions. Apple proves that going social does not depend on having the right social media icons pop up online. There are even no ‘share’ buttons on specific Apple landing pages.

I’m convinced Apple does intensively listen to their relevant audiences, physically as well as online and via social media. Not because market research is in the company’s DNA. After all, Steve Jobs was reknown for regularly pushing back on doing market research as customers would not be able to show the way to true breakthrough innovation. But because of Apple’s quest. The quest which has been making great products to enable people to offer as pleasant an experience as possible in their daily life and work.

For a long time Apple has recognized the power of these social elements (in random order):

The need for a technology company to build truly great products, people would want to talk about.

Designed around the user, ‘less is more’ has been Apple’s leitmotiv for a long time. Offering little upfront insights into new products has built to the mystery surrounding product launches, stimulating speculation to go viral. Apple even went as far as censoring certain bloggers for releasing news on the new iPhone prior to formal market introduction.

The human tendency to want to stand out, by belonging to a different tribe. Ever since the famous 1984 Macintosh launch, Apple has successfully appealed to and built up the community of people wanting to express themselves through their choice in technology.

Word of mouth. Lots of word of mouth. Social media is all about the power of people doing the talking. Rather than you doing the advertising. Apple has been a master at both.

Customer psychology. Apple has shown time and time again to understand selling stuff first and foremost has everything to do with understanding people’s needs, wants and issues. And then meeting or resolving them in the best way possible. Whether its using a computer, listening to music, crafting a presentation or shopping, Apple has ensured to make the customer journey as enjoyable as possible. Thereby helping to spread the Apple story like seeds from a pod (the name iPod even was derived from a pod containing 1000 seeds i.e. songs).

Focus and simplicity. By focusing on a limited amount of products and solutions all very easy to use, Apple has successfully fueled the story on the Macintosh, iMac, iPod, iPhone and other Apple products and services.

Great products simply produce great enthusiasm. Apple products have always been engineered with a quest for the highest quality and best user experience. This in turn simply has produced a vast community of superpromoters and hardly any distractors.

A final note. Yes, I’m an Apple fan and yes I have been reading the Steve Jobs biography lately. Both factors inspired me to write this blogpost. I do find it intriguing how a company that has seemingly been run in an autocratic, closed, and ‘non transparent’ fashion can prove to be such a strong and sustainable social movement. To me this shows, there is no ‘one size fits all’-recipe for building social business.

Psychology in marketing: stepchild
Topics such as marketing/sales alignment, marketing accountability, online marketing, new media and sales methodologies (or myths for that matter) seem to get most attention in the marketing discipline. These are so-called ‘hard’ factors, reflecting an inside-out perspective seen from the company. Bloggers, managementbook authors and the ‘practitioners’ themselves such as marketing directors and heads of sales go to great lengths in stressing the customer and his or her key drivers are at the center of attention. Is this really the case?

These examples indicate marketing psychology often still is a stepchild:

-       Customer service leaves much to be desired with many companies a long way away from the Zappos standard;
-       Marketing often is not about inbound marketing (based on ‘pull’), but is based on ‘push’. Most emphasis is placed on sending messages to the target audience and on buying attention. Marketing done in a ‘disruptive, non-permission based’ fashion, as Seth Godin would put it;
-       A seemingly strong and long term commitment between vendor and customer (for instance in IT Outsourcing) is no guarantee to outperformance: the vendor often scores a C- (or worse, as was shown in the recent publicity emanating from a Dutch public organisation (‘Waterschappen’) severing all ties to the Anglodutch IT company Logica);
-       The process paradigm has become dominant over and above truly putting the customer at the center of attention (“the process prescribes an email is sent in the first 3 instances, upon which a letter is sent, and so on”);
-       Customer ownership between and across departments often has not been made crystal clear resulting in overpromising and underdelivering to the customer;
-       IT unmistakably is a significant ‘enabler’ in accelerating and intensifying customer contact. IT however can never be a substitute for real attention.

Decisions: 90% taken from the subconscious
It is therefore essential to take the customer’s deeper motivations and drivers into account. Investigate what really moves customers instead of knowing the most promising RFP/ Request for Proposal by heart. Scientific surveys show that customers most often do not share their true motivations. According to Malcolm Gladwell, dr Robert Cialdini and Engagement Engineers Altuition , decisions almost always are taken subconsciously. A traditional questionnaire therefore does not suffice to lay bare one’s private or business decision making processes.

Make way for customer psychology
How can one put customer psychology to work in real life? By a combination of scientific insights, 1-to-1 conversations and online monitoring. Customer psychology is anything but a myth. It is all about the sheer necessity to (sustainably) gain the customer’s favour. It is also about putting the customer psychology into practice, in the operational deployment of communication moments and instruments. Small moments and instruments perhaps. Yet ones that can make all the difference in the customer journey.

Examples: lawfirm and insurances
Earlier this year, DutchmarQ was responsible for delivering a new marketing consulting programme to a midsized lawfirm. Their clients showed great appreciation for their informal, accessible way of working. This approach however only became apparent in the first face-to-face contact. In all written (offline and online) communications one had preferred the more safe, formal way of communications. Communicating the way laywers do, so to speak. By developing a common understanding of the so-called ‘customer journey’ this inconsistency in approach (and experience) came to the surface. Thereby building the insight for the need to implement a number of simple, yet effective changes.

Altuition enabled a health insurer serving over 4 million customers in the dutch marketplace to establishing a clear picture of the ‘question behind the customer question’. A customer changing address was seen as standard process that needed to be dealt with as efficiently as possible. Research showed that moving places from the customer’s personal perspective often is an emotional process. Customers for instance were concerned to know more about who to select as their next general practitioner and dentist. Data the insurance company quite easily already possessed. Asking a customer planning to move places whether he had contemplated a new general pracitioner and / or dentist therefore proved to be an easy and equally high-value service. Asking the very question resulted in significantly better customer experience and loyalty.

Inspiration
Earlier this Fall the CIC / Customer Insight Center symposium (liaised with the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) about ‘customer psychology’ took place in the Netherlands. I had three very interesting interviews and conversations following the event with Joost Rutgers (partner at Altuition) and both keynote speakers at this conference: Janine Himpers (Altuition) and Jeroen Kruisweg (Canon). Our talks form the key source of inspiration of this blogpost (and some more, recently published in dutch). Should you want to learn more about their recent insights and experiences, here is how to follow Janine Himpers , Joost Rutgers and Jeroen Kruisweg on twitter.