Customer Segmentation for B2B Membership Sector

The Customer Attuned team has seen that making Customer Segmentation work effectively for the B2B Membership sector can deliver a variety of organisational benefits. Customer Attuned consultant Paul Cranston discusses the role of segmentation for the B2B membership sector.

The way organisations segment their customers can further divide already disconnected departments. Yes, as a marketer, I am particularly thinking of the sales and marketing functions! Incorporating the needs of Customer Success teams can further exacerbate this division. Marketing might define personas based on specific problems while Sales might segment based on projected fees because of an organisation’s published turnover. Customer Success teams, however, might segment customers based on resolution time targets or Cost of Customer Effort.

However it is done, Customers are typically valued differently by different internal departments. And most data points are not even defined by the customer. The risk is that one team might value one customer differently to another. As a result, effort exerted by one team can be at odds with the effort of another.

Segmentation for B2B Membership Organisations

That is the situation in many commercial entities. Now consider the impact of this scenario where the ‘customers’ are members. What if they pay a subscription for association and additional benefits, but may not actually make any direct transactions? Or if some membership consume expert industry insight from the organisation while others buy physical services?

This raises a fundamental concern for the B2B Membership sector:

How do they serve members and customers fairly and effectively?

When segmentation is defined according to just membership fees, there is a risk that transactional customers might get overlooked with potential value left on the table.

When segmentation is defined by the commercial services, the member might feel coerced into buying services just to receive value from the relationship.

There is a need to establish a clear framework for how to best serve members and / or customers to ensure that the relationship produces the level of value desired by all concerned.

Membership organisations are benefiting from a new approach to customer segmentation, one that goes beyond the status of member or customer and is based on their attitudes and behaviours.

Segmentation for B2B

We have developed the Customer Segmentation Canvas in response to this very need; it is a new way to map your customers that puts trust and an appetite for deeper relationship at the centre of your strategies, plans and activities. Check out the videos for more information.

In contrast with other segmentation approaches, this framework asserts that there will be some members that are only in the relationship because, perhaps, there is a regulatory requirement for them to do so. These members want no more and should be left alone. And this is OK. It also recognises that some members that are also service customers have the desire and the capability to explore new value-creating opportunities, and that there are those in between. Positioning members and customers in this way provides the membership provider with a framework for service delivery that is appropriate to what the members and customers need in order to receive value from the relationship.

The benefits of effective segmentation to B2B Membership Sector

This Customer Segmentation framework provides a number of benefits to B2B Membership Organisations:

As well as feeding data into the segmentation approach, a Voice of the Customer campaign reminds the customer that you are there AND gives them an opportunity to be heard
Diving in to the data (to ascertain the Segmentation position) is an opportunity to re-evaluate the nature of data held – is it in the customer’s interest or the organisation’s? Do KPIs focus on your service or the customer’s experience? Is it GDPR compliant?
A systematic approach to segmentation ensures that customers are segmented fairly and not based on any (departmental) bias, that can be regularly updated without manual intervention
Because the Segmentation approach is focused on the customer, it does not favour one team over another – this avoids any department feeling overlooked or less valued
The outputs support the whole organisation – SLAs can be defined based on what the customer wants; members that want a light-touch relationship can receive just that. In contrast, customers that have an appetite for a deeper relationship can have Key Account Management attention that works to grow and deliver mutual value.

Customer Attuned has created a tried and tested approach to customer strategy development (applicable for B2B Membership sector and commercial B2Bs) that features Customer Segmentation as a service. If you would like help with your Customer Strategy or segmentation, please get in touch with us.

If you like this content, you might also like:

Customer Segmentation for Sales

Customer Segmentation for Customer Success

Author
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Paul Cranston

Associate Director at Customer Attuned

Paul helps organisations better understand their customers so that their marketing and customer management can be more effective. He has over 20 years’ experience in business communications, marketing and strategy enabling significant business growth primarily in the B2B sector.