Business to business customer engagement reaches critical stage

IT Services Marketing Association (ITSMA), Business Marketing Association (BMA) and the Customer Strategy Group announced the release of a survey aimed at studying B2B customer engagement. The survey is intended to help participants understand and deploy best practices in successfully engaging and leveraging key customers. Results of the survey will be presented in the “Report on Leading Practices in B2B Customer Engagement” session at the 2009 Summit on Customer Engagement, which will take place at the end of October.

“The need for B2B firms to get better at engaging with key customers has reached a critical stage,” says Bill Lee, President of Customer Strategy Group. “Sales people need quality references more than ever in order to sell.”

Julie Schwartz, Senior Vice President of Research and Thought Leadership at ITSMA concurs, “Your lowest-cost and most-probable source of revenue is your existing clients. Trusted relationships with strategic accounts translate into marquee references, positive word-of-mouth, and valuable insight into the most effective new offers.”

B2B firms have developed a number of useful customer engagement programs, including customer reference programs, advisory boards, executive forums, word-of-mouth and user groups. More recently, social media tools have created an explosion in online customer interactions and community.

“The potential for these programs is tremendous,” Lee said. “The problem is that they’re often not integrated with each other or with other internal groups, and thus don’t create a compelling value proposition for the customers or a real impact on revenues.”

Survey questionnaires are now available. Companies interested in participating in can contact Bill Lee of the Customer Strategy Group at info@customerstrategygroup.com.