{"id":20281,"date":"2017-11-02T12:55:38","date_gmt":"2017-11-02T16:55:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exob2b.com\/?p=20281\/"},"modified":"2017-11-02T12:55:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T16:55:38","slug":"4-actions-improve-b2b-customer-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exob2b.com\/en\/4-actions-improve-b2b-customer-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"4 actions to improve your B2B customer’s experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I talked about how focusing more strongly on the B2B customer’s experience increases your customer retention. Creating a new customer is so much more expensive than retaining an existing one and you don’t want to lose one in the middle of their buyer’s journey! So, this week, I’ll talk about 4 concrete steps you should take to make doing business with you so pleasing, your customer won’t think about going elsewhere.<\/p>\n

1- Increase market intelligence<\/h2>\n

Ideally, market intelligence should help you take a more active role in providing the customer with what they need. it should help you go from just-in-time to real time, to ahead of time. This is what is now called predictive marketing. This requires a lot of information. Big Data or A.I. will help, but we forget that traditional quantitative and qualitative marketing research is still highly valuable in B2B. Here qualitative data is vitally important. For example, tracking\u00a0customer behavior on your website with Google Analytics, but also “listening” to comments on the website or in social media. Conversation strings between users of yours or similar products are also very telling. Interviewing customers as to how they feel about dealing with you.<\/p>\n

In fact, any customer touchpoint can be the source of good qualitative\u00a0data either from written correspondence or from the mouth of your customer service or order desk representatives. Consider regularly interviewing your employees about the pain points they and the customers are encountering. Learn how to smooth things out.<\/p>\n

You can also focus this information into customer personas that will help you\u00a0market products and services, as well as deliver content that better fit your customers.<\/p>\n

2 – Reduce complexity<\/h2>\n

There’s the buyer, the user, the marketing people, the decider etc. They all have different needs. What’s important at your end is to understand the interactions between the\u00a0people involved in the buying decision.\u00a0 The intelligence you can gather from your CRM, as well as from customer contacts such as sales or service people will help you zero in on the individual characteristics and needs of your customers. It will help you understand what is important for them and lay the foundation for Account-Based Marketing. This customized approach requires a spirit of intelligence-sharing and “co-development” among your peers in all departments. It can be complex and require agility from your perspective but the customer perception will be a reduction of complexity.<\/p>\n

In the end,\u00a0 your customer needs to feel listened to and validated in their needs.<\/p>\n

3- Align Sales and Marketing<\/h2>\n

A company that has “Siloed” its different departments will have a hard time\u00a0becoming customer-centric. Considering the\u00a0cost of acquisition or scale of a transaction, losing even one customer in B2B can be catastrophic. This is why it is vital that the quality of the customer experience be consistent all along the value chain. Buying from you has to be easy, even pleasant.<\/p>\n

4 – Map out the B2B customer cycle<\/h2>\n

At any point in the sale cycle, the key question is “What does the customer need at this point?”. At each “moment of truth” not only should you strive to reduce friction, you should also strive to make the experience memorable. Try this\u00a0exercise in groups, using a whiteboard or a chart:<\/p>\n