Your Customer Rules!. Bill Price

importance of moments of truth that required one-to-one interaction and connection.

      Adding even more complexity, today's customer service operations have many moving parts that don't communicate with each other. The range of interaction channels, such as contact centers, SMS, co-browsing, the Internet, and social media, has proliferated. The net result is the omni-channel dilemma. While customers have clamored for new ways to deal with organizations, for example, via text messaging to take advantage of their always-at-hand smart phone, and while organizations have pressed ahead to open new channels, few of these channels have been integrated. This only increases customer frustration – and on top of that, support costs – a lose-lose scenario.

      The Accenture Global Pulse, a study of customer attitude and behaviors across the world, reveals how frustrating this disconnect is for consumers.6 On a scale from 1 (“not frustrating at all”) to 5 (“extremely frustrating”), 23 percent of customers choose 4 and an incredible 66 percent choose 5 to describe their reaction to having to repeat the same information to multiple employees of a company or through multiple channels.

      Customer relationship management (CRM), widely in practice today, is a flawed methodology that isn't working. Those who promoted it pushed technology solutions to control the relationship with customers. The very name customer relationship management reveals the heart of the problem. The organization should manage the relationship, the theory went. But customers were never asked if they wanted to be managed by organizations. And who would have asked to be managed? We'd argue that no one should manage a relationship; relationships are shared rather than managed. CRM has been flawed from the start, but is even more at odds with today's business climate.

      The outcome of all this? Businesses continue to do stupid things that upset customers, like the ones captured in a U.K. survey: “Sending standard letters when I write an individual enquiry about something specific,” “They make everything so complicated,” and “Offering you the world when you're a potential customer and then treating you like crap when you're an existing customer.”7 Sound familiar?

      Welcome to the Me2B World: Now Your Customer Rules!

      Unsatisfying, clunky customer service experiences pose an even more serious threat to businesses' survival than they would have ten years ago. Today's customers have significantly more power. The Internet, social media, mobile access, and all the other recent dynamic changes have moved us far beyond the command-and-control era, when organizations could tell their customers what was best for them – while really aiming to increase short-term profits.

      For many years, people have largely categorized businesses in two models, B2B and B2C. B2B organizations sell to other businesses; B2C organizations sell to mass-market consumers. (There's also the more complicated third model, B2B2C, where an intermediate business such as a reseller or broker sells to the consumer.) These models suggest that the business controls and directs the relationship: They go to the other business, or to the consumer. They hold the power and direct the relationship.

      Meanwhile, in the past decades, we've seen these sweeping global changes:

      1. Social networks via the Internet have forever changed the way organizations operate. Customers, whether individuals or businesses, have access to limitless information about competing goods and services. And for the first time customers now have the opportunity to influence thousands, or even millions, of other customers; they are helping each other, often trusting their peers instead of the companies themselves. We call this C2C communication.

      2. We have entered the mobile age, where information travels with us and is at our fingertips. Customers can be anywhere and access Internet-sourced information, impacting decisions straight up to the point of sale.

      3. Internet-enabled transactions, the cloud, Big Data, and other technologies are transforming business models. Whole industries are being disrupted, in many cases significantly lowering the barrier to entry. The handful of upstart companies that have created new ways to operate and are successfully delivering scaled, personalized omni-channel customer experience have raised the bar for legacy businesses saddled with old and expensive ways to operate.

      4. The powerful Millennial generation is emerging as a customer base and has vastly different expectations of the buying experience. This generation has been raised on Amazon and Apple, as well as on the flexibility and power of rapidly growing C2C peer-to-peer sharing networks such as AirBnb, Uber, and Facebook. When they do act as consumers, they have higher standards for customer experience than their older siblings or parents and are less patient – and more willing to switch fast if treated marginally. That said, they are willing to remain brand or service loyal if treated well.8

      All these trends add up to a new reality: Customers, not businesses, hold the power. The only business model today, therefore, is not B2C or B2B but Me2B. Customers own the relationships and determine how they want to interact with the business. Businesses must shift their thinking to drive decision making from the consumer's point of view. Repeat after us: Me2B because the customer rules!

