Dove Direct Print & Marketing Blog - “Essentials For Creating Effective B2B CX”

Welcome to the Dove Direct Print and Marketing Blog. Today's post, "Essentials For Creating Effective B2B CX" speaks to the customer experience (CX), and how CX is evolving as a critical element that supports expansion and relevance for B2B brands. Typically, B2B marketers tend to insist that B2B marketing falls into a unique category based on decades of corporate ideologies that for the most part, represents avoiding what works within B2C marketing strategies. Within the B2C marketing world, brands that are focused on delivering a superior CX can make all the difference, particularly in the retail sector where marketers continue to evolve as quickly as their targets.

Thanks to the social media construct, powered by ongoing technological advances, the population at large has and continues to shift their expectations due to behavioral changes brought about by the immediacy of online access. As a result, both B2B and B2C buyer personas are undergoing a convergence of sorts, reminiscent of Governor Mitt Romney's statement; "Corporations are people too." Moreover, regardless of the brand sector, many marketers are evolving in their understanding that marketing is now human to human.

Creating and achieving a stellar CX is a demanding challenge for B2B organizations, particularly since corporate dogma focuses on sales strategies that have little to do with CX considerations. Sales managers operating in the B2B sector are obsessed with terms such as customer retention (churn), acquisition, customer lifetime value, including product value statements and the like, that reflect the target markets. However, times are changing and in the sphere of strategic customer expectations, the B2B world is coming around and embracing the idea that capturing today's customer insights are proportionally relevant to retaining and attracting new customers. Think about that for a moment.

All things being equal, what separates B2B brand successes among brands that offer competitive, similar products is their CX. In a pool of products that are ubiquitous across the board, similarly priced, comparable reliability, almost identical warranties, etcetera, it begs the question: "How is a B2B marketing and sales strategy going to position a brand to excel at new business sales?" In other words, if all the conventional B2B sales and marketing wisdom synonymous with B2B stakeholders are in place, then what essential element(s) may be missing to provide a superior CX?

One needs to look no further than understanding that exceptional brands have one thing in common: a superior CX. We now live in a customer-centric universe, where customers not only demand a superior purchasing experience, but also are insistent upon receiving a superior brand experience. The seemingly insurmountable task facing B2B brands that prohibits developing a superior CX lies within the core infrastructure, which by design, is not built to advance, adapt and create an element such as a stellar CX. At the end of the day however, there are essentials that B2B brands can initiate to achieve a better CX.

Understanding The Customer

The B2B sales model suggests a much longer sales cycle than the B2C sales proposition. In addition, the B2B target market segments tend to be much smaller than those of its B2C cousin. B2C brands have the capability of being a big fish in a huge ocean, whereas B2B opportunities are limited to being a big fish in a pond or lake. Further, not only are B2B sales efforts confined to smaller market segments, but these efforts are also hindered somewhat by having to spend an inordinate amount of time to gain access to these market segments. Nailing down customer and prospect insights via big data collection initiatives is a priceless element in the quest to understand customer preferences and expectations.

Developing a superior CX is reliant on understanding a brand's most important customer segments. The most important segments can then be prioritized and constructed into unique buyer personas, each with a distinguishable prerequisite that will support the creation of matching buyer persona experiences. Failing to really understand customer segments, their needs, pain points and expectations is tantamount to burying one's head in the sand and waiting for the approaching sand storm to wreak havoc.

Seamless Connections Produce Better CX

There's nothing more frustrating for B2B buyers than to be pushed from one department to the next, which unlike the B2C experience, lacks a seamless integrated platform. In addition, B2B buyers are now more educated, and have higher expectations, since many of them have experienced excellent CX stemming from the B2C world. In short, these B2B buyers are looking for brands that have taken the steps to incorporate high level customer experiences. Brands that present a set of silo-based departments that are not integrated into a single source experience will get left behind in the scheme of sales and communications among B2B buyers.

The quest for creating integrated internal department communications should not be limited to the various departments, but care should also be taken to avoid internal language and wording seeping into customer facing portals and websites. Another common mistake the B2B universe makes is with website design and communications, by which most B2B sites are designed to impart qualities focused on the brand's mission statement, capabilities and organizational infrastructure. Of course those inherent brand qualities are important, however; the most important quality a B2B website can impart are solutions that are offered and address specific customer needs.

Creating a seamless, integrated CX begins with the inclusion of a holistic, soup-to-nuts overview outlining the customer voyage. The holistic customer approach will aid in fine tuning the messaging, content and design solutions. For example, at the start of the B2B messaging and communications era in the online world, IBM took the plunge with creating a website portal for its customers. This portal provided customers with an easy way of keeping up-to-date with new software and hardware releases and updates, including the ability to process new orders and/or submit requests to test new systems, from laptops to servers.

Initially, the customer portal program was slow to board existing clients, but over a short time, and with a marketing communications strategy, hundreds of customers became users of the customer portal. In short, the IBM customer portal initiative paved the way for creating a seamless customer experience model, whereby sales managers, project managers, R&D directors and tech support teams could all have access to customer concerns and needs. B2B brands that can provide an experience that connects departments as opposed to having them operate in silos is an essential element for creating an effective CX.

Success is Measured by Accountability

KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are the leading measure that most successful organizations use to justify how the brand is doing. One of the tests within the KPI is the brand's ability to track and measure the success of any customer experience initiatives. Otherwise, if there is not an accountable measure in place for CX analysis, department heads may object to the validity of a CX program. If done properly, CX data can provide a barometer for the brand's status, including any unforeseen challenges that may have otherwise gone unnoticed, and of course the impact of the CX program itself.

To that end, defining what will be the measure of success prior to designing and launching a CX program is critical. If there is a void with how to hold the CX program to an accountable measurement overview, then the likelihood will grow that company stakeholders will scoff and rebut the program's value. Being able to use digital technology in a CX program also delivers essentials such as the ability to generate contracts, contract renewals, cross selling, up selling, and not to mention, provides customer access for requests and support.

The Net-Net

The B2B landscape is becoming more competitive by the minute, and in order to better compete in a limited market segment, having a superior CX program can make all the difference. In general, most successful initiatives deliver 1 to 3 percentage point upticks, thus improving the overall KPI metric, and those metrics can drive home the value of your CX program for company stakeholder assessments. Thanks for reading "Essentials For Creating Effective B2B CX!"

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