NETTING IT OUT

Agilent has completed a successful three-year initiative that has resulted in a highly personalized customer experience, a dramatic increase in identified visitors, significant increase in registered users, and much more effective marketing campaigns.

Agilent did not start with a goal of “personalization.” It instead focused on customer engagement, envisioning a dialog that was valuable to customers and that increased customer intimacy. Agilent set specific numeric goals for customer satisfaction, registered customers, known users, and qualified leads.

Three projects were identified to implement the customer engagement strategy:

• MyAgilent personal page
• Marketing automation
• Gated content

Together, these three capabilities create a virtuous circle. MyAgilent capabilities and gated content encourage customers to log in; logged-in customers provide information on their interests; their interests drive the personalization of marketing’s communications. Marketing shifts from distracting to valuable, as customers see only useful information.

Agilent committed three years to the customer engagement initiative. The efforts, which were managed by the e-business team, touched customers, sales, marketing, IT, and customer service organizations. The team’s experience is summarized in four critical success factors:

• Clarity in objectives, strategy, roles, and responsibilities
• Short, customer-driven development cycle
• Effective and committed sponsorship
• Concise and frequent communications

MyAgilent Personal Page

© 2013 Agilent Technologies, Inc.

1. The MyAgilent personal page aims to quickly connect customers with information about all aspects of their relationship: Links to information about the equipment they use, status of their orders, alerts and news about their equipment, forums for advice on using the equipment, and their contacts at Agilent.

CHALLENGES OF B2B PERSONALIZATION

Companies struggle with establishing a personalized customer experience and executing an integrated customer engagement strategy. What are the specific goals? What are the steps to success? What are the projects and programs to achieve higher engagement, and how are they identified? Who owns the integrated customer experience? What is the value? Agilent’s answers to these questions, and how they achieved the answers, provide insight for those still wrestling with transformation.

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

Agilent did not begin with personalization as a strategy; it focused instead on a vision of customer engagement integrated with relevant and timely marketing. If marketing could know enough about customers to send only interesting and useful information, customers would benefit. They would interact more; and more interaction would provide the data necessary to tailor the communications. Valuable content was the magnet for customer attention: updates, alerts, and advice enabling successful measurements. Customer engagement would lead to more and better qualified leads.

About Agilent

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.

MYAGILENT DELIVERS THE EXPERIENCE CUSTOMERS CRAVE

Keeping Track of Relationships

“I just want to go to one page and see everything about my relationship: products, warranties, contracts, updates, alerts, projects, everything.” This has been a consistent refrain over the years from hundreds of Patricia Seybold Group clients’ business customers. This simple sounding request is not simple to deliver.

MyAgilent, the customer’s personal page for Agilent’s Electronic Measurement Group, delivers the personalized page customers have been asking for. It provides a single destination that merges more than a dozen separate systems and passwords. It allows customers to tailor the information they receive and, with one login and from one page, access the capabilities relevant to their jobs.

Keeping Track of People

A complicating factor: Each individual customer has a different idea of just which capabilities are relevant.

For example, purchasing agents spend time with open orders and contracts. They are not interested in information on how to calibrate equipment. Measurement engineers, on the other hand, spend their days using Agilent products, and they need to access to warranty & calibration information, product updates, service schedules, and product support. Engineers in design and production have tasks that require measurement equipment, and these engineers are interested in insights on new measurement technology and insights on how to make measurements effectively.

Organizing the Tools and Information

All of these roles are satisfied by MyAgilent by providing...

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