B2B Insights Podcast #71: Client Spotlight – The Value of B2B CX Research

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In this episode of the B2B Insights Podcast, Louise Walton-Coy, Research Director at B2B International, speaks with Ryan Davies, Senior Business Transformation Manager for Customer Experience at Rotork, about the evolving role of customer experience, the growing importance of Voice of the Customer programs and how CX research can help organizations make more informed decisions.

With nearly two decades of experience across customer experience, Ryan shares his perspective on how CX has evolved from a traditional customer service function into a strategic discipline that spans every customer touchpoint. He also discusses how Rotork uses customer insight to identify improvement opportunities, prioritize action and strengthen customer relationships.

Through a combination of transactional and relationship-focused research, Rotork has developed a robust Voice of the Customer program that helps the organization better understand customer needs, benchmark performance and drive meaningful business change.

Hear Louise and Ryan discuss the challenges and opportunities facing CX teams today, the importance of turning insight into action and why customer research remains a critical component of any customer-centric strategy.

Key discussion points:

• How customer experience has evolved beyond traditional customer service functions
• The key differences between B2B and B2C customer experience strategies
• Why Voice of the Customer research is essential for identifying priorities and driving change
• The value of benchmarking CX performance against competitors and broader industry standards
• Looking beyond metrics to understand the reasons behind customer sentiment
• How Rotork uses CX research to improve customer satisfaction and support business transformation initiatives
• The importance of storytelling when presenting customer insight to stakeholders
• Why AI should enhance, rather than replace, the human side of customer experience

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Introduction

Louise Walton-Coy (B2B International): Hello and welcome back to the B2B Insights Podcast. I’m Louise Walton-Coy, Research Director at B2B International and your host for today’s episode.

I’m joined by Ryan Davies, Senior Business Transformation Manager for Customer Experience at Rotork.

Today we’ll be discussing the evolution of customer experience, key trends shaping the industry and the value of customer experience research in B2B markets.

Ryan, thank you for joining me.

Ryan Davies (Rotork): Great to be here, Louise. Thank you for inviting me to have this conversation about customer experience and research.

I’ve worked in customer experience for nearly 20 years across a range of sectors, including utilities, healthcare and now engineering and manufacturing.

I currently work at Rotork, a global engineering and manufacturing organization headquartered in Bath. We specialize in actuation solutions for customers across industries including oil and gas, water, power, chemicals and industrial processes.

It’s been fascinating applying customer experience principles in a B2B engineering environment, and I’m looking forward to sharing some of those insights today.

How Customer Experience Has Evolved

Louise: You’ve worked in customer experience across several industries over many years. How have you seen the discipline evolve during that time?

Ryan: Historically, most organizations had a Head of Customer Service or Customer Service Director whose primary focus was managing inbound customer interactions such as phone calls, emails and, going back far enough, even faxes.

What we’ve seen over the last decade is the emergence of customer experience as a much broader discipline.

Customers interact with organizations through many different touchpoints, whether that’s a website, marketing materials, products, digital tools or frontline teams. Customer experience is really the sum of all those interactions.

As a result, we’ve seen organizations introduce dedicated customer experience leadership roles focused on defining how they want customers to feel throughout their journey and ensuring the right measures are in place to evaluate success.

A key part of that is Voice of the Customer activity, which allows organizations to understand how customers actually experience those interactions.

The Challenge of an Increasingly Complex Customer Journey

Louise: There are certainly more channels available to customers today than ever before. What impact has that had on managing the customer experience?

Ryan: Historically, organizations mainly managed phone calls and emails. Today there are many more channels, including web chat, self-service tools and AI-powered solutions.

However, I’m a strong believer that these technologies should enhance the work of frontline teams rather than replace them.

If technology can automate routine tasks and free up time for employees to focus on delivering a more personalized experience, that’s a huge win.

At Rotork, for example, automation can help process information more efficiently, but it’s ultimately the expertise of our engineers and customer-facing teams that enables us to deliver solutions tailored to each customer’s needs.

The technology may change, but the fundamentals don’t. Great customer experiences still depend on knowledgeable, well-trained people.

B2B Versus B2C Customer Experience

Louise: How do you see customer experience differing between B2B and B2C organizations?

Ryan: There are significant differences.

In B2C environments, experiences often vary based on the business model. Some organizations compete on convenience and low cost, while others differentiate through premium experiences.

As consumers, we often choose between those options depending on our needs and circumstances.

In B2B, however, relationships tend to be longer-term and significantly more complex.

Products are often highly specialized, decisions involve multiple stakeholders and technical expertise plays a much bigger role.

As a result, customer experience becomes less transactional and much more relationship-driven. Success relies heavily on trust, expertise and understanding the customer’s business.

Louise: We see that reflected in our own research. B2B purchasing decisions typically involve multiple stakeholders and much longer decision-making processes, which naturally creates additional complexity.

Ryan: Absolutely.

One of our key goals at Rotork is making it easier for customers to do business with us.

Research plays an important role here because it helps us identify pain points, understand customer needs and combine those insights with process data and employee feedback to improve the overall experience.

Voice of the Customer programs are particularly valuable because they provide an external perspective that complements what we already know internally.

The Value of Customer Experience Research

Louise: Let’s talk specifically about customer experience research. How do you see its role in helping organizations improve customer experience?

Ryan: I think it plays a hugely important role.

Without robust research, organizations can become reactive to isolated issues or individual data points.

