Which is more important for B2B Sales: Customer Service or Price?

When I first started selling business-to-business (B2B) services, I really believed all the people who turned me down by saying, “It’s too expensive.” I sweated over whether I was charging too much. When I tried to sell directly online to other businesses, I worried even more about pricing.

In today’s interview, Shem Szot, eCommerce Biz Development & Digital Marketing Manager at HP in Toronto argues that price is actually less important in B2B than in B2C. He believes that because “the sales cycle in B2B starts the second you finish signing the previous contract” customer service and customer experience, both pre- and post sale, are what matter most.

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B2B Customer Service Metrics

In the interview we talk a lot about the metrics that help you know if you are executing well on your service promises, including some you may not have thought of, such as:

* Are we delivering on time?

* How large are our backlogs?

Dreaded Dashboard Metrics Creep

We discuss the dangers of dashboard metrics creep. If you keep adding metrics every time somebody suggests a new one that might be valuable, you soon end up overwhelmed with too much data.  As Shem put it:

Channel Conflict

Other topics of discussion include:

* The difficult balance for manufacturers who want to sell online but also through channel partners. (I also discussed this issue in the article How To Sell Online Without Upsetting Retail Partners).

* The fact that B2B sales to small businesses are often much more like B2C sales.

* How to use a “coaching” approach to win support for the changes the metrics tell you are needed.

* Taking a Kanban approach to setting priorities. Figure out what’s most important now, and eliminate distractions.

Special Offer For You

Shem will be speaking at eTail Canada in Toronto May 11-14, 2015. Use the offer code etailca15frank to get a 25% discount! And let me know if you’re coming: we can meet up!

Also, if you’d like to read the transcript of today’s interview, just send me an e-mail and I’ll get it to you in a few days, once it is ready.

Today’s Frank Reactions episode is a little different from our normal episodes.

We had our official launch party last week (check out the photo gallery below!) and as part of the launch Sherrell Steele, Manager of the School of Communications at Grant MacEwan University, interviewed one of my podcast listeners (Mariana Konsolos) about what benefits she gets from listening to podcasts. The audience also asked some questions about plans for Frank Reactions. Hope you enjoy this episode. Thanks to the amazing photographer, Dave McQueen, you can watch a video version of today’s interview. Here it is:

OK, so I’m biased.

I love podcasts because, once you get over the initial hurdle of figuring out what the heck they are and how to download them, you have a wealth of information and entertainment available to you. And you can listen to it whenever and wherever you want.

Listen when you are walking the dog, at the gym, driving, jogging, or having trouble falling asleep. (For that latter one you have two choices: either great content that will make it worthwhile to be awake or something truly dull that will help you sleep. There are even soothing music podcasts, such as Jim Butler’s Deep Energy 2.0, which I use when I’m really struggling to sleep.)

I recently listed some of my favorite marketing & business podcasts. Here are some of my favorite non-business podcasts:

Non-Business Podcasts I Recommend

From Our Own Correspondent – Some of the personal stories behind the international news, told by BBC correspondents.

TED Radio Hour – Listening to full TED talks can be frustrating because they usually start by saying “Contains powerful visuals”. The TED Radio Hour pulls out the best audio parts, and assembles 3 talks or so per episode into a theme. Host Guy Raz also integrates interviews with the speakers.

Click – Another BBC show, about technology.

Spark – CBC’s show on the intersection of technology and culture. One of the highlights of my life was appearing on Spark (Suspension of Disbelief in the Digital Age)

Forum – A World of Ideas. OK, I admit it, I like a lot of BBC shows. And it isn’t all about the cute British accents!

White Coat, Black Art – Dr. Brian Goldman talks about medical issues from the doctors’ perspective. (They only air new episodes in the fall, unfortunately.)

Freakonomics Radio – A blend of economics, sociology and psychology.

Writers and Company – Author interviews by Eleanor Wachtel, who is one of the best interviewers on the planet.

This American Life – Usually 3 or 4 mini-documentaries on a theme. Invariably interesting people and stories. Hosted by Ira Glass.

How Do You Get People To Help You When You Have No Clout?

I was a Parliamentary Intern in the last year of the Pierre Trudeau regime in Canada. Working with politicians you learn a lot about how to influence people and win them over to your side, even when you aren’t their “boss”.

My first job after the Internship was in business-government relations for the banking industry. I soon had the challenging experience of having to persuade staff across the country who didn’t actually report to me to do things I asked of them. Boring, time consuming things like preparing reports.

Needless to say, they often weren’t thrilled. Using some of the skills I learned as an Intern, I found that to get their cooperation I had to figure out a way that helping me would clearly also help them.

Sounds obvious, but often it isn’t.

If you work in customer experience you understand that providing better customer experiences is crucial to your company’s survival and success.

But when you go bugging people in sales or marketing or finance or operations to give you the data you need to drive up your Net Promoter Scores, they are sometimes surprisingly resistant.

In today’s interview,  Reginald Chatman, Senior Director, Customer Experience at Bloom Energy, explains why. He also explains how you can win them over.

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I first heard him on a webinar put on by the Customer Experience Professionals Association (CXPA), which I recently joined. His comments, which also inspired my recent blog post 14 Omens of a Brewing Customer Experience Problem, boil down to this:

 

Look at what metrics other departments already care about. Odds are, improving those metrics will also improve customer experience. So put your customer knowledge and research skills to use in helping them improve the metrics they care about.  The end result will be an improvement in the metrics you care about too.

He gives some great, specific examples in the podcast, so do give it a listen if you have the time.

If you enjoy the Frank Reactions podcast, please give it a review in iTunes or Stitcher. Together, we can make customer experience better for everybody!

If you don’t have time to listen to the full episode, here’s the Highlights version.

No time for the full episode? Here’s the highlights version:

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Like many people who get promoted into management, Brian Penzone didn’t have any experience leading a team of front-line workers on the manufacturing floor. But he knew one thing:

“I wanted to manage people the way that I would want to be managed.”

Sounds obvious, but it is so rarely done.

With help from Ray Attiyah’s team, he learned how to stop fighting fires, get advice from the front lines, and focus on continuous quality improvement.

Result?

He’s happier, his staff are happier, processes are more efficient, and quality has improved, so customers are happier. 

In today’s interview we hear how he made the change, how he keeps it going, and how it benefits his company, Lake Shore Cryotronics.

Keys To Successful Change Management for Quality Improvement

A few tips from the interview:

* Treat your staff as adults. (See more on this theme in my Chuck Blakeman interview.) Remember that, as Brian puts it, “the people who know best what needs to be changed are the people who do it every day.“

* Ask why things are done a specific way. It may turn out that the reason is long gone, and a much more efficient process is now possible.

* Look for a few early quick wins. When a staff member pointed out that having a flashlight to work more effectively in a dark space would be a good idea, the solution was implemented immediately with a quick run across the street to a hardware store. Seems like a “duh… obviously”, but people were so used to working in the dark that it took some rethinking to realize that there was a better way.

* Use metrics and data both to discover areas for improvement and to measure results.