Customer Experience: Driving Proximity And Empathy With Business

By Cathy Daum, SAP

In these challenging times, many wonder when business will return to normal and whether there is anything they can do now to ensure greater success in the future.

The short answer to the latter is, “yes,” and it starts with an investment in customer experience (CX) capabilities.

Why CX? Because CX is the key to creating what businesses need most in trying times: customer intimacy. Without customer intimacy, you cannot see your customers with a keen eye, or hear them with a perceptive ear.

A top-notch CX offering can benefit your business in myriad ways from building long-term customer loyalty and greater lifetime customer value to boosting conversion rates and average order values. It can transform what was once an impersonal, transactional-based process and make it more meaningful — for your customers AND your business.

Consider the proven economic benefits:

• Client-centric companies are 60 percent more profitable compared to others (Deloitte).
• Companies that lead in customer experience outperform laggards by nearly 80 percent (Qualtrics).
• 94 percent of consumers who give a company a superior CX rating are “very likely” to purchase more products or services from that company in the future (Qualtrics).
• 89 percent of companies compete primarily based on customer experience they provide (Gartner).

The value of providing superior customer experiences is something more technology companies realize with each passing day. The ability to empathize with customers is quickly becoming a differentiator for all organizations.

In CompTIA’s 2019 study, “Customer Experience Trends in the Channel,” the Chicago-based trade association found that two-thirds of partner organizations have made changes to the way they engage clients and provide technical support. These adjustments include retraining technical and sales staff, redesigning websites, hiring new talent, developing new capabilities and embracing emerging technologies such as AI, chatbots, and video.

Partners With Proper Priorities

Among those that have made changes and seen a real benefit is VistaVu Solutions, an SAP partner that provides business management software to customers in industrial manufacturing, aerospace, defense, and life sciences.

To help customers get the most value from their tech investments, VistaVu created a team of customer engagement executives (CEEs) whose sole job is to work closely with existing customers to troubleshoot problems and help achieve business goals. Since creating its team of CEEs, VistaVu has not only increased customer retention, it also has increased recurring revenue, which is often more valuable to stakeholders than traditional transactional revenue. Today, recurring revenue accounts for half of VistaVu’s annual turnover, according to CEO Jory Lamb.

Other SAP partners have gone even further. In addition to upgrading the experiences they provide to customers, many SAP partners have developed technology and processes for improving the experiences their customers’ customers enjoy. This includes Keytree Ltd., a 14-year-old, London-based technology consultancy and product developer that has made “experience design” a cornerstone of its award-winning business.

“We are driven by innovation and a passion for design and great user experience,” Keytree says.

What does this mean in practical terms? Improved business outcomes, for one thing. Take Keytree’s In-store Technology or KIT for short. Based on SAP technology, KIT is a digital sales tool that harmonizes online-and-offline sales engagements. KIT helps retailers with clienteling, assisted selling and data analysis — critical best practices in modern business-to-consumer sales. Since its launch, KIT has been implemented in retail and department stores from Canada to China, and in 12 different languages.

One KIT customer is Holt, Renfrew & Co., which operates a chain of high-end department stores in Canada. Using KIT, Holt Renfrew sales associates can engage customers via any medium they desire, help them locate any item they want and review their purchase history with them so they can coordinate future purchases with previous acquisitions.

“Store associates and managers are excited about the ongoing evolution of the tool and see it as a critical way to drive their business in the modern age,” says Jessica Gale, Director, eCommerce Operations & Development at Holt Renfrew.

From SAP To You

While we’re on the subject, let me close by sharing just a few of the ways SAP is improving partner experiences.

No doubt you have heard several of us at SAP discuss “next-generation partnering.” It’s something we take very seriously. We are confident that our latest programs, initiatives, and strategies will result in higher satisfaction for partners like you. Among other things, we are reviewing how we engage with you, the terms and conditions that we operate under, based upon the feedback we have received from partners globally. For example, we are committed to reducing the cost and complexity when it comes to training and certifying your personnel, leveraging our demo environments, and developing your intellectual property.

At SAP, we believe good partnering translates into better success for all. Together, we can elevate customer and partner experiences, resulting in better business outcomes that many vendors have not previously been able to produce in a predictable, consistent fashion.

I think you’ll agree we could all use a bit more of that now.

About The Author

As Global Senior Vice President of Go-To-Market and Scale Partnerships at SAP, Cathy’s role is to help accelerate profitable growth for SAP’s partners. She helps manage the programs and initiatives that underpin the success of SAP’s value-added resellers, systems integrators and hosting partners.