Customer research provides detail, context and statistical confidence. It helps organizations understand whether they are focusing on the right opportunities for improvement and where they should continue investing because customers already value what’s being delivered.

I’ve also seen organizations use research in different ways at different times.

Some use it to validate strategic plans or major business initiatives. Others use it to complement operational improvement programs.

At Rotork, we see customer research as one important input that helps us understand customer needs alongside other sources of insight.

Benchmarking is particularly valuable because it helps provide context.

Understanding what good looks like, both within your sector and beyond it, is essential if you want to make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.

Looking Beyond the Score

Louise: Benchmarking is something many organizations find challenging. They often know their NPS score but have little context around whether it’s actually good or bad.

Ryan: Exactly.

I’m a big advocate of focusing on the insight behind the score rather than simply chasing the number itself.

Metrics such as NPS are valuable, but the real story often sits beneath the headline figure.

Customer comments, feedback and explanations provide the context that helps organizations understand what’s driving that score and what actions they should take as a result.

That’s where research becomes most powerful.

Louise: I think that’s one reason NPS can sometimes be divisive. The metric itself isn’t necessarily the issue. The challenge comes when organizations focus on the number without understanding the explanation behind it.

Ryan: I completely agree.

Personally, one of my favorite measures is Customer Effort because it tells you how easy you’re making it for customers to do business with you.

If customers are having to work hard, you’re likely to see issues emerge elsewhere, whether that’s complaints, increased contact volumes or reduced satisfaction.

In my experience, there’s often a strong relationship between effort and recommendation. Customers are far more likely to recommend an organization when you’ve made the experience simple and straightforward.

Understanding Customer Feelings

Louise: Beyond metrics, understanding how customers feel is becoming increasingly important.

Ryan: Absolutely.

One of the biggest shifts I’ve seen is a greater focus on emotions within customer experience.

Organizations need to think carefully about how they want customers to feel at key moments in their journey.

That might be confidence, trust, reassurance or empathy depending on the situation.

Recently, we ran an exercise where we mapped customer emotions throughout the journey using emoji-style indicators.

It sounds simple, but it encouraged teams to think about feelings rather than scores.

A score of five out of ten doesn’t tell you much. Knowing a customer feels frustrated tells you exactly where improvement is needed.

Building a Voice of the Customer Program

Louise: Tell us a little about the customer experience program we’ve worked on together.

Ryan: We’ve been working with B2B International for just over a year now.

At the start, we already had strong process data and were developing a good understanding of employee feedback.

What we wanted was a stronger Voice of the Customer program to complement those existing sources of insight.

Our objective was to capture both transactional and relationship-level feedback.

We wanted to understand how customers felt at specific stages of their journey, such as receiving a quotation, but also gain a deeper understanding of their overall relationship with Rotork across areas like account management, pricing and service delivery.

That broader perspective is what led us to work with B2B International.

Turning Research Into Action

Louise: How do you ensure the research drives meaningful change within the organization?

Ryan: It starts with having robust, statistically valid data so that you’re making decisions based on evidence rather than assumptions.

At Rotork, we’re fortunate to have a dedicated business transformation team with visibility across both the ongoing Voice of the Customer program and our transactional feedback channels.

This allows us to identify trends and patterns much more effectively.

Just as importantly, we’ve built a strong community of practice across customer-facing teams.

People understand why we’re collecting feedback, why it’s important and how acting on that insight contributes to customer satisfaction and future growth.

Ultimately, it’s a team effort.

Why Storytelling Matters

Louise: One topic we’ve discussed regularly throughout our partnership is storytelling. Why do you think storytelling is so important when communicating customer insight?

Ryan: Different audiences need different information.

For frontline teams, storytelling can be used to reinforce positive behaviors by highlighting examples of exceptional customer feedback.

For senior leaders, it’s about helping them understand what’s working, what needs attention and where efforts should be prioritized.

One thing we’ve found particularly valuable is using research findings to demonstrate which improvements are likely to have the greatest impact on customer satisfaction.

That helps ensure resources are focused on the areas that matter most rather than being spread too thinly across lower-priority issues.

Louise: That’s exactly why prioritization exercises are so useful. Most organizations identify multiple opportunities for improvement, but it’s understanding where to start that delivers the greatest value.

Ryan: Exactly. That’s where the research becomes incredibly powerful.

The Future of Customer Experience

Louise: Looking ahead, how do you see customer experience continuing to evolve?

Ryan: It’s impossible to discuss the future of customer experience without talking about AI.

Technology and automation will continue to play an increasingly important role, but I remain firmly of the view that these tools should support people rather than replace them.

At Rotork, many of our solutions are highly technical and require significant expertise. There is simply no substitute for experienced engineers and customer-facing specialists who understand customer requirements and can recommend the right solution.

AI can help improve efficiency, support knowledge management and accelerate routine tasks.

The value comes when organizations use it to enhance the capabilities of their people, not remove them from the process.

Louise: I completely agree. AI is an incredibly powerful enabler, but human expertise remains vital, particularly when it comes to interpretation, judgement and building customer relationships.

Closing Remarks

Louise: Ryan, thank you for joining us today. It’s been a fascinating discussion.

Ryan: Thank you, Louise. I’ve really enjoyed the conversation.

At Rotork, we’ve greatly valued our partnership with B2B International and the insight we’ve gained through our Voice of the Customer program. It’s been a pleasure to share some of that experience today.

Louise: And thank you to everyone listening.

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