Building the Best B2B Customer Experience

“Customer experience is the next competitive battleground.”

— Jerry Gregoire, CIO at Dell

As far back as 1999, Dell was known for placing a great deal of emphasis on perfecting the customer experience. At the time the company had only been selling its products online for a relatively few short years. Even the most prophetic of business forecasters could never have envisioned how far the world of online marketing would grow in the coming decades.

Fast-forward and we now find the term “customer experience management” is becoming a commonplace business discipline. From both a business-to-consumer and a business-to-business perspective, attention is being paid to creating, curating and executing excellent customer experience journeys. Companies focusing on discerning what is most important to their customers, with a view to exceeding those expectations at each point of the buying journey, have become the ones most likely to succeed.

What Is Customer Experience?

“CXM = The art and science of coaxing lifetime loyalty from daily transactions.”

~ Steve Curtin, Author and “Customer Enthusiast”

If only the question "What is Customer Experience?" could be answered with such a simple formula. 

The truth is that customer experience covers a wide range of interactions and potential considerations. Often the science of creating and keeping an excellent customer can seem like the most unattainable of goals.

Customer experience is the practice of investing time and attention into managing each interaction your customer has with your company in order to deliver the best, most satisfying experience possible.

A customer-focused experience must be managed at each touchpoint. From the initial attention-grabbing advert or social media post to the website visit, email communications and social media interactions through every other opportunity to interact along the entire customer lifecycle. It finds out what customers expect, and then designs ways to meet and exceed those expectations throughout the buying cycle and customer journey. 

Customer experience is not the same as user experience or customer service, although there are elements that overlap. Customer service is defined as helping or supporting the user in some way. Customer experience management, or CXM, focuses on moving a lead through b2b customer journeys, from the early stages as prospect to completion as a purchaser and beyond to loyal, committed customer.

Customer experience is also not just marketing, or a new word for branding.

Customer experience encompasses all of these things – marketing, communications, and the holistic experience of a brand. It involves both the customer’s perception and expectations of the brand, as well as individual interactions with team members. Committing to creating the best customer experience requires a buy-in from the whole company, culture change, and cross-functional team involvement.

What Is The Importance of the Customer Experience?

According to the MIT Sloan Management Review article, “Why Customer Experience Matters for B2B,” a better omni-channel experience creates more sales on consumer sites. This same logic is often neglected when it comes to B2B companies wanting to promote their products and services. The authors report that “few business websites deliver the efficient, insightful, and personalised service widely available on consumer websites.”

To achieve the same success of their B2C counterparts, the authors suggest that B2B companies will need to shift to a similar customers based approach. To create a superior customer experience online for business buyers, they'll need the advantage of the latest advances in analytics, artificial intelligence and tools to predict buying behaviour.

It is unrealistic to believe that business buyers' online expectations are markedly different from those they have as private consumers. Companies typically employ more digitally-aware decision-makers who increasingly believe they should be able to complete their business transactions in the same efficient manner they do in their personal lives. Increasingly, B2B buyers are demanding an improved online customer experience. They may even be willing to switch vendors or business affiliations to find those that have the ability to meet those expectations.

Why Customer Experience Matters For B2B

“Today’s customer really expects a truly extraordinary customer experience. That means your company, your brand, and your experiences are not just in competition with people in your category; they are in competition with everyone.”

~ Robi Ganguly, Co-Founder and CEO of Apptentive

B2B customer experience cx statistics prove that satisfying the customer in new and improved ways is not just a good idea. It actually pays for businesses to make experience their business.

The stakes are enormous. B2B sales via digital channels are predicted to increase dramatically over the next few years. The Forrester Landscape report in “The B2B e-Commerce Playbook for 2020” forecasts that B2B e-commerce in the United States alone will reach $1.8 trillion (U.S.) and account for 17% of all B2B sales by 2023.

