Existing customers need less persuading to try your products and more reasons why they should continue the relationship with your company. Savvy B2B marketers are shifting their focus to thinking about the long-term relationship they are creating when they win a new account, as opposed to solely concentrating efforts on winning business. Maintaining and nurturing relationships with customers requires teams across the company to align on goals, data and tactics in order to drive additional revenues from existing customers and accounts.

What steps should B2B companies take to deepen their relationship with current customers?

Marketers who provide an ongoing service to their accounts need to clearly demonstrate the inherent value in being a customer. Educational content and stellar customer service are key tools that enable customers to find success and give them support when problems arise. Once customers understand the value of the relationship, it makes it easier to sell them more products and services. B2B companies with a formal cross-sell and upsell strategy in place are able to introduce accounts to different add-on options. Loyalty programs can also drive behavioral shifts in the customer base. Additionally, igniting customer advocates to share their success stories can encourage incremental growth. Tracking renewal and churn rate is key. B2Bs should also have a winback plan in place to address customers that have defected.

What are the most common activities B2Bs should implement as part of their customer success program?

US B2B marketing executives make regular account updates (82%) a standard part of their customer success programs, according to December 2017 research from Regalix. Also common are tutorials and demos (63%) and live screen-shares to help use the product (60%).

What are common metrics to track customer value?

Customer feedback, as well as data from all customer touchpoints, should be integrated to calculate customer value measures. Common metrics used are cost to serve, lifetime value, net promoter scores and share of wallet. With these measures in mind, B2B companies must look at multiple dimensions, including risk analysis, to determine how much attention and service should be given to accounts. Predictive modeling can determine which accounts have a higher propensity to spend more over time.

WHAT’S IN THIS REPORT? This report examines how B2B marketers and other client-facing teams should approach their customer growth efforts.