Your customers can make or break your business.
According to research by Deloitte, customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than those that aren’t. What’s more, today’s customers are looking for a positive experience throughout the value chain, not just at individual touchpoints.
However, building a positive B2B customer experience isn’t as simple as ensuring your employees answer customer queries well.
It is crucial that you build a brand strategy roadmap for it and thoroughly understand the customer journey as a whole, not merely as the sum of its parts.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at the B2B client experience and how you can make it memorable for every customer.
TL;DR – B2B Customer Experience Strategy
Don’t have time for the full guide?
Here is a quick summary of how you can build a B2B customer experience strategy:
- Build a customer journey roadmap
- Identify key touchpoints
- Conduct a CX audit
- Develop a customer-centric culture
- Craft a messaging strategy
Pro Tip: To ensure a superior customer experience, your messaging needs to be spot-on.
I’m Nora Sudduth, a business coach and marketing expert. I can help you shape a messaging strategy that reinforces the experience you want for your customers. Connect with me today to get started.
What is the B2B Customer Experience?
A B2B customer experience (CX) encompasses all touchpoints throughout the corporate customer journey – from awareness to post-sales.
Businesses need to examine their B2B CX to gain both, a high-level view of their processes from a client’s perspective, as well as spot bottlenecks in the customer journey.
Importance of B2B Customer Experience
Examining your B2B CX and ensuring that the entire process is pleasant for each customer is crucial to a successful business.
A Salesforce report has found that almost 90% of consumers say the quality of their experience with a brand is just as important as the quality of their products or services.
But it’s not just that.
A study by McKinsey & Company says companies offering exceptional customer service exceed the gross profit margins of their competitors by over 26% and create a happier work environment for their employees.
Difference Between B2B CX and B2C CX
B2B CX differs from B2C CX largely because it follows a different sales cycle and customer journey.
Let’s dig a little deeper:
| B2B CX Strategy | B2C CX Strategy |
|---|---|
| Involves multiple stakeholders and decision-makers | Typically targets the end customer |
| Requires an understanding of the various needs, objectives, and preferences of corporate clients | Focuses on the goals and emotional motivations of the end customer |
| Follows a longer, more complicated sales cycle | Follows a simpler, shorter sales cycle that targets only one decision-maker |
| Purchase decisions are made through careful deliberation and research | Purchase decisions are usually made impulsively or motivated by emotions |
Because of these differences, your B2B brand messaging strategy is also more complex. It needs to target multiple stakeholders while maintaining consistent messaging throughout the marketing funnel.
How to Build a B2B Customer Experience Strategy
Follow these steps to create a B2B CX strategy from scratch:
1. Build a Customer Journey Roadmap
The first step in business is understanding the complete B2B customer journey.
B2B processes are typically more complicated because they target multiple decision-makers with varying objectives.
Use customer data and insights to understand how clients move from one stage of the sales process to the next. Focus on spotting bottlenecks and areas where customers like to engage.
When mapping the customer journey, also ask:
- Are my processes seamless, meaning clients can transition from one drop-off point to the next with as little friction as possible?
- What typical behaviors or interactions turn clients off, and what nudges them forward?
- Do I have a clear process for post-sales engagement?
- Does my value messaging effectively lead customers further in their journey?
At this stage, your goal is to create a repeatable, customizable roadmap that allows you to spot gaps, find areas for optimization, and determine key touchpoints.
2. Identify Key Touchpoints
Now that you have a clear customer roadmap, it’s time to pinpoint the most crucial customer touchpoints.
Remember: Not all customer touchpoints are as important. Some can make or break your relationship with your clients.
In most cases, these interactions involve educating clients on the incentives of choosing your products or services. For example, product demos, business proposals, and client meetings greatly influence how clients view your brand.
By identifying these areas, you can refine your CX strategy to address your client’s biggest pain points, challenges, and needs.
3. Conduct a CX Audit
A customer experience audit is a thorough assessment of the quality of your CX.
Depending on the type of business you run, this may involve evaluating both online and offline interactions, your messaging architecture, social media engagement, customer service, and post-sales support.
Also, analyze B2B customer insights to determine your:
- Promoters: Clients that give excellent CX ratings or a Net Promoter Score (NPS) of 9 to 10 when asked, “How likely are you to recommend this brand?”. These are most likely to advocate for your brand to their network. They also provide insight into what you do well.
- Passives: Customers that give an average NPS (around 7 to 8). They are typically neutral – not incredibly impressed but not disgruntled.
- Detractors: Clients that give a very low CX rating (or an NPS of 0 to 6) or those who are very unhappy about your CX. They also usually take the time to leave qualitative feedback.
Examine what your promoters find great about your company, but don’t shrug off your detractors. They are your most valuable resource for improving your CX. They also show great potential for becoming promoters when appropriately handled.
Research shows companies that act upon detractor feedback see a three-fold increase in the number of promoters.
4. Develop a Customer-Centric Culture
Companies with a customer-centric culture have happier, more motivated employees. That same enthusiasm they feel about working with you trickles down to their daily performance and interactions with other stakeholders.
But it isn’t accomplished overnight. Forming a customer-first attitude requires deliberate, consistent action.
Consider these tips on how you can do that for your company:
- Align key people on the benefits of customer-centricity: These may be team managers who can pass on customer-centric goals and attitudes to their group.
- Synchronize data across all departments: Prevent data silos where only one or a few teams get access to the customer data you need to improve your systems. Synchronizing this data encourages collaboration between departments and aligns everyone on common goals.
