Your customers expect you to recognise, understand and serve them intelligently, drawing on existing data and your previous interactions. While building a single view of the customer is the holy grail for many B2B companies, most face the challenge of multiple customer data sources stored in functionally siloed systems.
Creating a ‘customer health index’ which pulls together data from across and outside your company will help build a picture of where you stand in each account at any time. In their book ‘Account-Based Growth’ (Kogan Page 2022), Bev Burgess and Tim Shercliff suggest creating a customer health dashboard drawing on customer relationship, employee engagement, customer outcomes, financial performance and ESG performance metrics.
Aligning your resources in this way will enable you and your team to take actions that continually strengthen your client relationships. If you’re ready to create your own customer health index, here are some ideas to consider.
1. Leverage existing tech
Begin by activating your own technology infrastructure, especially your CRM, marketing automation, ABM and CSM systems. You will need to leverage firmographics, technographics, psychographics, intent, and experience data on your customers, combining first-, second- and third-party data sources to create a 360º view.
2. Look ahead
Mine your data using AI and machine-learning tools, so that your index is predictive as well as retrospective. This will provide actionable insights for the team engaging with top customers. For example, you could develop scores for the level of engagement or advocacy you have with the account versus the engagement and advocacy you see your customers having with competitors.
3. Combine forces
Consider combining multiple operations teams into a single team or centre of excellence that manages performance across sales, marketing, and customer success for your top customers. RevOps and customer success management teams have made some progress towards this over recent years, but there is more integration to be done.
4. Respond with agility
The ability to respond to data about your customers in an agile way to improve your performance requires a certain style of leadership and culture. Balancing what’s good to know and what information will make you act differently is key.
Read more about managing data and aligning your internal resources in ‘Account-Based Growth’ by Bev Burgess and Tim Shercliff. Find more advice, viewpoints and case studies on our website www.inflexiongroup.com.
