What’s frequent between Taylor Swift and B2B firms?
They each go all out of their fields to win over folks’s hearts and nurture a fan base.
Take Swift’s Eras Tour, for instance. It generated $2 billion in income and even benefited native economies. She created magic moments for followers all over the place.
“These are the examples I take a look at to hunt inspiration for the B2B world,” says Kevin Lau, Vice President of Buyer Engagement at Freshworks.
With the barrier to entry in software program as a service (SaaS) decrease than ever, he believes clients have extra software program choices now, and so they don’t hesitate to change. You may’t take buyer loyalty without any consideration anymore.
In a chat with me, Kevin shares what it takes to construct an ecosystem of enablers inside an organization to show clients into followers and enhance retention. He additionally shares recommendations on creating magic moments for purchasers of AI merchandise.
This interview is a part of G2’s Skilled Highlight collection. For extra content material like this, subscribe to G2 Tea, a publication with SaaS-y information and leisure.
Heat-up questions
What’s your favourite beverage? When do you get pleasure from it?
I get pleasure from boba, a type of milk tea, with my household. It is normally a chilly beverage, and also you get to eat the tapioca balls in it.
What was your first job?
After I graduated from faculty, I began consulting. I wished to create a social media enterprise, and this was method earlier than Twitter and Fb.
I took a course and spent over $20,000 to study the basics of relationship advertising. Then, I began taking some purchasers. That’s how I obtained began earlier than transitioning into the B2B world.
What’s your favourite software program in your present tech stack?
We use many alternative options. We use Base, which helps us reward, acknowledge, and curate buyer engagement.
We additionally use UserEvidence, which helps us curate extra customized and related third-party validation from our clients. It addresses lots of our ache factors and offers proof for our go-to-market (GTM) groups. Our group has discovered a number of worth in that software program.
What issues at work make you need to throw your laptop computer out the window?
Quite a lot of advertising people would empathize with me once I say this: anytime you attempt to sew knowledge collectively and combine methods, that may be an enormous problem.
The identical goes for locating the correct knowledge to assist or validate a number of the campaigns or packages you’re constructing. These are the sorts of issues that maintain me up at evening. It takes a number of energy and cycles to find out methods to greatest map that out, particularly when we have now numerous tech options.
Deep dives with Kevin Lau
Might you briefly describe your skilled journey and what introduced you to Freshworks?
Since my social media consulting days, relationship constructing, speaking to clients, and listening to their validation and suggestions have been necessary to me. I’ve been concerned about questions like: how do we modify the roadmap? How can clients be changed into followers, loyal customers, and advocates?
I’ve labored with organizations starting from giant firms like Google to smaller startups in Silicon Valley. I’ve centered on how we construct a thriving buyer base and communities of passionate followers and followers.
I had an excellent stint at Marketo earlier than the Adobe acquisition, which helped cement lots of my learnings and practices.
Later, I joined Freshworks and noticed many similarities with what Marketo was going by in its early days when it was attempting to refine its GTM method. They had been tackling the questions of tapping into buyer love and appreciation and harnessing it as a price differentiator for his or her enterprise.
Freshworks is exclusive within the sense that it has a raving fan base. Now we have 70,000 clients globally, and we faucet into buyer expertise professionals and folks on the frontlines speaking to assist brokers. They see these ache factors and perceive what it means to have an important buyer expertise.
Then again, our worker expertise providing ensures staff have an important expertise. These two philosophies stood out to me. I need to determine how we are able to proceed to do this proper for our clients and inner groups and create an important group.
How can firms extra clearly see a robust hyperlink between buyer engagement and income?
Once we consider a wholesome SaaS enterprise, there are two sides to the equation. One aspect is targeted on the lead era pipeline. The opposite is in regards to the post-sales expertise — how do you guarantee clients are happy?
Firms should stability these two sides as a result of if in case you have a leaky bucket, with you getting new clients whereas some go away you, it is advisable to determine what’s inflicting that friction.
We’ve constructed a devoted middle of excellence at Freshworks round partaking clients throughout their journey from the time they consider options. This method takes a holistic view of the buyer journey moderately than a partial one.
Our philosophy is creating clients for all times and going past a transactional relationship with them. Even when the engagement is a yr or two lengthy, it goals to show them into followers for all times.
What’s the significance of buyer followers to B2B firms? How can they use them to deliver better income?
Throughout the B2C world, iconic manufacturers like Apple, Microsoft, and even sports activities groups all have fandoms the place clients love merchandise, people, or gamers. The merchandise you market have inherent secret elements that make these engagements worthwhile.
“One other instance is Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, which introduced her and native economies nice revenues. The tour stood out as a result of she engaged her followers and created magic moments for folks each attending and never attending her concert events.”
Kevin Lau
Vice President of Buyer Engagement, Freshworks
I take a look at such examples to hunt inspiration for the B2B world.
