In your B2B world, do worry about Amazon? Unless you are in the retail business, most business owners and leaders would answer no. But I believe that’s a mistake. The reason is that business customers (who are also consumers) are having their expectations raised by Amazon.

This applies in several ways. First, of course, is execution: how fast can a product get delivered (Prime has completely reset expectations). Second is the buying process with the famous one-click purchase. Third is information: most notably customer reviews.

How small and medium size companies can respond might be summed up as “ease of doing business” or, if you want something aspirational, “delight in doing business”. While this is hardly a new thought, Amazon has taken expectations to an entirely new level. And Amazon hasn’t stopped and is unlikely to stop. Therefore, if part of your business plan isn’t focused on improving your customers’ experience by a quantum leap, then you’re missing a critical bet.

Is this easy? Of course not. But your business survival may depend on it.

So how does your company go about meeting these raised customer expectations? One way to start is to adopt some form of Amazon’s (Jeff Bezos’) manta of “customer-centric.” But these aren’t buzzwords. From the beginning, Jeff Bezos has obsessed (his word) about making Amazon “the earth’s most customer centric company.” Here is what he said in his 2017 letter to shareholders:

“Why? There are many advantages to a customer-centric approach, but here’s the big one: customers are always beautifully, wonderfully dissatisfied, even when they report being happy and business is great. Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and your desire to delight customers will drive you to invent on their behalf.”

Notice the last part: “invent on their behalf.” This means spending time with customers, doing the right market research, and really making invention and innovation a business priority…throughout the company. Sometimes this gets taken as a marketing or customer service initiative. But that is a big mistake. This type of innovation must impact the entire business: every operation. After all, Amazon doesn’t just provide a slick website or fast delivery. It’s all of the above.

As you think about invention for your customers, don’t get overly focused on high-tech innovation. Staying with retail for another minute, there is lots of innovation right now in retail that is competing successfully with Amazon. While many stores have had their business dramatically impacted by Amazon, some shopping malls, stores and other retail establishments are finding ways to be successful and thrive even while Amazon does the same. They are doing this by establishing a specific niche and/or a “destination”. In other words, something that Amazon and online can’t provide.

The path to your company’s future success requires meeting your “Amazon’d” customer expectations. If you don’t, you can be sure that your customers will find someone who does.

Why do many small and midsize businesses confuse sales and marketing? The answer often stems from a mistaken belief that the marketing role is simply to help sell. The real definition of marketing is much broader (see below).

Where does this misinformation come from? In many cases, it starts with the experience of business leaders. Many have “grown up” in an operational or technical role. Even those with sales experience often have a limited view of what marketing should do. Perhaps this is because in a smaller business, the broader marketing role often isn’t present at all or is done by the founder or the leader in an implicit way not labeled as marketing.

What is the right way to think about marketing? Let’s go to the source: here is Dr. Philip Kotler’s definition (author of the definitive textbook Marketing Management, now in its 11^th edition).

Marketing is the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit.  Marketing identifies unfulfilled needs and desires. It defines, measures and quantifies the size of the identified market and the profit potential. It pinpoints which segments the company is capable of serving best and it designs and promotes the appropriate products and services.

 Marketing is often performed by a department within the organization. This is both good and bad. It’s good because it unites a group of trained people who focus on the marketing task. It’s bad because marketing activities should not be carried out in a single department but they should be manifest in all the activities of the organization.

The terms “small m” and “Big M” are sometimes used to distinguish this broader role (Big M) from the more tactical “small m” work. Using these terms, the mistake made by many businesses, large and small, is to focus on the small m and forget about the Big M.

If your business is stuck in a “small m” mindset, what should be the first steps to get out of the trap?

1. Assign someone the “Big M” role. It should be one of your executives or, at least, they should oversee the effort.
2. Assign resources. Start by thinking about what is needed to be the “canary in a coal mind” for your business. If you don’t have the skills in house (many smaller companies don’t), this is a good place for consultant help.
3. Develop a 3 to 5-year marketing plan for your company that includes the key points from Kotler’s definition. Involve your leadership team to refine it and get buy in.

There is much more that can be done, but these simple steps will make a big difference to your company if it is missing Big M.

It’s trite to say listen to your customers. Yet I’m surprised at how many companies say, “We know what customers want.” No surveys, no market research, nata. If that is what you really believe, all I can say is “Good Luck.”

For those who do try to listen, many use a customer survey. The net promoter score* (NPS® a registered trademark of Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix) approach is widely used and accepted despite some criticisms. But that doesn’t mean it and similar surveys are well used in many applications. For example, in a recent experience the net promoter scores were high but there was clearly some dissatisfaction reflected in the comments.

Some of the comments were critical of individuals by name: not in a vindictive way but in what should have been viewed as constructive criticism. But that made it very hard to provide feedback that everyone would listen to, especially those whose names were mentioned. As a result, the feedback got watered down. In another example, one executive insisted that many customers would never provide positive feedback and certainly not a “promoter” rating (9 or 10). This despite substantial evidence to the contrary. In my experience, a customer who doesn’t provide a strong rating always has a reason…and we should try hard to find out what it is.

This type of behavior is particularly concerning for smaller companies and those with a relatively small number of customers.  In these cases, every interaction with a customer is critical and feedback that identifies even one issue is valuable. Furthermore, it’s very important to act on this feedback, otherwise customers will stop answering surveys and wonder why they’re being asked.

One common mistake I’ve seen in net promoter score surveys is to ask the NPS question but not ask the appropriate follow-up. My favorite follow-up question (which I can’t take credit for) is, “If you can’t rate us a 10 what would it take for you to rate us a 10?” This open-ended approach can yield surprising insights. Other open-ended questions such as “do you have any other suggestions or comments?” can also be useful: sometimes a person who answered with a 10 will still have a suggestion or comment.  Of course, this means going through the answers one by one but it’s worth the effort.

There is another major pitfall to watch out for. I’ve seen this more with larger companies but there are smaller companies that have fallen into the same trap. They ask the net promoter score question but in the context of customer service: for example, a telephone call or website chat. In this case, if the answer is based just on the service experience, the company is missing what may be real sources of dissatisfaction. Here is an example from the other day. I had to call Verizon with trouble on my phone line. I had to go through a long phone tree in order to reach a person. And this was after I had tried to reach a person or at least find the right contact number on their website. Once I did reach a person, she was very nice, professional and helpful. And while she had to go through her protocol of steps, she did fix my problem. So when I got the survey to rate her service, I gave her high marks. But to their credit, Verizon had an “other comments” box after that rating where I indicated that their troubleshooting process could be improved substantially by avoiding the long phone tree where it isn’t applicable. Whether they act on my suggestion or not isn’t the point. The point is that customers evaluate a company based on their entire experience not just the customer service interaction.

In a time when customers’ expectations continue to be ratcheted up by Amazon and other firms, small and medium-sized businesses need to do everything they can to raise their game. Doing surveys and acting on the results is the single best way I know for any company to improve its customer retention…and pave the way for new customers.

* Per SatMetrix: Net Promoter Score®, or NPS®, measures customer experience and predicts business growth. This proven metric transformed the business world and now provides the core measurement for customer experience management programs the world round.