Buyer Experience Innovation

By Tony Zambito, President & CEO , Goal Centric

www.goalcentric.com

www.thebuyerexperience.om

Copyright 2010 Goal Centric Management, Inc.

Why CEO’s Must Make This Their Top Priority

Introduction

The pressure to achieve top line revenue growth and

profitable growth strategies remain as the key challenges B2B

CEO’s face today. Compounding these challenges is the rapid

transformation underway in the buyer-seller relationship

brought on by the advent of digital marketing and social

media technology. For many B2B CEO’s, they are witnessing

the conventional strategies associated with sales andthe conventional strategies associated with sales and

marketing being dismissed and tossed aside by buyers at an

alarming rate. The seller centric world of yesteryears has

literally been turned upside down as buyers are seemingly in

more control than ever and traditional strategies no longer

are effective.

A Mandate for Innovation

Challenges

These challenges are creating a mandate for CEO’s to

innovate towards new means of attracting new buyers,

retaining existing customers, and maximizing value through

customer loyalty. A CEO today must think in a much broader

context than the myriad of different approaches that have

arisen over the past few years to respond as well as adapt to

the transformative events taking place in B2B markets. Thisthe transformative events taking place in B2B markets. This

broader context is essential to viewing in totality the buyer

experience one has with their organization. Today’s CEO’s

must make Buyer Experience Innovation a top priority to

succeed in the rapidly changing B2B marketplace.

A Definition

Definition

Let’s define Buyer Experience Innovation:

“Creating in totality an ideal buying experience and

innovative interactions that engages as well as enables buyers

to enter into a transactional and loyal relationship with the

organization”

Over the past decade, customer experience has become part

of the landscape of business thinking. In particular, customer

experience has found its way more prominently in the B2Cexperience has found its way more prominently in the B2C

market space as the emphasis on creating brick and mortar as

well as online experiences has become an essential means of

winning over customers. New technologies associated with

mobile, digital, and social media is causing resurgence in

customer experience thinking today. In the B2B context, it is

important to delineate this context whereas customer

experience can be viewed as essential to back office

operations while buyer experience is essential to the front

office – primarily sales and marketing.

The Why Reasons

Why

Why must B2B CEO’s make Buyer Experience Innovation a top

priority? There are several reasons, of many, that can be

noted:

Growth Strategies: The lifeblood of B2B organizations is

creating sustainable top line revenue as well as market share

growth year after year. The path to sustaining growthgrowth year after year. The path to sustaining growth

strategies is through creating innovative and rewarding buyer

experiences that help buyers to meet their goals.

Alignment: The issue of sales and marketing alignment has

been written about extensively over the past few

years. Many organizations continue to struggle with this

issue. When this alignment is problematic, it directly affects

the buyer’s experience and not for the better.

Cohesion: In conversations with several B2B CEO’s, a recent

issue is that while there have been new approaches related to

areas such as demand generation, content marketing, and

social media, there is a lack of cohesion in these efforts that

contributes to the overall buyer experience.

Static View of Buying Cycle: For many years, we have

conditioned ourselves to look at the buying cycle oneconditioned ourselves to look at the buying cycle one

dimensionally and through the prism of the seller only. Many

sales and marketing approaches have been designed around

these static views, whether they be defined as 4, 5, or 6

stages makes little difference, and in today’s digital age

creates a severe disconnect with buyers.

Lack of Insight: While B2C has made strides in customer

insights, B2B has lagged behind in attaining critical buyer

insight that contributes towards making informed

decision. Some of the B2B CEO’s I’ve talked to basically say

this “not knowing” truly keeps them up at night and that

decision-making can be an art form of crap shooting.

Sales Cycle Modeling: The sales cycle and the numerousSales Cycle Modeling: The sales cycle and the numerous

selling models that exist have been reinvented over and over

throughout the years. Evident to many B2B CEO’s today is

that buyers today no longer make themselves accessible to

this means of one-way communication and have become

resourceful in resisting such efforts.

Design Thinking: Forward thinking CEO’s today are leading

their organizations through sound design thinking in products,

services, and experiences. Buyer Experience Design and the

sub-component of Buyer Journey Design will become critical

pieces of the puzzle in developing buyer experiences that

enables and engages buyers.

Brand Experience: While the concept of the holistic brandBrand Experience: While the concept of the holistic brand

experience has gained prominence in B2C circles, the sales-

driven cultures that exists in B2B organizations have not

considered brand experience in the same holistic

manner. Today's leading B2B CEO's are beginning to make

brand experience a considerable component of strategy.

Bold New Thinking

Bold

We are undoubtedly in a transitional period in B2B strategies

related to sales, marketing, and services. This requires of us

and B2B CEO’s today bold new thinking around Buyer

Experience Innovation as a means of achieving acquisition and

growth strategies. Recent work with thought leaders and

challenging issues faced by our work (Goal Centric) with such

clients as HP and FedEx has pushed through some revealingclients as HP and FedEx has pushed through some revealing

thinking around Buyer Experience Innovation and to see the

problem of various compartmentalized approaches. In future

eBooks, I will explore and share further thinking related to key

principles for Buyer Experience Innovation. I also look forward

to sharing innovative strategies and tools that have proven to

be effective in shaping the buyer experience.

Produced By:

Tony Zambito

President & CEO

Goal Centric

www.goalcentric.com

Buyer Experience

Innovation:

Why CEO’s Must www.thebuyerexperience.com

Copyright 2010

Goal Centric Management, Inc.

Why CEO’s Must

Make This Their

Top Priority