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The New Customer Journey Maze: 5 Implications For Marketers

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At a recent roundtable, where individuals focused on helping sales and marketing leaders gathered, Gartner presented interesting findings from its annual research project. The findings suggest that the assumption that B2B buyers progress in a linear fashion is fundamentally flawed. In a prior article, I discussed how the customer’s journey is really a set of “jobs to be done” (see article here). The consequence is that the customer journey looks more like a maze than a linear path or funnel (below).

CEB Analysis

Understanding that the customer journey is a maze and not a linear process has significant implications for marketing leaders. Below are five.

1. The unobservable process is a maze. Thinking about the B2B customer journey requires understanding that the process the salesperson observes the customer going through is just the tip of the iceberg. The customer, in addition to seeking information from the buyer, is also working behind the scenes to find information, validate it and align the organization. This represents 83% of their time, with only 17% spent with the salesperson.

2. Break the baton. Blow up the funnel. Historically, marketing focuses on the top of the funnel and then passes qualified leads off to sales. This approach doesn’t work in a world where the customer can visit the website right before the final purchase decision to find information or can become aware of the company from a salesperson.

3. Sales is just another information-delivery channel. If sales were conceived of as another information vehicle (just as websites, email, brochures, events, etc.), how would marketing think about integrating sales communication and activities with digital and traditional communications? Rather than tossing a qualified lead to sales, how can marketing create decision-enabling tools that can help facilitate the customer’s need for information?

4. Change the paradigm from one that is inwardly focused (the selling process) to one that is externally focused (solving customer’s information needs). During the discussion, Dave Brock, CEO/president of Partners in Excellence, suggested that language is part of the problem. Much of the buyer’s journey language centers on controlling their decision-making process. The shift that needs to occur is about solving the customer’s needs—and in the buying process, there is largely an information deficit. The buyer is in search of information to help them choose the right solution, validate that the decision is right, and to align/energize/and activate the broader organization.

5. Marketing and sales should be one function. And, the joint organization needs to move from sales enablement to customer enablement. From an organizational level, this means that marketing and sales must be managed as one department in order to create knowledge-delivery solutions that are seamless across channels. In most B2B firms, when marketing and sales are combined, there is typically a sales specialist who manages the two and considers marketing a “sales enablement” function—marketing exists to serve sales. However, this new insight suggests a much more balanced and integrated approach that is centered on “customer enablement”. The person who leads the function should be able to architect a department that can identify and predict customer needs and create information solutions, regardless of delivery channel. It no longer puts the salesperson in the center and asks marketing to create materials for sales…it is about identifying where and how marketing and sales activities, tools, and communications can best serve the customer’s needs.

In aggregate, what this means for marketers is a more engaged and active role throughout the pre-purchase period. Rather than being relegated to lead gen and qualification, it suggests that marketers should be empowered to help address customer information needs and facilitate a better, faster, more effective customer experience by providing the customer with the information they need, when they need it, in the manner (i.e., channel) that they prefer. Marketers have experience understanding how to manage multiple channels (e.g., omnichannel world). Empowering marketing to think about this in the context of the entire customer experience (versus the “top of the funnel”) should enable companies to create better experiences for customers. And as the Gartner research shows, companies that create an “easier” buying experience are rewarded with more satisfied customers who are more likely to repurchase (customers who experience regret over a complicated process are 50% more likely to engage in anti-advocacy behavior).

Join the Discussion: @KimWhitler