Those companies that make an all-out commitment to improving customer experience will find that their efforts are well rewarded. The Temkin Group evaluated 318 companies from 20 industries to develop its ROI of Customer Experience, 2018. It found that companies which earn over $1 billion annually, on average, can expect to earn an additional $700 million within three years of investing in finding betters ways to satisfy their customers.

When Gartner set out to determine the benefits of superior customer experience, it found that nearly 50% of the organisations it surveyed claimed that they could track the financial benefits of their customer experience projects. Some 80% of the industry leaders responding to this survey stated that they do indeed expect to compete based mainly on customer experience in the coming years.

Building a Customer Experience Strategy

“At the heart of an experience is a relationship − it is built in different ways in the B2B world and is multi-faceted. However, the use of B2C techniques which are targeted and tailored to individual stakeholders will build a sustainable long-term relationship.”

~ KPMG Nunwood Consulting

Customer Experience Excellence Centre

B2B Customer Experience: Winning in the Moments that Matter

KPMG Nunwood authored a fascinating marketing overview, comparing the evolution of B2B customer experience management to that experienced in the B2C world. Recognising that commercial success lies in the strength of relationships, the authors assert that successful firms must learn to capitalise on those fleeting moments which can make the greatest difference.

The 'moments that matter' most are those which cause the target prospect or client to pause and reflect. They determine whether the company in question is living up to its unique brand promise – and most often those moments have to do with their experience. With this goal in mind, the firm unveiled its “Six Pillars of Customer Experience Excellence” as the building blocks for success:

1. Personalisation: Using individualised attention to drive an emotional connection. This is achieved by knowing the customer, being alert to their needs, and then tailoring experiences to their individual circumstances. This may include a purchasing agent, decision-maker, specifier, or management executive, who must all be considered in the business buying process.

2. Resolution: Turning a poor experience into a great one. Although business customers may understand that mistakes or delays can be an inevitable part of the purchasing process, they still want to receive timely updates and reports on the status of their project. Fixing or resolving errors quickly can provide positive indicators of how similar situations might be mitigated in the future.

3. Integrity: Being trustworthy and engendering trust. Integrity is evidenced through behaviour, reliability, consistency and the desire to create a beneficial outcome for the business partner.

4. Time and Effort: Minimising customer effort and creating a frictionless process. In business, time means money, and buyers or potential buyers appreciate those partners who go the extra length to reduce their effort, cost, and time expenditures.

5. Expectations: Managing, meeting and exceeding customer expectations. In business relationships, marketing, sales and production have to be on the same page in what they are presenting and promising to potential clients. Overly-optimistic cost and delivery estimates that cannot be achieved can significantly impact and diminish the client-vendor relationship.

6. Empathy: Achieving an understanding of the customer’s circumstances to drive deep rapport. Businesses need to show that they understand the time and cost pressures their clients are under. They can then demonstrate that they are active partners in helping to alleviate this stress to ensure a positive outcome.

The Customer Experience Journey Stages

These six pillars can be applied throughout the customer experience journey. This is not a linear path. The customer journey can often take a detour down unplanned pathways and come back via multiple options before making a final choice.

The marketer’s job is to think from the perspective of the customer and create an experience which guides them toward the right decision for them. Phases in the customer journey can include:

• Awareness: This is the initial spark that motivates the business prospect to think that something needs to be done. They know what is missing and realise they need to turn to others for help. Content here can often be delivered in the form of white papers, e-books, industry reports or how-to videos.

• Search: The search may take many forms. Their mind might go back to an idea or company they filed away for future reference. They might do a top-level online search. They might go to their social circle for input and options. Companies need to ensure they are easy to find online, and that their website makes the benefits of their product or service offerings easy to understand.

• Evaluation: The searchers build their case for a particular company or business partner. They gather information, compare and contrast various options, and form opinions regarding the direction they might want to take. In this stage, the marketer needs to differentiate the company’s competitive advantages in a language that is easily understood by the target audience.

