The Marketing Leaders - Loyalty and Retention in B2B Marketing

Most marketers already know that customer loyalty can add huge value to revenue and profitability in B2B operations, just as in B2C. Equally, the effects of poor customer service, communications and understanding can wreck customer relationships. So how do you avoid this scenario?

It is far cheaper to service the majority of existing customers, sufficient to keep them buying and using your products and services, rather than to lose those valuable customers through lack of understanding and poor service provision.

It’s costly not knowing customers

If customer needs are not understood, it will be much harder (and potentially more expensive) to win new customers who will stay and be of value.

This article highlights two comparative examples. The first shows how a company has embedded loyalty management throughout their business operations – the way they think and act with customers. The second example shows how a company has failed to achieve this outcome despite the obvious consequences for their customers, staff and business.

Both relationship examples are from my own experience and span the time when I was a 26-year full time executive for a major international company, and more recently as an independent board adviser and non-executive director of multiple companies. Neither supplier has changed my treatment substantially through my change of career stage, showing how embedded and pervasive these traits (both good and bad) are in their businesses.

But don’t expect to read about B2B loyalty cards and points schemes here, as customer loyalty is actually achieved through principles and practices which go far further into the heart of a company’s vision, ethics and operations – as these examples prove.

It was probably about 5 or 6 years ago that Trafficmaster (www.trafficmaster.co.uk) approached the UK division of my current employer to help assess field force productivity improvements that could result from using their new SmartNav ™ GPS route planning system.

About 40 UK based sales, consultants and managers were offered the opportunity to use this new system for a six month period, providing feedback on usability and recording savings in travel time when finding new client locations or routes, or from being automatically diverted around traffic hold-ups and improving on-time arrival for client and internal meetings.

On conclusion the Trafficmaster pilot produced a B2B productivity business case, using actual time savings and staff costs, which could be used by Trafficmaster to sell the SmartNav ™ system to new client companies. Since this pilot completed Trafficmaster have maintained an ongoing customer feedback system where mapping and usability issues can be reported back and resolved, with the resulting system upgrades, new functions and fixes being downloaded to vehicles at regular intervals and without driver intervention.

This is an excellent example of continuous improvement, through involving customers as your eyes and ears, listening to what they say and acting to apply the improvements that will maintain their loyalty and advocacy, bringing new clients that will value differentiated and evolving function created from actual use. As a continuing member of this feedback group I know that the Trafficmaster staff listen and respond, which encourages myself and other Trafficmaster customers to share more of our insights and needs.

Since those early days Trafficmaster have moved on, now providing much of the technology behind the Aviva / Norwich Union Pay As You Drive ™ scheme, also providing corporate systems for trucks and fleet transport support in the UK and US. It seems that the early pilots and ongoing customer interactions have provided the usability feedback, metrics and financial business cases, and many of the ongoing ideas for system improvements that have helped to win and retain these key business relationships and projects.

A key aspect of this B2B loyalty approach is to appeal to both the corporate customer (e.g. Aviva, a trucking company, or a car manufacturer) and to the eventual user (e.g. the consumer or employee as driver). These value chains are sometimes referred to as B2B2C (to consumer) or B2B2E (to employee), where Trafficmaster’s success required an understanding of the corporate buyer and eventual buyer or user. Both B2B and B2C marketing skills are required!

Corporate parking is a huge area of discretionary business travel expenditure, especially for field sales and service teams and the many frequent flyers using both short and long term airport parking. Reviewing the current NCP website (www.ncp.co.uk) gives a strong impression of commitment to corporate customer loyalty through special propositions and marketing schemes.

However, my own experiences suggest that NCP have failed to embed customer service and loyalty management principles where they matter – within the front line operational processes and staff activities. While frontline staff must take some responsibility, the company values, culture and staff attitudes are set by management example. Management ‘Walking the talk’ is the usual expression here.

My most recent story is long and complex, taking more than a year to resolve a customer service incident that occurred at Gatwick. The eventual unsatisfactory outcome was to lose my small claims court case which aimed to hold NCP accountable for their staff’s on-site actions. In court the Judge lambasted the customer services and car park manager for their attitudes to service and their failure to address the issue in any way. In particular he challenged why these managers attempted to act as witnesses or appeared in court at all, when they had no records of the staff on duty giving directions to customers, no camera coverage of the area, no reliable logs of current parking areas in use and no personal involvement in the incident as individuals. Precedent and contractual ‘small print’ saved them this time.

Of course NCP may have decided to go as far as spending thousands on legal support as they felt a principle was at stake, but why would NCP work so hard to destroy their reputation in public and with a long term corporate and personal customer? Did they make any attempt to review the case, to improve processes or staff training, or to address the Health and Safety issues raised, to understand the customers perspective, to consider the impact on future business? (which far exceeded the cost of this incident). Almost certainly they did not.

It is clear that money spent on flashy websites, hi-profile advertising and other marketing and sales efforts will not achieve customer loyalty. Promising a B2B proposition is not enough, your customers also expect promises to be kept and propositions to be delivered if they are to remain customers and continue buying.

Management need to lead by example, helping staff to understand the importance of company values and to embed and support the delivery of sound customer service through the everyday decisions and activities of all employees.

Think through the value chain implications of your offers and supporting services. Your buyer is not only the corporation or alliance involved, but also the employee or consumer as the eventual user, as an influencer and even as the decision maker for significant discretionary spend.

Delivering the basics is a start, but involving and listening to customers is even better. As users of your products and services in support of their business objectives, they often know and will tell you how to do better. Not only can you keep them and their ongoing spend, you can more easily find others like them – they will even help you to achieve this!

Bryan Foss is an independent board level advisor and non-executive director, founder of www.FossInitiatives.com and previously an executive with IBM.



		The B2B customer loyalty files: Experiences of the good, the bad and the ugly
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