NETTING IT OUT

One of the recurring Customer Scenarios for both consumer and business customers is the need to manage their relationship with a supplier with whom they do business on a recurring basis. We call this the “Help Me Manage My Stuff” Scenario. Customers typically want to be able to update their profiles, preferences and payment mechanisms, see what they’ve bought in the past, reorder, manage their spend, categorize what they’ve spent money on, and have some control over the assumptions that the supplier makes in alerting them to special promotions or items it thinks might interest them.

B2B customers want the same things, but with a few extra capabilities, such as being able to authorize multiple employees to view/order/return/etc. products via the web site, arrange for a single invoice/statement for multiple registered credit cards, negotiate corporate discounts, and tag purchases with project names or numbers, among other features.

Staples.com has done a great job of making it easy for customers—both consumer and business—to find, purchase, and return products; get rebates; and receive rewards for monies spent. But how does it do in a scenario in supporting a small business customer’s account management needs as he tries to “manage his stuff?”

As you’ll see, Staples doesn’t offer everything that the customer wants, especially for very small businesses. Here’s our customer experience audit of a typical B2B “manage my stuff” scenario.

Use this CX Audit to compare with your own company’s implementation of “Manage My Stuff” for your business customers.

Staples Advantage

(Click on image to enlarge.)

© 2011 Staples, Inc.

Illustration 1. Corporate accounts at Staples are for organizations of over 20 employees, which can leave small businesses to fend for themselves.

HOW WELL DOES STAPLES.COM HELP SMALL BUSINESS CUSTOMERS MANAGE THEIR STUFF?

How Easy Is It to Manage and Control Your Company’s Spending at Staples.com?

Since the best way to evaluate how well a company is really doing at supporting customer needs is with a customer scenario, we tested Staples on these B2B capabilities by following the scenario: I want to manage my company’s account and spending on Staples.com.

In this customer experience web self-service audit, our customer persona is Steve, the new office manager for Cooperman Designs, a 17-person small business. The previous office manager, Lydia, had a personal online account at Staples, which she had nicknamed Cooperman Designs. She has her log in and password, and he wants, first of all, to change ownership of the account to his name and to catch up on past ordering so he can manage his organization’s spending on Staples.com, their primary source for office supplies, furnishings, and small electronics. He also wants to switch to a business account so he can do more with the account, such as tag purchases with specific project names/numbers. His wish list for things he wants to be able to do are listed in Table A...