A positive customer experience encourages customers to spend more. A customer could be highly satisfied with a company’s products and services, but that doesn’t mean they are also loyal. Many companies fail in delivering an excellent customer experience as customers are four times more likely to leave a service interaction disloyal than loyal. Poor customer experience drives brand switching and the majority of customers who suffer a bad customer experience spread negative word of mouth.

Salespeople are at the front lines of developing those client relationships and need the right tools and skills to be successful.

Here are three important mantras to connect with customers:

• There is no average customer. Customers want companies to know their individual needs and are willing to tailor the experience to meet them.
• An explosion of information, connected networks, and options have led to little patience for complexity. Customers place a real premium on simplicity.
• Time is of the essence. Customers can’t afford to wait around while their business issues are being considered. They value companies that provide real-time responses and proactively anticipate their needs.

Customers are increasingly clear on what they want and how they want it. Business 2 Business (B2B) customers see the benefits of these elements in their personal life as retail consumers, and they expect similar results in their professional lives.

It’s no secret that delivering positive customer experience outcomes can drive business success. This is even more important in B2B where the number of customers is generally smaller, and the cost of delivering experiences that fall short of expectations can be higher.

The B2B world is characterized by:

• Longer, often more difficult, sales cycles Service levels that are often set contractually
• Usually significantly greater investment in time, money and resources
• Magnified complexity due to the number of stakeholders involved who have different voices, goals and agendas
• Personal goals and expectations of each of the stakeholders that need to be understood.

When considering customer experience, it is easy to fall into the trap of believing everything has to be perfect and that all dimensions of an experience are equally important.

Highlights of B2B Customer experience:

• Demonstrating a fundamental understanding of the client’s business, objectives and strategic direction.
• A continual focus on reducing the costs and effort of their client organizations; removing barriers and complications; making interactions easy and enabling self-service through low-friction channels
• Meeting and/or exceeding expectations, especially those set through consumer experiences.
• Focus on trust-building moments and nurturing the trust in the relationship.
• Build strong, empathetic personal relationships across stakeholders.
• Proactive issue management that anticipates and resolves issues at source.

By Implementing these methods, companies will ultimately benefit through loyalty, enhanced revenue and increased shareholder value.

Hence will learn the highlight best practices for B2B companies to create excellent customer experiences.

Personalization

Personalization is achieved through knowing your customer. Being alert to their needs and wants, whether relating to life goals or business goals, and then tailoring experiences to particular circumstances.

In a B2B relationship, this knowledge may need to span several individuals rather than just the buyer. It is also important to ground personalization in the context of the competitive marketplace the client is competing with and how they are performing.

Integrity

Integrity precedes trust, which is the foundation of all relationships. The trust-formation process is critical. It is based on trust building behavior, reliability and ensuring beneficial outcomes for both parties.

Time and Effort

With Time and Effort, the ease of doing business and the amount of time it takes is a strong driver of loyalty B2B. Finding opportunities to reduce cost, Time and Effort are major relationship enhancers.

Resolution

Service failure and customer recovery impact retention and advocacy. The ability to resolve issues quickly and reliably is paramount. In the B2B environment this is particularly true when it involves a large customer. In this world, progress reports, timelines and updates are more prevalent – again, a function of a different level of complexity. But the concept of Resolution is applicable to both. The service recovery paradox is equally in.

Expectations

The nature of B2B purchasing, often requiring a sales pitch or formal presentation, whereby organizations are tempted to place themselves in a good light. We frequently find that this spills over into a tendency to over-promise at the outset and then fail to deliver. This has a significant impact on the durability of a relationship. The accurate setting of expectations is a difficult but essential component of a successful relationship.

Empathy

Finally, Empathy. In both worlds you need to be able to put yourself in your customers’ shoes and show them you can see the world from their perspective. Understand their priorities and challenges, the obstacles that will get in the way, their fears and worries.

All the while, being able to judge the emotional temperature and having the emotional intelligence to react accordingly. Empathy applies to the client and, more importantly, to the customer level − it is imperative to understand how the decisions being considered influence both.

“Treat any organization as you would treat a person you love and all will be good”

Summary:

Traditionally, customer lifetime values are higher in B2B sales than they are in B2C, so focusing on retention and referrals can bring a quick return on investment. To make these improvements, you must first understand customer experiences and journeys and know how your customers want to be delighted.

“Assess the requirements, Explore the opportunities and Implement the changes and Succeed – Sky is the limit”.