Four CSFs for B2B Personalization

The weekly summary gave everyone an instant picture of status – green, yellow or red—along with what just happened, what was about to happen, and where the problems were.
The weekly summary gave everyone an instant picture of status – green, yellow or red—along with what just happened, what was about to happen, and where the problems were.

This is the final of four blog posts detailing how Agilent answered those questions to achieve a successful, integrated, customer experience that supports marketing and pleases customers.

Implementation plans only tell us how one team dealt with their specific context. But the lessons learned, and elements critical to success, can be applied to many projects.

Neil Martin, head of Agilent’s e-business when the projects began, shared his assessment of the conditions that made the rollout of MyAgilent and ICE successful: predictable, on budget, aligned with business objectives, and achieving business goals.

In all, there are just four conditions that Neil described as critical to Agilent’s success:
1. Clarity in objectives, strategy, roles, and responsibilities
2. Short, Customer-Driven Development Cycle
3. Effective and committed sponsorship
4. Concise and frequent communications

1. Clarity in objectives, strategy, roles, and responsibilities
Before the customer engagement projects even began, Neil forced his project managers and the executives to collaboratively develop and document clear objectives. Success must be measurable as the attainment of a specific numerical goal. The team set up the structure for the projects, including very specific roles and responsibilities. Neil said, “We worked on it so hard that people got tired of it. But we didn’t stop until we had clear accountability. A mistake teams often make is that accountability seems to only flow downward. Our roles/responsibilities hold all parties accountable. If you are on this project, you are accountable.”

2. Short, Customer-Driven Development Cycle
Agilent has guiding principles for projects: Set achievable project goals and meet them. Focus on critical priorities. External customers come first.

Neil and his project managers broke the customer engagement initiative into releases that delivered new capabilities every 6 months. All decisions were based on customer input and testing. As Neil observes, “There are so many internal opinions, it is hard to decide. So the default answer is customer testing and measuring customer preferences. The customer voice eliminates the internal debate.”

For example, the plan to require some level of customer login for downloads was very controversial within Agilent. There was staunch resistance and considerable anxiety about the customer experience impact. So the team built and deployed the login in such a way that it could be rolled back if customer reaction was negative. Knowing that customer satisfaction would guide the decision about the login requirement made the risk acceptable.

3. Effective and committed sponsorship
Executives have plenty on their plates, and conflicting demands. How do you get sufficient commitment to your projects that you can be successful?

Embed the outcome of your project into executives’ metrics. ICE goals included a higher customer satisfaction score, a large number of registered users, and a specific conversion rate for qualified leads. Various executives had ownership of these business goals. This establishes accountability as well as motivation to support the ICE project.

4. Concise and frequent communications
The Project Management Office, comprised of one very organized person working with a project office in IT, tracked the progress of all three ICE projects and coordinated their status. Since all three threads – MyAgilent, gated content, and marketing automation—were interdependent, all projects had to succeed. Every Friday, the PMO dashboard provided status of the entire program showing the key elements of each project. Overall status was summarized in a single PPT slide: elements were green, yellow, or red. Drilling down revealed the reasons for status. It was easy to see what the holdups were, and also clear what the to-dos and responsibilities were.

Executives, including the CIO and CMO, received a monthly review of business readiness of the projects’ capabilities, as well as formal program reviews.

Agilent Technologies is a world-leading measurement company. Its singular focus on measurement helps scientists and engineers alike with its designs and manufacturing of scientific instrumentation. The company is organized into four business groups: Chemical Analysis, Life Sciences, Diagnostics and Genomics, and Electronic Measurement. You might remember Agilent’s birth in 1999 as a spin-off from HP. This case study reflects customer experience and marketing evolution at the Electronic Measurement Group of Agilent.

Agilent is an illuminating example of how – and why—companies can succeed with personalization initiatives.

Advertisement

Published by Sue Aldrich

I'm a talented writer who connects business goals with technology, to get your message across through readable and engaging content. I have expertise in personalization, customer experience, journey optimization, recommendations, and search. I also research and write articles on sustainability for my hometown newspaper, Sterling Meetinghouse News.

44 thoughts on “Four CSFs for B2B Personalization

  1. A vacuum cleaner is the best of cleaning tools; it can be the
    higher priced. You’ll find many different sorts
    of vacuum with various attributes. Therefore before buying a premier vacuum-cleaner
    be sure you know what class of vacuum cleaner is greatest for
    your needs.

    Selecting the best vacuum-cleaner might be perplexing.

    To make points clearer you should be aware of what the
    different sorts of vacuum are, what the chief features you can find on a hoover, and desire you sort of
    flooring you will be using a vacuum-cleaner on.

