Un-Commoditizing Your Services by Delivering What Clients Truly Value

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Why Clients Treat You Like a Commodity

In competitive B2B environments, even high-quality services are often reduced to a comparison of price, turnaround time, or technical specs. When clients can’t clearly perceive your unique value—or when your offerings are only framed in functional terms—commoditization takes hold. This topic helps you understand the structural reasons why clients start viewing you as interchangeable and how to reverse that trend using a proven framework.

The B2B Value Pyramid: A Strategic Framework

Inspired by Harvard Business Review’s “The B2B Elements of Value,” this topic explores how client decisions are influenced by more than just rational criteria. The framework introduces 40 distinct elements of value—ranging from cost savings and responsiveness to reputational assurance, ease of doing business, and even hope and social responsibility. Twennie’s learning units show you how to use this pyramid to understand what your clients truly value and how to deliver on it consistently.

Tools for Un-Commoditizing Your Services

Through a mix of videos, editable templates, structured prompts, and team exercises, this topic helps you move from theory to execution. You’ll learn how to gather real client insights, run ideation workshops across departments, pilot small enhancements, and assess post-change impact. Each unit is designed to help your team rise above the noise, improve customer loyalty, and shift the conversation from cost to value. Whether you’re in product development, strategy, or client service, these tools will help you create space at the top of your market—where fewer competitors can follow.

suggested KPIs for this topic

These KPIs help you turn “client value” into measurable behaviours — ensuring that un-commoditizing isn’t just a strategy conversation, but something clients can feel in every interaction with your team.

table stakes (minimum expectations)

  • Submit proposals with 100% of required table-stake elements (licenses, insurance, forms, compliance).
  • Resolve any compliance or administrative gaps within 48 hours of identification.
  • Meet all mandatory deadlines without extension requests.
  • Ensure project kickoff occurs within 10 days of award.
  • Maintain error-free deliverables for core requirements at a 95%+ rate.

economic & performance value

  • Track cost-to-complete weekly to ensure projects stay within budget tolerances.
  • Provide at least one value-engineering or cost-saving option per major project phase.
  • Demonstrate year-over-year improvement in project margin or cost predictability.
  • Review scalability or future-proofing considerations during 100% design or equivalent stage.
  • Flag innovation opportunities early and document their impact (positive or negative) on cost and schedule.

reducing client effort (ease of doing business)

  • Respond to routine client requests within 24–48 hours.
  • Provide organized, simplified documentation at each deliverable stage.
  • Maintain a single point of contact for all major questions or approvals.
  • Achieve transparency benchmarks: weekly status clarity, risk logs, decision logs.
  • Keep turnover on key project roles under a defined threshold (e.g., no more than one change per year).

personal value to the client

  • Document how your work contributes to the client’s personal goals (visibility, risk reduction, internal credibility).
  • Identify at least one “career boost” moment per project — something that makes your client look good internally.
  • Track client sentiment quarterly to identify anxiety triggers and reduce them.
  • Deliver high-aesthetic or high-quality touches where they matter most to the client’s identity.
  • Participate in at least one informal relationship-building interaction each quarter (event, walkthrough, milestone celebration).

inspirational & purpose-based value

  • Clarify the client’s deeper purpose early in the project and revisit it at major milestones.
  • Document how project outcomes support the client’s vision or mission—include this in presentations.
  • Incorporate the client’s cultural, aesthetic, or community values into design decisions.
  • Identify and celebrate at least one milestone that reinforces client pride and ownership.
  • Ensure your team understands the client's “why,” not just the technical scope.

delivering brand differentiation consistently

  • Identify 3–5 value items (from the pyramid) that will be delivered consistently across all projects.
  • Measure how often teams actually deliver those “signature experiences.”
  • Track which value items matter most to strategic clients and document results after each project.
  • Create a tiered service model and document the value differences between tiers.
  • Review the “Un-Commoditizing Plan” annually and update commitments based on client feedback.

Choose a KPI from each category to build a client experience that rises above price — and makes your firm impossible to compare on a spreadsheet.

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