3 Best Practices to Improve Your B2B Customer Experience
Organizations that follow a B2C model will typically place a lot of emphasis on customer service. However, enterprises that are B2B still need to prioritize their customers in a big way. In today’s world, customer experience matters a great deal. And if your customers aren’t getting the service they expect, they’ll have no qualms about taking their business to one of your competitors.
Keep in mind that there’s ample data to support this idea. According to a PwC survey, approximately 65% of U.S. consumers feel a positive customer experience is more influential than advertising, with consumers reporting they’d pay up to 16% more for a better customer experience. And while 50% of people are more likely to click on a brand name if they show up more than once in search results, 60% of consumers said they would stop doing business with a company if they received unfriendly service. Around 32% said they’d walk away from a brand they love after only one bad experience. That information is powerful — but you need to know what to do with it.
To ensure your business provides a consistently positive customer experience, you’ll need to make sure it’s not treated as an afterthought. Instead, customer service needs to be woven into every part of your brand strategy. Let’s take a closer look at three best practices you can follow — with help from expert brand marketing consulting services — to improve your B2B customer experience.
1. Know Your Customer and Their Journey
You can’t provide stellar customer service if you don’t have a clear idea of who your customer is or what they need at any given point during their buying journey. If you haven’t clearly defined your target customer, it’s time to bring in brand marketing consultants to figure out who your customer is, the challenges they face, and what you can do to solve their problems.
For B2B enterprises, in particular, it’s important to understand the unique needs of every buyer and the pressures they’re under. Marketing consultants can help your company compile data relating to buyer industries and customer journeys to give you a stronger foundation on which to build your strategy. Someone with a wealth of experience in brand marketing consulting can provide you with a more innate understanding of your customers and a more effective process that will help customers reach their goals. This should be at the center of all of your customer interactions.
2. Incorporate Your Customer Into Your Brand Marketing Strategy
You might logically know that the customer should come first. But are you actually practicing what you preach? You need to design and execute a company vision that is centered around your customer — and so do in a way that permeates every aspect of your organization.
You need to have every employee on board with this vision and ensure that the strategy is clear. From the way you answer the phone to the message you display in your digital advertisements, your brand strategy should make it obvious that you’re invested in your customers. By investing in brand marketing consulting, you can ensure that every member of your team is dedicated to this customer-centric vision.
3. Remember to Make it Personal
No one wants to feel like they’re just a number. In order to provide impeccable customer service, you need to make sure your clients know that they matter. In some ways, B2B buyers aren’t that much different from B2C buyers; both want to know that they’re important and worthy of customized solutions. You can’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to your customer service; instead, you’ll want to make your approach as personalized as possible.
An outsourced marketing manager can come up with personalized strategies that can be highly effective for your sales department, as well. If every team member understands the essential nature of personalization — whether that means leading with empathy or taking more time to meet a customer’s needs — that can make all the difference.
Some leaders assume that customer service is a separate entity, but it’s actually an integral part of your brand strategy. For more on how my brand marketing consulting services can improve your B2B customer experience, please get in touch today.
About Michelle Roberts
President of Novus - Be Known, Inc.
