In the present digital age where customer expectations for incredibly personalized customer experiences are emerging at rocket speed, B2B organizations are struggling with their old classical sales model.

Acknowledging the importance of CX is one thing. Delivering incredible experiences that produce more B2B sales is another.

But as we have entered the age of the experience economy where customers expect more than ever before. Brands are at the battle to outperform customer experience by making the customer journey easier and delivering faster.

What is a B2B eCommerce customer experience?

The B2B (business-to-business) companies are the enterprises that offer products or services to other businesses that need to operate and grow.

There are 2 other models in the eCommerce industry that offer products or services to other businesses.

One is B2C( business-to-consumer), which sells directly to individual customers and the other is C2B (consumer-to-business), in which users offer services for business.

The B2B customer experience is termed as the overall experience of a customer with a B2B company or brand. It can be before, during, or after purchase.

According to Forrester, B2B eCommerce will record 13.1% of all B2B sales in the United States by the year 2021,

Why is B2B Customer experience important?

Customer experience for B2B organizations is equally vital as it is for B2C.

Develop Customer Insight

Creating valuable real customer insights for each and every customer upholds the delivery of an incredible customer experience.

It will eliminate the pressure business buyers undergo. They have funds related responsibilities and the purchasing decisions are being monitored. This pressure can lead to anxiety and stress.

Foster a Customer-Centric Culture

B2B businesses were earlier focused on sales, so migrating to a customer-centric paradigm can be challenging.

Developing a customer-centered culture is crucial to put the customer in the middle of everything a B2B business is doing.

Deliver Personalized B2B Experiences

For businesses, delivering personalized experiences to customers is very crucial these days. B2B customers need to be satisfied that they are valued, and their requirements are fully considered.

Make Full Use of Technology

B2B organizations need to be aware of the various trending and upcoming technologies in the market. So, they can communicate with their respective customers easily and fast.

It’s important to understand how to use emerging technologies effectively.

Nowadays, Chatbots are a great example of a technology that allows customers to get in touch and interact at any time they choose.

Emerging technologies such as augmented reality and artificial Intelligence are increasingly employed in improving customer experience and meeting customer expectations.

Derive Continuous Feedback

It’s important to facilitate B2B customer feedback throughout the customer journey. By deriving customer feedback at all key touchpoints, a B2B business can ensure that their valuable clients are not encountering unwanted hurdles or roadblocks.

Creating engaging customer experience surveys can be an effective technique to interact with the customers and understand their requirements.

What’s needed is a simple mechanism through which just one or two relevant, engaging questions can be asked in a timely manner to gather their immediate responses.

Roll out some B2B eCommerce Essentials for Picture-Perfect Customer Experience:

Delivering service with a smiling face may not work in the eCommerce world. But, a website offers an appealing design and a great user experience, customers definitely going to use it for a longer period of time.

List out some of the essentials of B2B eCommerce for crafting a picture-perfect customer experience.

Personalization

Personalization is one of the most important keys when considering customer experience. B2B personalization can be a complex one.

Organizations should understand the requirements of different customers so that they can create better workflows and personalized features for them.

User-centric Website Design

Your unique and out-of-the-box website design is a way to showcase your brand’s key message
with content, graphics, and interactive design. Moreover, your design should be more user-centric.

3 principles that keep your UX design efforts focused on delivering a great B2B customer experience.

• Drive the customers to your website through various social channels.
• Connect with your customers rationally and emotionally. Your website should convey trust in your industry expertise, product quality, and ability to understand your customer’s business challenges.
• Simplify the conversion paths to make the customers click buy-now and pay for the product they have in their cart.
• Consider customers’ responses be it negative or positive and modify the product or services accordingly.

High-Quality Product Content

Repetitive and irrelevant product content is not going to attract or engage your customers.
B2B companies must ensure that the website content should be unique and grabs users’ attention.

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI) , nearly three-quarters (81%) of marketers think interactive content is more attention-grabbing than content that isn’t interactive.

Always remember that B2B buyers are consumers too. To produce a ready to engage and customer-centric content, you need to think more from the customers’ perspective of what they want to buy.

Intuitive Search

How easily can your customers find the products they‘re looking for on your website?
Keyword research, categorized products are some of the features that must be arranged according to customers’ preferences.

Quick order capabilities cater to loyal customers who often come to your site and permit them to order your products with item numbers.

Intuitive search capabilities on your website depict that you put your customers first and understand their needs better.

Mobile and Responsive Design

Mobile users are increasing every single day. Mobile apps have already changed the B2C way of doing business. And, now they are changing B2B markets too.

Create a powerful B2B eCommerce platform that delights customers at each digital touchpoint. Your mobile responsive eCommerce website will stand out of the crowd if followed by this.

Order Fulfillment and FollowThrough

Order fulfillment is considered one of the most important factors in the B2B customer experience world. Website ordering was half to the customer experience with your company.

Ordering on your website is halfway when it comes to customer experience. The complex workflows start after the order is placed.

The order Fulfillment process is the promise you made to your customers on your website.

In the ordering process, you are ensuring how your customer orders are processed and fulfilled, and also the repeat orders are filled correctly so as to gain customers’ reviews positively.

Benefits of crafting a B2B customer experience

Today, customer experience has become a buzzword and a competing factor for brands across all industries. The rapid evolution of technology makes today’s customers more powerful than ever before.

Great customer experience is on every B2B marketer’s wish list, see what all are the benefits of B2B customer experience.

• Increased customer loyalty
• Boost eCommerce sales
• Higher customer retention
• Reduced churn
• Higher lifetime customer value
• Greater brand equity
• Reduced costs of service

Winding Up

It’s no secret that the B2B e-commerce industry is drastically changing every year. B2B organizations should start thinking like retailers when it comes to e-commerce.

B2B companies should consider all users as their customers and aim to provide a B2C like an experience.

In the end, the reward will go to those businesses that deliver personalized, frictionless, user-centric customer experiences.

Author Bio:

Tanya Kumari leads the Digital Marketing & Content for Classic Informatics, a global web development company.

She is an avid reader, music lover, and technology enthusiast who likes to be up to date with all the latest advancements happening in the techno world.

When she is not working on her latest article on tech dynamics, you can find her by the coffee machine, briefing co-workers on the perks of living a healthy lifestyle and how to achieve it.