It’s time for the tricky ‘second album’ as we launch the second episode of our podcast. With a fantastic special guest in the form of Karen Gilbert, Head of Marketing at Embrace Digital, we look at how to improve customer experience from a marketing perspective.
The Think Beyond Marketing Talk podcast focuses on hot issues that are relevant to today’s marketers. Tune in as we mix a blend of fabulous special guests and thought-provoking topics to inspire both B2B and B2C audiences. We are planning 12 episodes in total so don’t miss out and have a listen!
A third-party perspective on customer experience
Karen is a specialist in B2B technology marketing, having worked with a range of brands from fast-growing start-ups to global software providers. Karen enjoys using her expertise to successfully communicate technical and complex propositions to a wide audience. She believes B2B marketers have a huge opportunity to create better relationships with clients.
Embrace Digital is a technology focused consultancy and services provider, providing business efficiencies through process automation. They use best of breed technologies in scanning, data capture, workflow and robotics to streamline business processes. They work predominantly with clients in legal, banking and finance.
Why improving customer experience?
Of all the possible topics we could cover, customer experience affects us all. From a visit to a shop to online shopping, emails to calls into customer services, there are many touchpoints. Readers may have seen recent headlines such as, “Customers tired of Covid-19 excuse for poor service”.
This is something that many of us understand. Long call waiting, slow responses to emails, queries unanswered and orders delayed. In the field of B2B marketing, CX is something most people don’t see. If you are directly involved in a customer-supplier relationship, how good is the CX? Did it appear good at the start and then when problems arose it fell apart? Were your queries subject to long SLAs? Are you left to interact via online chat? Let’s hear what Karen has to say about how to improve customer experience.
How the experience has changed
Karen defines customer experience as “all of the interactions that you have with an organisation”. It is widely accepted that there was an acceleration towards digital channels due to the manual pandemic. Karen suggests that the uptake was larger than many anticipated, and some companies are now establishing long-term plans.
Furthermore, where experiences move towards digital, there are ‘portals’ and ‘self-serve’ options. Karen emphasises the need to have a slick back-end process behind any such digital portal. A shiny new frontend does not necessarily make things easier if the process behind it remains cumbersome.
Customer experience by channel
We mentioned in a previous article how important it is to have an ‘omni-channel approach to CX’. Karen emphasises how important this is and to look at a streamlined experience across all channels. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, Karen says that, “you don’t want to differentiate customer experience across channels so that someone has a poor experience through one channel”. Secondly, Karen adds that you may “get a significant proportion of people that are not choosing digital”. This is important because this proportion still needs to be managed effectively and optimised otherwise “you will never get the return on investment from your digital projects”.
Understanding the customer journey, the CX along the way, why deals and customers were lost is hugely valuable. Marketing has access to that data and can add value that informs the sales process.
Looking to marketing to improve customer experience
We asked how marketing can ‘step up’ and help deliver amazing customer experiences. Karen had plenty to say about the opportunities that are available. In particular, in the B2B arena, particularly in technology and software, marketing is often “visible in two places”. Karen is keen to go beyond just two marketing interactions “when trying to sell to prospects” and “when we want a case study at the end”. This is not the basis of a good relationship between clients and marketers.
Karen asks all businesses to “support marketing in being introduced earlier and being able to generate a relationship that is mutually beneficial because there is so much more you can offer”. This extends to user communities and genuine interactions rather than opportunities for upsell and cross-sell only. A lack of authenticity to understand how the experience is working will not work. Karen implores marketers to build a genuine relationship with customers and to use those metrics and insights to improve sales and service processes.
Our second episode experience
In number 2 of 12 planned episodes, we were fortunate to have a generous contribution from Karen. We offer our thanks to both Karen and Embrace Digital for allowing Karen to take part.
Think Beyond is a management consultancy offering research, planning and change services. Our customers cover B2B and B2C industries and medium to large businesses. We also offer services to enable existing customers with digital, content and design services.
If you would like to speak to one of our friendly team, simply call 01565 632206. Also, if you pop a few details into our handy form, we will call you back.
Alternatively, why not drop us a line at sales@think-beyond.co.uk with your question.
Finally, why not check out episode 1 about the marketing fundamentals.
As before, to listen to the podcast you can check it out on Anchor, Google or Spotify. The links below take you to the podcasts to have a listen.