      There are some major implications of this reversal, threatening to some organizations but exhilarating and business defining to others.

      ● Customers have significantly greater choice. There is now so much information out there for consumers – online and offline, from their homes or when walking past stores – that this choice is now much wider than any one provider or company.

      ● Customer feedback, wants, and desires are broadcast loud and clear. No longer do organizations have to conduct outbound consumer tastes surveys, mall intercepts asking customers to answer questions while strolling around shopping centers, or other forms of expensive research. Customers are using a plethora of electronic mechanisms to tell their friends actively what they like and dislike, and to tell organizations what they think about them.

      ● Companies can no longer hide poor products or service. Third-party customer feedback sites encourage open postings and comments on others' experiences, and general social sites have proliferated as well. Any customer who encounters poor service can tell thousands of people in seconds, and since customers tend to trust other customers, even those they do not know, more than the companies themselves, the viral effect is amazing!9 YouTube views (and likes or dislikes) and other video options intensify these customer reactions, to the peril of organizations asleep at the wheel or in denial about their product or service performance.

      ● Pricing is transparent without leaving home or having to visit multiple stores. From their smart phones or tablets, thanks to comparison engines, customers know more about their choices than many sales clerks or product managers. Moreover, customers rebel when they encounter variable pricing by time of day or by customer segment. They seek the lowest possible price and have bots and applications to tell them when their desired flight is cheaper or when they win a bid for a hotel stay at their preferred price.

      This much more is clear: Businesses that fail to find ways to satisfy customer needs at scale – using all of today's channels and providing the sort of experiences we remember from the mom-and-pop days – will not survive.

      Back to Fundamentals in the Me2B Era

      Not all is lost. Some businesses today are thriving at delivering the experience that customers need. We call these customer experience heroes Me2B Leaders. They understand that the customer rules. They are outpacing their competition in sales growth, profitability, customer and employee retention, and other key metrics. Companies like Amazon, Apple, Disney, IKEA, John Lewis, Lego, Nordstrom, Southwest Airlines, USAA, and Virgin are household names and often appear in published rankings of best customer experience.10

      However, some of the Me2B Leaders are younger, rapidly expanding companies like Shoes of Prey or companies well known in their own countries such as Vente-Privee in France or Yamato Transport in Japan, but less known outside their home markets.

      We were motivated to write this book as a

6

Accenture. 2013. “Accenture 2013 Global Consumer Pulse Survey: Global & U.S. Key Findings.” Accessed May 20, 2014. http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Global-Consumer-Pulse-Research-Study-2013-Key-Findings.pdf.

7

Cullum, Philip. 2006. The Stupid Company: How British Businesses Throw Away Money by Alienating Customers. National Consumer Council, p. 9.

8

Marketing Charts. 2014. “Millennials and Brand-Marketing: A Complicated Affair.” March 25. Accessed May 17, 2014. http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/traditional/millennials-and-brand-loyalty-a-complicated-affair-41522/.

9

Morrison, Kimberlee. 2013. “[Infographic] Peer Recommendations Are More Influential Than Any Other Form of Advertising.” SocialTimes, November 7. Accessed May 20, 2014. http://socialtimes.com/90-percent-consumers-trust-earned-media-form-advertising_b137463. See also Peppers, Don, and Martha Rogers. 2012 Extreme Trust: Honesty as a Competitive Advantage. New York: Penguin.

10

Temkin Group. 2014. “Top 10 in 2014 Temkin Experience Ratings” (cycling entry; requires JavaScript). Accessed May 20, 2014. http://www.temkinratings.com. See also Beyond Philosophy. 2014. “Global Customer Experience Survey 2012–2013, Executive Summary.” Accessed May 20, 2014. Copy can be requested at http://www.beyondphilosophy.com/thought-leadership/global-leaders-survey/.