Your providing is probably not as thrilling because the Eras Tour or an iPhone, however you’d have buyer followers who love your resolution. It could possibly be any resolution, from HR tech to IT software program.
You need to harness these clients and supply them publicity, and you’ll find yourself with model influencers. They love your product, so why not allow them to develop your online business within the course of?
Thanks for that elaborate reply. Buyer churn is a serious ache level for B2B firms at present. Have the elements inflicting it advanced over the previous few years?
After the pandemic, macroeconomic circumstances modified, and so did GTM methods. Firms are additionally present process digital transformation at a quicker tempo.
Companies are additionally contemplating better useful resource consolidation, streamlining to be extra productive and environment friendly, and extra intently scrutinizing their tech stacks.
“In the present day, there are method too many options on the market. The barrier to entry in SaaS is decrease now, and clients have extra flexibility and choices.”
Kevin Lau
Vice President of Buyer Engagement, Freshworks
In the event that they don’t have an important expertise, they don’t hesitate to maneuver on to a different resolution by a trial or a POC.
This implies you may’t take buyer loyalty without any consideration anymore. You might have restricted time to win over a buyer, whether or not they’re new or outdated. You need to deal with them with respect and care, particularly in the course of the preliminary 90-day window.
The magic moments or raving experiences I discussed assist them see the worth instantly. This could possibly be achieved by exhibiting them methods to use the product quicker, connecting them to loyal clients, or having them attend occasions. All of this ensures an impactful expertise, so clients are much less prone to churn.
You touched upon the rising variety of choices available in the market and the way clients might swap rapidly. Based on G2 knowledge, the AI product class is the quickest rising relating to the variety of merchandise being added. Do you’ve gotten suggestions for retaining clients for AI merchandise?
It goes hand in hand with onboarding, which I discussed earlier than. Now we have to satisfy the client the place they’re. Most firms are within the analysis part for AI merchandise.
They’re experimenting to see how AI may also help drive higher productiveness and whether or not it’s the suitable resolution to make staff profitable. For instance, with our Freddie AI product, we attempt to get clients by the beta course of.
They will play with the answer on this part and perceive some use instances. This helps us collect validation and suggestions earlier than the product goes stay within the basic availability stage.
AI additionally has many functions in buyer engagement. How is your group utilizing AI to higher buyer expertise and enhance loyalty?
AI helps us improve assist, which yields happier clients in the long run. It’s serving to us guarantee our clients get solutions to their questions, whether or not they relate to some ache factors they’re attempting to resolve with the product or just need assist. AI instruments assist us deflect tickets to make sure our clients see solutions quicker. We additionally use our on-line channels, together with boards and group networks.
On the group degree, we actively use AI for content material creation, measurement, and knowledge reporting.
How do you deliver totally different features in an organization to work collectively on churn?
The largest factor is to have a customer-first mindset. There’s an ecosystem at play that helps enhance buyer expertise and create followers in your firm.
Prospects shouldn’t expertise speaking to totally different groups or features in a corporation. It ought to be a unified expertise for them.
Apple is an efficient instance from the ecosystem perspective. Even for those who’ve had a nasty expertise with them as soon as, the general expertise issues extra.
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Sticky moments throughout the client journey hook you. Even within the B2B surroundings, clients view experiences from the same lens. They could have had a tough onboarding expertise or points with the contract. But when they’ve had different nice experiences, say from the assist group, they might be keen to miss minor infractions.
You’ve quoted examples from the B2C section. How do the principles of engagement change between B2C and B2B? What are a number of the engagement areas which can be extra necessary in B2B?
In B2B, the goal is far more particular than in B2C, the place you solid a wider web and your product is cheaper.
As a buyer, you should purchase a product utilizing your bank card on an e-commerce web site. Nevertheless, in B2B, a buyer goes by a number of gross sales cycles. You speak to engineers, pre-sales groups, and account representatives, and consider the product. You additionally contain a number of departments out of your firm. So, the shopping for habits is totally different.
So, B2B is extra about creating followers throughout totally different sectors of the shopping for firm. It’s extra like account-based advertising (ABM), whereby you don’t simply speak to practitioners utilizing the answer. You additionally have interaction mid-level influencers answerable for the fee middle and the executives to point out them worth. This improves the chance of shoppers staying.
What are a number of the most weak spots alongside the client journey the place they’re most probably to churn?
The onboarding expertise is among the many most important junctures from a retention perspective. That is the place the rubber hits the highway, and the client asks if the product delivers what the gross sales consultant promised. Additionally they ask whether or not they have the suitable instruments and sources to see instant worth.
The second juncture is near the renewal cycle. Nevertheless lengthy the engagement is, typically we wait too lengthy to make sure we have now the client on the high of our minds. We wait till the renewal cycle to speak to them proactively and nurture them. Behind the scenes, they could possibly be evaluating another options.
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Observe Kevin Lau on LinkedIn to unlock new methods of partaking clients and constructing a fan base in your firm.