It makes sense for a business working in b2b to take an example of building relationships with buyers from b2c companies. Which client service practices will be useful to b2b companies?
Customer experience (CX) is the experience that a customer receives when interacting with different areas of the company’s work, including its products and services.
According to research by Accenture, 95% of executives of b2b and b2c companies say that business is changing more slowly than consumers need. Therefore, when forming a CX strategy, business should use a systematic approach – to implement the principles of service orientation in all business processes, and not only in direct communication with customers, but also in the field of optimization of internal processes and interaction.
The term “CX” sometimes refers to the marketing or onboarding of customers into a product. However, the term is much deeper, it includes all the components of the service – caring for the client and helping him with every interaction. How is CX related to marketing? Previously, the concept of customer experience was associated with everything that is associated with the brand by the client, so the task was to improve the consumer’s attitude.
The modern concept of “customer experience” includes more meanings and requires much more attention to all aspects of customer relations: marketing service, quality of service or product, efficiency and level of support, qualifications of each of the specialists who participate in the delivery of value to the client.
B2C companies have always paid maximum attention to CX – they carefully examined each client in search of an individual approach. Businesses in the b2b sphere took up this issue quite recently, although there is only one difference in the construction of the CX for them – communications and services are configured not for one client, but for the entire team. They always have different roles that go through separate communication paths with the supplier.
Business experience (BX) is a concept that helps shape an effective customer engagement strategy for b2b companies and is becoming more and more popular in the expert community. In fact, the company forms a service-oriented approach that permeates all processes and communications within the business and is transferred to relations with the client. HX is an effort by the entire company to anticipate and meet the constantly changing expectations of customers in order to convey to them the value of the product.
Features of the client service in b2b in the context of metrics
1. Retention rate
In many niches, the b2b market is much narrower than the b2c market, so where for the second one ordinary investments in marketing would be sufficient, the first are forced to create a service with a bias in account-based marketing (ABM).
Buying decisions in b2b are in 94% of all cases made by a group of three or more people. Their signals of interest and intentions about purchases must be carefully monitored by marketing and sales departments, and the service must respond in real time to signals about the purchase or dissatisfaction of the client. This can provide a seamless IT infrastructure for CRM + Service + Marketing.
The transaction cycle in b2b takes up to a year, while the company works with the client not only in the process of the sale itself, but also at the project and post-project maintenance stage. The b2b funnel is also much narrower than in b2c, so losing a client is more sensitive and expensive for business.
It is necessary to conduct more targeted work with failures and provide service throughout the work with the client, constantly maintaining good relations with him. To organize this, CRM solutions are suitable that allow:
- to build a funnel for the specifics of the business;
- to automate the process of setting tasks for managers;
- to use ready-made forms for collecting leads at touch points on the site, external portal, or application;
- to use customizable dashboards for executives and managers, where key metrics and current tasks are clearly displayed.
Client experience largely depends on the quality of communication, the convenience of communication channels, as well as how quickly and efficiently requests are processed. This can be done if you organize properly the workspace of the specialist responsible for communications. For example, the modern standard of the service center is a single window for calls through various channels, built-in chat bots, well-thought-out rules for routing tickets and calls, a complete knowledge base with automatic prompts, convenient search and layout tools.
2. Consumer Loyalty Index (NPS)
The NPS index is a benchmark for business growth, showing weaknesses and growth opportunities. By NPS, they identify and eliminate problems in service and predict the outflow of customers. This indicator in b2b has drawbacks – large customers do not always seek to advise their supplier’s customers, even if they are really good – for competitive reasons. But in the contract form of the business, this metric will display the real picture.
How you collect feedback is also an element of the service model, and being omnichannel is extremely important here. The client should be able to leave feedback both on the website and in the application, and live after talking with the manager. These cases should be displayed in end-to-end analytics through all channels and contact points – then you can quickly and competently respond to incidents.
Five principles for developing customer experience in b2b
1. Inject customer-centric DNA into your company
Clientocentric is not about “the client is always right.” It’s more about taking care of all parts of the service to provide value to customers. A customer-centric company should be able to build and manage processes, apply a BPM approach. Other signs of such an organization:
- making all decisions based on data analysis (end-to-end analytics in the context of “CRM + Service + Marketing”);
- communication available to the client at any stage of the business process (there is no communication gap between specialists of different departments);
- the skill to adapt resources flexibly to changing business needs (for example, thanks to Low-code platforms, where working with software code is minimal, and users themselves configure the system);
- knowledge management and timely communication of key information to employees and customers.
2. Simplify ways for the customer to interact with the company
Business b2c is interested in the user making an order in the application with a minimum number of clicks, and for b2b companies the main task is to ensure transparency and clarity of all processes for the client. The potential buyer from the very beginning should understand:
- what the service consists of;
- how it is carried out and in what quantity;
- how the result will be evaluated;
- what the level of service will be.
In addition to the main omnichannel tools, companies will also need auxiliary ones – for example, an external partner portal, where it will be convenient for the client to watch analytics independently, launch business processes, study the product guide and track the status of orders. It’s great if the portal allows you to write directly to a dedicated service line – for this you can use the chat built into the site interface. You can connect a bot to the chat so that it starts business processes and makes it easier for the client to get value from the company.
3. Organize a positive experience of interaction at each point of contact
In the b2b business, there are many times more common ground than in the b2c: support service, account manager, sales manager and others. If these communications are not digitized, tracking bottlenecks is hard enough.
For large businesses, it makes sense to form separate services within the company. For example, the client needed to contact on an urgent and important issue. He writes to the manager’s mail, and the manager, as ill luck would have it, is on vacation or sick leave – the problem is not solved, the client is dissatisfied. To avoid this, organize a call processing service line. Then the question is processed promptly and qualitatively not by one person, but by a group of persons to whom incoming requests are distributed.
To ensure that all managers comply with service standards and regulations, prepare standard response cards for them. It will also reduce the number of problems due to the human factor – even if the employee is absent, the appeal will not remain unanswered.
4. Personalize Offers
To provide a positive experience for your customers, you need to know them completely. For the b2b business, it is especially important to have detailed customer profiles, since with their help you can measure and understand the client’s behavior at each point of contact and through all communication channels. Knowing the customer well, you can personalize every touch based on that information.
For example, an IT company client contacted support. He reported the malfunction at the moment, and described a scenario where you can use an additional functional block that the development has not yet been engaged in. This information will give the product owner guidelines for planning roadmap future updates and understanding how much this feature is in demand, and the account manager will note that this client will need to be addressed with additional sales of new functionality when he is ready.
5. Work well with feedback
You can get the most out of customer feedback using voice of the customer (VoC) tools and methods. In the CJM of the client, you need to insert the feedback collection points from it where it is appropriate and does not contradict other processes. Formulate VoC questions specifically and unequivocally. It is important not only to accumulate the results of surveys, but to digitize and convert them into analytical reports – dashboards in order to adjust the business strategy based on them. In general, the development of methodology, training managers in the art of asking the necessary questions and embedding feedback request points in CJM are working tools that will help managers of support and client service to gain a deeper and complete understanding of customers.
By Natalia Dolzhenkova, Product Owner, ELMA365 Platform