mommyjenlin

Is all this talk of "Customer Experience" within B2B Tech fluff? This is the question I asked Hubspot's two cofounders Darmesh Shah and Brian Halligan after their keynote speech at Hubspot's annual Inbound Conference . Their answers added to the momentum I have been observing and hearing. Yes, they felt Customer Experience, or whatever your organization names it, is massively important and is here to stay. At Hubspot their shift to a Customer Experience Company, or an Inbound Company as they call it (for a great detailed overview on this read @thesaleslions recent blog post ), is just another signal that providing and mapping a full Customer Experience will be an important part of the future of B2B companies. I believe marketing has an opportunity set the path to success. Below are some areas I see patterns around "Customer Experience" as it continues grow in B2B Tech: Marketing > Sales > Services: This is a trio that the HubSpot executives spoke ab...

A few years ago, IDC opened up a new research area within our "role-based" research area. We sought to understand, and define, and then Advise on an emerging role that we were seeing pop-up within the IT vendor community: The Customer Experience executive. It was a difficult area to research, as we were not able to get a consistent "fix" on the job description. In some organizations, the Customer Experience executive was the head of product quality. In other organizations, the newly-appointed Customer Experience executive was just a re-titling of the head of customer service. And, there were other, "loose" job descriptions across many vendor organizations. It has taken some time, but today the Customer Experience role (and mission) is becoming clear. This executive (and team) is charged with serving-up a unified and integrated buying experience for smart shoppers. The experience needs to fully encompass the "omni-channel" environment. The experi...

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization to experience what a patient, a family member or a healthcare consumer does when calling?   This isn't such a strange question.   We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service and enhance the experience. But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us. For this I have coined Mike's Law:   "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity. Let me give you an example. In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the extension or room number if you know it, o...

In the new world of healthcare where price, quality and a consumer paying more out-of-pocket costs for healthcare, social media and online marketing represents an opportunity that can be used advantageously to meet healthcare consumers demands for a better experience. Social and online represents a great opportunity for patient/consumer/business directed healthcare organizations to break from the pack, by creating a social/online healthcare experience that is memorable, exceeding an individual, business or families experience and expectations. Most healthcare organizations are still stumbling with using social media and the online experience to drive differentiation, meaningful information and experience. In any case, when you look at your social media strategy and online presence, does it: Delight your customer? Create sustainable differentiation? Is adaptable to new opportunities? Leverages your investment? Deliver in every situation? Or, is it just pushing out information that is th...

How often do you call in from an outside landline or cell phone, to your organization too experience what a customer does when calling? This isn't such a strange question. We all go through the evaluation process, seek the system we believe will reduce our cost, improve response and service, which will hopefully result in less dropped calls, increase customer or patient satisfaction and revenue. But you know, sometimes we make the system so complicated, that we forget why someone calls us. For this I have coined Mike's Law: "The smaller the organization, easier to use is the automated answering solution. The larger the organization, the more complex and harder the automated answering solution is to navigate." Use is very different than navigate. One implies simplicity, the other complexity. Let me give you a couple of examples. In calling a local hospital when a family member was hospitalized, it was really very straight forward. Dial in, hear the message, dial the ex...