• Experimentation: The choice is narrowed to a few possibilities, and initial approaches are made. Prospects want to know whether there is a good fit with potential partners and want to experience how that relationship might work. Here it is helpful to present case studies, datasheets, and demo videos to further point out the product’s advantages and inner workings.

• Purchase: A purchasing decision is made, but the sale can still be lost if there is disappointment or failure to meet expectations. The company may wish to drive the point home with customer reviews, live demonstrations, or online consultations to formalise all relationship details.

• Commitment: The final decision is made and a purchase occurs. The challenge now shifts to building committed customer relationships. This may involve customer surveys, testimonial requests, or customer service calls by product specialists to answer utilisation questions as the customer learns how the product works in their business environment.

A customer journey map provides an educated model of how prospects might interact with a business at different touchpoints and stages along the journey before making a purchase decision. Each interaction needs to be viewed as an event which must be managed both individually and as a distinct part of the whole.

The map might need to be adjusted to take into account the buying patterns and needs of various customer personas. Different customer groupings that probably have different reasons for using your product or service will also need to be accommodated.

Building a Customer Experience Team

“To successfully initiate a broad improvement program, decide on a structure, select the sequence that’s right for your type of company, and don’t forget to recruit change agents.”

~ McKinsey & Company

Designing and Starting Up A Customer-Experience Transformation

Improving customer experience is cross-functional by nature and will cut across traditional organisational boundaries. Changing this dynamic can be tricky but these tactics can help mitigate the challenges:

• Choose an Overall Architecture: Senior executives should set a clear vision which reflects the ideal customer experience they wish to create. Action points include drawing up a governance blueprint and initiative road map, creating metrics and initiative objectives to gauge progress, and establishing change management principles for the organisation.

• Set an Organisational Approach: Here the company determines whether it will implement change individually by function or across functions simultaneously. The voice of the customer can be called on to help identify opportunities for improvement within specific functions.

• Determine the Sequential Implementation: If rolling out changes over several functionalities, the order of implementation needs to be identified. Some companies prefer to start small to test rollout parameters, while others choose to get more areas involved at the outset in order to speed the pace of implementation.

• Prioritise Initiatives: Some areas may be easier to change than others, but certain changes may have a bigger impact on overall program effectiveness. It is often helpful to focus on an area that can demonstrate an immediate impact on key performance indicators such as revenue. It can also be useful to achieve early “wins” to keep the momentum moving.

• Take Action: As buy-in is secured from across the organisation, action can begin. Activities can be blended from both a top-down and bottom-up focus, while still addressing critical performance data.

• Identify Change Agents: One critical component of success is designating cheerleaders within the organisation. These leaders help provide necessary motivation, education and boost morale to help overcome apathy and resistance to change.

A CX Change Team may be deployed in a number of ways. They develop tools to understand customers and analyse feedback. They co-create new experiences, identifying new metrics and educating organisational cohorts about the customer experience. They also assist in developing the strategy to achieve the desired customer experience journey.

The Omni-Channel Customer Experience of the Future

The future in B2B customer experience is very similar to the present B2C customer experience. It involves customers and prospects interacting with business partners via the communication mechanism of their choice, including voice, e-mail, website, mobile, or social media at their own convenience. To remain competitive, companies need to focus on facilitating customer interactions across these multiple channels in order to deliver optimal and optimised experiences.

Artificial intelligence and marketing automation can be used to determine expectations and deliver precise, tailored messages at exactly the right moment. Analytics and metrics predict and encourage customer behaviours that result in sales and cross-selling opportunities. A data-driven process enables every interaction to be assessed and improved to deliver memorable content and consistency across all channels. And, with the time savings made through new technologies, companies will have the time and internal support structures developed to deliver on promises made during the marketing and sales process.

In short, the strategy of the future may be based on the oldest strategy of all – placing the customer at the heart and centre of a comprehensive, holistic business strategy.