  2. Greetings I am so glad I found your website, I really found you by mistake, while I was
    searching on Digg for something else, Anyhow I am here now and would just like to say cheers for a remarkable post and a all round interesting blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to read through
    it all at the moment but I have bookmarked it and also added in your RSS
    feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read much more,
    Please do keep up the superb job.

  3. I truly love your site.. Pleasant colors & theme.

    Did you make this web site yourself? Please reply back as I’m looking to create my own personal site and
    would love to find out where you got this from or what the theme is named.
    Thanks!

  4. Greetings! This is my first visit to your blog!
    We are a team of volunteers and starting a new
    initiative in a community in the same niche.
    Your blog provided us beneficial information to work on. You
    have done a wonderful job!

  5. First of all I want to say awesome blog!
    I had a quick question in which I’d like to ask if you
    do not mind. I was curious to find out how you center yourself and clear your thoughts before writing.

    I have had a hard time clearing my mind in getting my ideas out.
    I truly do take pleasure in writing but it just seems like the first 10 to 15 minutes are
    lost simply just trying to figure out how to begin. Any recommendations or tips?
    Thanks!

  6. Hi it’s me, I am also visiting this website daily, this website is actually pleasant and the visitors are
    really sharing fastidious thoughts.

  7. This is a good tip particularly to those fresh to the blogosphere.

    Simple but very accurate information… Many thanks for sharing this
    one. A must read post!

  8. Thank you for every other informative website.
    Where else may just I am getting that kind of information written in such an ideal method?
    I have a mission that I’m just now working on, and I’ve been on the look out for such
    information.

  9. Thanks for one’s marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you are a great author.
    I will be sure to bookmark your blog and will eventually come back
    someday. I want to encourage you to ultimately continue your
    great writing, have a nice morning!

  10. Link exchange is nothing else except it is just placing the other person’s blog link on your page at
    appropriate place and other person will also do similar in favor of you.

  11. Magnificent beat ! I wish to apprentice even as you amend your site, how can i subscribe
    for a weblog web site? The account aided me a appropriate deal.
    I had been a little bit acquainted of this your broadcast offered bright transparent concept

  12. Aw, this was an incredibly nice post. Spending some time and actual effort to produce
    a good article… but what can I say… I procrastinate
    a whole lot and don’t seem to get anything done.

  13. I savour, lead to I discovered just what I used
    to be looking for. You have ended my four day long hunt! God Bless you man. Have a great
    day. Bye

  14. Definitely imagine that that you stated. Your favourite reason appeared to be on the web the simplest thing to understand of.
    I say to you, I definitely get irked whilst people think about
    concerns that they just don’t recognise about. You managed to hit the nail upon the
    highest and outlined out the whole thing with no need side-effects ,
    folks can take a signal. Will likely be back to get more.
    Thanks

  15. Heya i’m for the first time here. I came across this board and
    I to find It truly helpful & it helped me out much.
    I hope to give something again and help others such as you helped me.

  16. Fantastic website you have here but I was curious about if you knew of any community forums that cover the
    same topics discussed here? I’d really love to be a part
    of online community where I can get feedback from other experienced
    individuals that share the same interest.
    If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Thank you!

  17. You can certainly see your enthusiasm in the work you write.
    The world hopes for even more passionate writers such as you who are not afraid
    to mention how they believe. All the time go after your heart.

  18. I was very happy to uncover this page. I wanted to thank you for your time for this particularly fantastic read!!

    I definitely appreciated every part of it and I have you saved to fav to check out new information on your
    website.

  19. Nice post. I learn something new and challenging
    on websites I stumbleupon everyday. It will always be helpful to read through content
    from other writers and use a little something from their websites.

  20. I used to be suggested this web site by means of my
    cousin. I am no longer positive whether or not this submit is written via
    him as nobody else recognise such detailed about my trouble.
    You are wonderful! Thanks!

  21. That is very fascinating, You’re an overly professional blogger.
    I’ve joined your rss feed and sit up for looking for more of your magnificent
    post. Additionally, I’ve shared your site in my social networks

  22. Definitely consider that that you stated. Your favourite justification appeared to be on the net the easiest thing
    to bear in mind of. I say to you, I certainly get irked whilst people consider
    issues that they just do not understand about. You controlled to hit the
    nail upon the top and also defined out the entire thing with
    no need side effect , other people can take a signal.
    Will likely be back to get more. Thanks

  23. Hello blogger, i must say you have high quality content here.
    Your website can go viral. You need initial traffic boost only.
    How to get it? Search for; Mertiso’s tips go viral

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: