Your Product Does Not Create Value. Your Customers Do.

In B2B technology, it's easy to focus on what you deliver: the product, the platform, the solution. But the real driver of business impact? What your customers do with it. Every purchase contains potential value. But potential alone doesn’t drive results. Customers must activate that potential through usage, integration, and innovation. That’s why value isn’t just something companies deliver; it’s something customers must create.

A simple story illustrates this idea clearly. Several years ago, my mother bought a treadmill. The vendor promised outcomes that mattered to her: losing weight, getting stronger, and feeling confident in clothes she hadn’t worn for years. The treadmill arrived on time, fully assembled, and packed with features. On paper, the value was there.

In practice, nothing changed.

The treadmill took up most of her small bedroom in her 900 square foot apartment. Instead of stepping onto it each morning, she stepped around it. Eventually, she tripped over it while trying to reach the bathroom. What was sold as a path to fitness became a hazard. Instead of creating value, it created frustration, injury, and a very expensive place to hang clothes.

The treadmill provided potential. My mother had intentions. But there was no integration of new habits into her daily routine. No activation of the value she had purchased. She kept convincing herself that she would use it one day. That day never came. The treadmill remained an obstacle until it was finally removed after her death.

This is the heart of customer value creation in B2B Tech. You can design the most powerful product in your category. You can deliver a flawless implementation. You can deploy powerful playbooks. But customers still need to step onto the treadmill. They need to adopt, apply, and embed your solution into their daily work. Value is created through actions, not intentions.

The scale of this challenge is significant. An estimated sixty to seventy five percent of technology implementations and digital transformations fail. These failures cost the United States economy up to one hundred fifty billion dollars each year. That number continues to rise as businesses rush into artificial intelligence without securing adoption and integration.

The Value Exchange: From Delivery to Creation Your company sells a promise. Every sale includes a commitment that your solution will help solve a problem, unlock an opportunity, or improve performance. But the value exchange only works when both sides participate.

Your responsibility is to deliver a functional product and surround it with the right services: onboarding, implementation, success, and support. The customer’s responsibility is to activate the product inside their business. They must engage, invest resources, and build the habits that convert tools into outcomes.

This shift from delivery to co-creation is where leading B2B technology companies differentiate. They understand that customer success is not only about retention. It is about enabling customers to realize measurable business value.

ACED: The Four Levels of Customer Value Creation

There are four progressive phases where customers create value: adoption, connection, expansion, and differentiation.

• A = Adopt. Value creation begins with adoption. Without it, your product becomes shelfware. Customers activate the solution and begin achieving early outcomes. This is where potential starts turning into performance as teams learn, practice, and build confidence with the product. Adoption requires strong onboarding guidance, executive engagement, timely access to data and systems, change management on the customer side, and effective training for end users. When adoption takes hold, teams begin to integrate your solution into their workflows and start seeing real gains in speed, accuracy, and efficiency.

• C = Connect. Customers embed your technology into daily operations, workflows, and data flows. Value begins to compound because the product is no longer something they use occasionally. It becomes part of how they work. Data flows across systems, business decisions rely on your insights, and the customer’s brand or customer experience improves because of your technology. Integration creates durable value and makes switching less attractive. More importantly, it helps customers scale outcomes across regions and functions.

• E = Expand. Once the initial use case succeeds, customers expand. They roll out new features, add users or departments, automate more tasks, and optimize internal processes. As usage deepens, they begin tracking clear return on investment through time savings, revenue improvements, or reduced risk. The relationship shifts from tactical to strategic.

• D = Differentiate. At the highest level, customers become innovators. They push your product to new limits, launch new services powered by your technology, transform experiences in their own markets, influence your roadmap, and advocate for your solution publicly. They move beyond using the product to transforming outcomes. At this stage, customers are not just realizing value. They are co-creating value with you. You evolve from a vendor to a strategic partner.

From Value Provider to Value Partner

B2B Tech leaders must see themselves not only as providers of technology but as enablers of value creation. That means building a customer experience that supports each stage of the value journey, from initial onboarding to long-term innovation. To drive this, invest in customer onboarding, enablement, and change management. Equip your teams to identify and close value gaps. Treat adoption as a shared responsibility. And recognize customers who innovate with your solution.

The Value Exchange: From Delivery to Creation

Your company sells a promise. Every sale includes a commitment that your solution will help solve a problem, unlock opportunity, or improve performance. But that value exchange only works if both sides show up.

Your role is to deliver a functional, high-impact product and surround it with services: onboarding, implementation, support, and success. The customer’s role is to activate the product in their business. They must engage, invest resources, and build the habits that turn tools into outcomes.

When customers win, you win. But customers don't win simply by buying your product. They win when they apply it, embed it, and extend it. Your job is to make that possible. To dive deeper, explore a value gap analysis to identify where customers are stalling on the journey from adoption to innovation. Helping them move forward is the key to unlocking durable growth for both sides.

DONNA WEBER is a globally recognized customer value and onboarding expert with a decades-long track record of success as a strategic consultant to high-growth companies. Renowned for her approach to turning customers into loyal champions, companies bring Donna in when they’re ready to level up by moving fast in the right direction. Her relentless focus on the customer helps them scale smarter by delivering on the lifetime value they promise from day one. Her bestselling book, Onboarding Matters, is considered a definitive guide to post-sale customer success. Learn more at donnaweber.com.