How are B2B software companies positioned to shift towards a digital-first customer experience (CX) in a post-COVID world? There are many dots to connect and levers yet to pull.
The State of Digital CX Series examines the B2B corporate technology landscape. Our focus is on the sectors that have experienced accelerated growth and rapid innovation and compete in extremely crowded marketplaces.
We chose HR Tech as our jumping off point because it is a large and complex space with over 4,000 solution providers in new and evolving categories. It is challenging for prospective buyers to evaluate their options and possibilities with so many vendors and different types of platforms available. And, it’s a prime example of where the application of digital CX best practices (or lack thereof) will be a difference-maker going forward.
ComBlu reports provide insights and benchmarking on strategy and tactics for clients. We use a proprietary methodology that measures customer experience delivery against best practices in a variety of marketing applications.
In this report series, we scored vendors against digital CX principles in content strategy, messaging, UX/UI, reputation, VoC and service and support.
Sample Set
We selected a cross-section of ten core HR platform providers to benchmark; those serving SMB and/or Large Enterprise and representing a mix of industry “incumbents” and “disrupters.” Some offer additional applications outside the core Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS).
Key Learnings
There were three standouts in the group. Workday, SAP and Paylocity demonstrated the highest best practice adoption in digital CX.
Overall performance was good, but there is still some work to be done. Solution providers could benefit from:
- Serving up more content and messaging that speaks to multiple decision-makers;
- Personalizing the experience and better integrating channels; and,
- Tailoring lead generation efforts to reflect a more customer-centric approach.
There were also definite standouts and examples of great execution and we want to recognize the best of them. So, we created a special addendum to showcase these best practice models in the following key areas:
Click here for instant access to the Digital CX Best Of’s Report. You’ll take away key learnings you can apply to your own efforts.
While most germane to those in HR Tech, these insights can be useful to other corporate B2B technology sectors, or really any B2B marketer that owns digital. The full report also contains data and trends of the evolving B2B Buying Center in general for SMB and LE, and it models a representative HR purchase process. It also looks at the growing influence of IT in these purchase evaluations.
To access the industry study, click here. To learn more about the results, digital CX best practices, or to scope your own peer study, reach out to us here.
Senior Consultant
Jenny is a digital content strategist, who leads customer-centric engagements that focus on understanding B2B buying behaviors and developing custom roadmaps.
Her expertise is creating buyer personas and mapping digital content journeys to assess the multi-channel user experience. She helps clients operationalize plans across workstreams and identifies processes to create efficiencies in marketing operations. Jenny also has extensive time under her belt developing and managing customer advocacy programs and community building.
She has helped a diverse group of organizations including Cisco, VMware, Verizon, Microsoft, Dell, BMO Harris, Capital One and many others become more customer-centric.