The Case for Investing in a Voice of Customer Program - Part 1

In B2B marketing, is your distribution channel "playing ball" with you? Reporting back the outcomes of leads they've received? Selling your products? Protecting your brand? Did I hear you say, "NO" or maybe that was a, "Gee, I have no idea!"

You spend bucks in developing ads, placing them in vertical trade pubs, going to trade shows, executing direct mail campaigns, etc. Add to that the cost for the inside/outsourced talent to pull it off. When it's all said and done, the marketing folks have quite a chunk of change they've been entrusted to spend wisely (generate sales and reveal ROI metrics).

Then, the leads come. They are distributed to the captive sales rep who owns the opportunity, and the sales rep decides to dish some of the tasty leads off to the best-suited distributor. But, really, how well-suited is the distributor?


Is the sales rep sure that the distributor won't pull the old "bait and switch?" In other words, the distributor pushes the lead to buy a competitor's product because the competitor is offering the SPIF of the month. Or, better yet, does the internal sales rep know if the distributor partner is even picking up the phone to call or sending an email to follow-up with the opportunity?

Continue reading the article here on our blog.