5 Insane Tips for Enhancing B2B Customer Experience

A lot has been spoken about the importance of customer experience in the Business-to-Consumer (B2C) domain, but what about the Business-to-Business (B2B) sales model? 

Is it time for B2B companies to become as ‘customer-obsessed’ as some of the most successful B2C brands have demonstrated over the last decade? 

The data says, yes:

• According to McKinsey, “Improvements in a B2B customer experience can lead to a 10% to 15% reduction in customer churn, 20% to 40% increase in win rates of offers, and 50% lower costs to serve.”
• Moreover, further research by Adobe suggests that “Companies (both B2B and B2C) leading in customer experience are 3 times more likely to have significantly exceeded their 2019 business goals.”

Did you know? According to a study, millennials account for 73% of all B2B purchasing decisions.

These numbers make sense as B2B customers are becoming increasingly more aware of their needs as well as well-informed of the latest technological developments with respect to user experience. 

In fact, there’s a dynamic power shift taking place in the B2B space, with users expecting a customized, digitized, and seamless experience throughout the sales funnel. In this blog, we will look at the top-5 customer experience strategies that B2B businesses can embrace to boost revenues, sales, and user satisfaction. Let’s jump right in.

Top-5 CX Strategies for a Killer B2B Sales Experience

1. Building a Community Platform for End-Users Provides On-Field Insights

User feedback is fundamental to every B2B organization – whether it is online or offline. And unlike the B2C domain, B2B customers drive purchasing decisions based more on logical rationales instead of solely relying on emotions. 

So, if, as a B2B company you wish to deliver the first ‘AHA!’ moment to your customers early on in the sales process, you need to have a good grip of the ground realities. Then you can redirect your efforts towards learning about core issues that plague customers at the ground level. 

Here’s where building a community-led platform comes into play:

This ultra-useful platform can also be used as a:

• Feedback platform that offers actionable insights.
• Self-service portal that empowers customers to get instant and easy access to a rich knowledge base – complete with FAQs, free demos, video tutorials, etc.
• Product portal that allows businesses to update users on feature requests as well as latest releases, in addition to allowing users to collaborate and conceptualize new product ideas.
• Beta testing platform to test new features with the help of your end-users, aka self-confessed brand advocates.

2. Combining Excellent Customer Support with the Right Technology Can Prove to be a Game-Changer

“You can expect a 66% decrease in the time taken to open online accounts with co-browsing.” – Acquire

Whether it’s a B2B customer or a B2C one, everyone loves a seamless, friction-free customer experience. This is where using a visually-driven co-browsing feature can act as a boon and allow you to provide personalized customer support that’s unmatched in terms of convenience, speed, and quality, If you've decided to implement phone service methods for communication, make sure to learn about VoIP to make it more effective.

Using intuitive technologies such as Acquire’s co-browsing feature can facilitate a seamless end-to-end B2B customer experience with common issues getting resolved at light speed. It allows you to offer instant support to users and literally guide them out of troubled waters, thereby enhancing the customer satisfaction levels.

3. Leveraging Collected Data Helps Focus on Driving Customer Retention and Predictive Analytics

At the heart of a true-to-form B2B CX and customer retention strategy lies real-time data. Using accurate data (think: buyer persona, user journey, etc.), B2B businesses can focus on boosting customer retention as they understand the user behavioral patterns, their likes and preferences, as well as their pain-points

 In fact, according to a survey by Customer Think:

“83% of B2B leaders want more information that describes customer intentions and helps to create a holistic view of the customers.”

This is why B2B businesses should invest in tools and technologies that can allow them to gather trustworthy, accurate, timely, and relevant information. 

For instance, a sales enablement tool allows managers to predict the outcome of a sales situation (also known as predictive analytics). 

By extension, your agents can make a rock-solid plan which includes key elements such as:

• Who to call?
• What time to call them?
• What kind of tailor-made content and personalized offers to provide them? 

This allows B2B firms to sell smarter and quicker, with the ability to plan ahead and draft growth-led sustainable strategies. Based on the data collected, meaningful content and sales strategies can be curated to further influence sales and revenues. 

More importantly, by automating the relatively administrative and routine data gathering and analysis processes, your agents can offer proactive and personalized support – a win-win for all if you ask us!

4. Providing Great Value Works Better Than Any Other Strategy

Let’s set the record straight: If your customer feels that their user experience with your brand isn’t relevant, they’re bound to jump ship sooner than later. 

So how do you gauge the relevancy of your product/service and, by extension, your CX strategy? Start by answering the following questions:

• What do my customers need and expect? 
• Is my B2B offering addressing their primary pain-point or core need?
• What kind of a feedback mechanism does my brand have, and is it working?
• Is my sales portal personalized enough for every buyer experience?
• Is my team working towards creating accurate buyer personas and user stories to map customer journeys?
• Is my team proactively offering product suggestions and leveraging the right kind of marketing automation tools?
• How do my customers prefer to communicate, shop, and interact with my brand?
• Is my pricing model customer-centric?

All in all, the idea to get your customer’s pulse, understand your competitors, embrace the industry best practices, and anticipate your customer’s future needs to ensure that your brand stays universal and relevant at all times.

5. Delivering Consistency is Key

One of the core fundamentals of driving a value-driven B2B CX is offering a cohesive and consistent experience at every touch-point in the sales funnel. In other words, your B2B brand needs to ace its omnichannel strategy. When drafting a strategy, make sure to account for the following questions:

• Are my end-users receiving a consistent message across all communication channels – from my website and app to my live agents and emails? 
• Can my customers access their purchase history, irrespective of the channel/platform they’re on, instantly, within context, and easily? 
• Are my customers experiencing a seamless and consistent transition as they switch between channels?

If the answers to most of these questions are no, it is time to revisit your CX strategy and look at ways in which you can enhance the B2B customer experience.

Wrapping Up

To be honest, the lines between a B2C and B2B customer experience are blurring – owing to the rising customer expectations and a dynamic shift in automation technologies. The era of a B2B customer experience that’s marked by personalization, speed, relevance, and consistency is here. 

To wrap up, kickstart your B2B CX journey by experimenting with the above mentioned time-tested strategies and find the ‘right fit’ for your organization. Are you game? We thought so.