Business-to-business (B2B) enterprises have started following the footprints of business-to-consumer (B2C) organizations – they are now consistently embracing and leveraging the manifold benefits provided by the dynamic and personalized customer experiences. It’s therefore no surprise that vendors of B2B businesses are relentlessly focusing on how to improve their customers’ experiences.
B2B customer experience generally includes creating a personalized experience and building robust relationships while providing convenient digital solutions to customers.
Business-to-business vendors must understand that B2B markets are not much different in that purchasing decisions are usually made by consumers themselves, the same people who spend the majority of their time on popular e-commerce sites like Amazon and Expedia. These experiences can inevitably outline their expectations for online transactions at work. The key difference is that the stakeholders. budgets, expectations and outcomes involved in a B2B buying decision largely vary. This is where B2B companies must put customer experience strategies in place.
Important Business-to-Business Customer Experience Trends
Customer experience is a big business and is about to gain a foothold in the upcoming years! It has been reported that the market for customer experience management is expected to upsurge up to USD 14.5 billion by 2024. Back in 2015, approx. 3% of B2B businesses suggested that they valued customer experience as a quintessential part of company culture. Today, between 85-90% of organizations primarily expect to compete on customer experience and around 70-80% of B2B buyers expect the same buying experience as B2C customers.
How to Improve Business- to- Business Customer Experience
For most business-to-business enterprises, meeting customer expectations, for consumer-level experiences, can be potentially daunting.
Here are five major tips that B2B companies can adopt to improve their overall customer experience.
1. Develop Robust Customer Insight: The concerns of business buyers can be significantly alleviated by interacting with them. This would reveal their respective requirements, help to understand their pressures, and address their buying actions. This analysis will help B2B businesses to improve customer experience.
Developing valuable customer insights would certainly ensure the delivery of unmatched customer experience.
2. Develop a Customer-Oriented Environment: For customer satisfaction and reliability, a B2B business must develop a customer-oriented environment. This means putting the customer at the forefront of everything.
Shifting to a customer-centric paradigm can be challenging as B2B businesses have historically been sales-focused. However, making effective use of education and communication would help an organization to move forward in a customer-centric direction.
3. Deliver Personalized Experiences: Delivering personalized services to B2B clients would certainly help add value to both the client and the vendor. B2B clients must ensure that their specific requirements are completely understood, their business goals are acknowledged, and most importantly, they are in a partnership with the best supplier.
4. Harness State-of-the-Art Technology: B2B companies must understand diverse channels and disruptive new technologies through which they can interact with the existing and potential customers. In this tech-dominating world, new technologies are continuously being introduced. Hence, it’s imperative to remain aware of them.
Chatbots, for instance, is a great model of a technology that allows customers to get in touch and interact anytime.
5. Take Regular Feedback: By taking customer feedback, a B2B enterprise can ensure that their valuable clients are not facing unwanted hurdles. Collecting consistent feedback would highlight suboptimal aspects.
Final Thoughts
The term ‘customer experience’ has been a buzzword for almost half a decade and the recorded growth in the management market of customer experience demonstrates the continuing development in this domain. Implementing these practices would let you significantly enjoy continued business success and deliver excellent B2B customer experience.
