To win in B2B commerce, consistently put a focus on customers at the center of all strategy and operations, Forrester Research Inc. says in a new report.
Amy Bills, vice president, principal analyst, Forrester Research
“The emphasis is on ‘consistently,’” Forrester says. Customer obsession, it adds, “is an ongoing effort with potential for near- and long-term wins the customer and the company reap the benefits.” The report, “The State of Customer Obsession in B2B, 2024,” was authored by Forrester analysts Amy Bills and Su Doyle along with other Forrester analysts.
Forrester says customer-obsessed companies realize substantial advantages over those that aren’t customer obsessed in several performance areas, including:
- 28% faster revenue growth.
- 33% higher profit growth.
- 43% higher customer retention.
- 44% better employee engagement.
Forrester says customer obsession is a “perpetual” business strategy
Sue Doyle, senior analyst, customer experience, Forrester Research
Forrester defines customer obsession as a “perpetual business orientation that puts the customer at the center of leadership, strategy, and operations.” It adds that “customer obsession is a high bar,” with only 27 B2B companies meeting the criteria for being customer obsessed in a 2024 survey of 538 B2B decision makers.
The report advises B2B companies to incorporate the following customer-obsession strategies:
- Accept change. View change as part of the process of improving and maintaining a focus on the customer.
- Use the right tools. Combine people, process, and data with the right technologies.
- Lead with courage and humility. Adhere to strong convictions but have the self-awareness to avoid rigidity.
- Eliminate silos. Enable and reward cross-functional and cross-regional collaboration.
“Customer-obsessed companies constantly seek new ways to innovate to meet ever-evolving customer needs,” the report says. “All customer-obsessed B2B respondents indicated that they regularly adjust budgets to respond to changing customer and market realities, while only 73% of B2B respondents at non-customer-obsessed companies said the same.”
Forrester cites a “win-win” for customer and company
The report adds: “Customer-obsessed companies seek win-win outcomes for the customer and the company,” the report says. “All B2B executive decision-makers at customer-obsessed companies agree that they focus short- and long-term financial goals on fulfilling customer objectives and analyze how customer loyalty and employee engagement drive business outcomes, compared to only 73% and 74% of non-customer-obsessed companies.”
Forrester says in the report that cloud-native data experience platform Domo Inc. demonstrated flexibility and willingness to evolve when it created a new vice president of customer marketing role to support the initiative to “make the Domo Central community the underlying digital experience for customers.”
The report also notes that Verizon Business ensured that customers as well as its sales agents benefitted from a new guided-selling solution. The Verizon team, Forrester says, “worked to integrate new tools into the digital tools the sales team already used in order to reduce the learning curve.”
Paul Demery is a Digital Commerce 360 contributing editor covering B2B digital commerce technology and strategy. paul@digitalcommerce360.com.
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