- Value feedback from your employees: Your internal team members, especially those directly dealing with your B2B customers, can provide insight into what works and what doesn’t for your clients. Allow everyone to speak their mind and act upon their feedback.
5. Craft a Messaging Strategy
Being customer-centric also entails including your B2B buyers in the conversation.
But developing a messaging strategy isn’t simply about praising your products or services — it’s about letting your customers know you hear them and exist to provide what they need.
That means:
- Addressing your customers’ challenges and pain points
- Speaking their language
- Understanding their goals and motivations
Tip: While B2B buyers are not as emotionally motivated as B2C ones, remember that you are still talking to stakeholders who are human. This means their decisions will still be somewhat influenced by emotional motivations, such as the desire to succeed or outperform competitors.
Don’t know where to start? I can help you shape a messaging strategy that resonates with your audience and elicits your desired response. Join me for a discovery call today.
How to Improve Your B2B Customer Experience
No CX strategy is perfect, but it’s good to aim for the best possible experience for your clients. And that means constantly reviewing your strategy to spot areas for improvement.
The following are some ways you can further improve your B2B customer experience:
Promptly Address Feedback
Most, if not all, companies gather customer feedback. However, not all respond to them as quickly as consumers expect.
According to a study by CustomerGauge, responding to or addressing feedback within 48 hours increases customer retention by 12%.
Moreover, a recent BrightLocal survey has found that 88% of consumers would use a business that responds to all reviews, not just the positive ones.
Follow Up on “Detractors”
Don’t ignore your detractors. Instead, follow up on them via phone call or email to better understand why they were not pleased with your service or product.
They are the group of customers that spend more time leaving feedback, which means they are likely more engaged and invested. Actively and promptly following up with them is key to showing you listen and want to make their experience better.
Invest in Your Team
Creating a customer-centric culture is a long process that needs everyone’s hands on deck, beginning with leadership.
Remember that as a business owner, your employees are not only your team members, they’re your customers too.
Ask yourself:
- Are they happy with how things are at work?
- What do they say about your company to their peers?
- Are they empowered to act for the company’s benefit without being micromanaged?
Some ways you can invest in your team are:
- Growing their skills through mentorship and training
- Emphasizing work-life balance
- Offering benefits and perks that they enjoy
B2B Customer Experience Trends to Follow
As consumer behaviors and expectations evolve, the way businesses create and reshape their customer experience also evolves.
Make sure to consider these trends when building your own CX strategy:
Rising Need for Human Connection
With AI so pervasive nowadays, people are getting better at knowing when they’re chatting with a bot, even when its responses are human-like.
The solution, however, is not to eliminate AI altogether. Instead, you should further increase your efforts in personalizing customer touchpoints. For example, get creative in your messaging. Don’t settle for boilerplate content when reaching out to your customers.
That way, they know there’s a person who carefully thought about, planned for, and made these engagements possible.
Examples include:
- Synchronizing customer data across all platforms so you know their history and preferences
- Training agents to have the emotional acuity for dealing with irate or frustrated customers
- Using predictive analytics to deliver what B2B buyers want or need.
Focus on the Outer Feedback Loop
It’s important to close the inner loop – which means acting on both, positive and negative feedback received from customers.
But customer-centric companies go beyond that. They close the outer loop as well, meaning they let their customers know what’s being done about their feedback or show their appreciation for a positive review.
By doing this, your customers know you don’t take their feedback and patronage lightly.
Omnichannel for Sustaining Positive CX
Consumers now expect a conversational flow in their interactions with businesses. This means they don’t want to keep repeating themselves when engaging on multiple platforms or speaking with different customer service agents.
The solution is an omnichannel CX strategy that will allow you to be present everywhere your customers are.
Not only does this make interactions more natural and engaging, but it also streamlines processes and better ensures a seamless customer journey.
Consumer Demand for Sustainability
The new generation of consumers now demands sustainability from businesses. And it doesn’t mean just mentioning “sustainability” as a brand pillar or core value.
Consumers now trust brands that employ sustainable practices and make a positive impact on the environment. To capture this more discerning market, you have to:
- Deliver key messages that demonstrate you’re not making empty claims
- Use technology such as Data Asset Management (DAM) solutions that reduce your carbon footprint
- Actively showcase your efforts toward sustainability
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Learn more about B2B customer experience with the following FAQS:
What Are the Key Components of B2B Customer Experience?
Critical components of B2B CX include:
- Customer service: Involves well-trained customer service agents who understand corporate customer behavior, as well as processes and systems that ensure a smooth customer journey.
- Technology: Investing in technology, such as CRMs and data hubs, is vital for ensuring frictionless transitions from one platform to another.
- Performance metrics: Measure the success of your CX by establishing key performance indicators and analyzing every touchpoint.
What Role Does Customer Feedback Play in B2B Customer Experience?
Customer feedback is essential for shaping excellent customer experience. It tells you–straight from your customers–what works, what should be improved, and what you don’t need in your processes.
What is the Best Way to Measure B2B Customer Experience?
To measure B2B customer experience, look at key performance metrics like customer churn, customer retention, and conversion rate. You can also gather qualitative customer feedback using surveys.
Conclusion
Evidently, it’s not enough to have great products or services. People also pay attention to the quality of your customer experience.
To ensure that your CX drives more revenue, boosts brand loyalty, and pushes you ahead of the competition, optimize key touchpoints in the customer journey, develop a customer-centric culture, and craft messaging that resonates with your audience.
Need help with your messaging? I can work with you to design a messaging strategy that conveys your brand value at every stage of the marketing funnel. Book a discovery call with me today.
