Why Customer Experience Is Important for the Future B2B Businesses

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    Why Bt2B Businesses Must Think Like B2C in the Next Decade

    B2B vs B2B thinking makes a real difference when it comes to customer experience. According to Gartner at least 80% of B2B buyers now expect the same buying experience as B2C customers in 2019. Gone are the days when B2B organizations did not need to prioritize or invest in customer experience. If you are not including customer experience in your roadmap, you might not be part of the future business ecosystem.

    B2C Organizations Need Partners who Share their Vision

    If you are a BtoB organization, your revenues depend on the depth of the partnerships you have with your clients. Gaining that depth can only happen when you understand your customers’ goals and strategies.

    What is the experience your partner wants to offer to their employees and customers? How can you contribute to making it better?

    If you are a software company offering chatbot solutions, are you building features that will make employees’ lives easier? Or, is your solution primarily built to give necessary information without regard for user interface?

    Have you tested your solution as an employee of your client to understand how long it would take to get value out of your solution? Let me tell you about my big pet peeve in JetBlue. For me, it was when we implemented chat systems that required frontline employees to go and click the windows for notifications to display. Or when we implemented applications that did not integrate easily with the existing infrastructure of the airline and, thus, required a separate login and tab to be open at the gate. This forced our airport crewmembers to toggle between screens while customers needed immediate help.

    Be a good partner by thinking as your enterprise client. Help them meet their customers’ needs in a timely fashion. And you will grow exponentially in the next decade and beyond.

    B2B Organizations are Still in the Business of People-to-People

    Let’s take the pharma industry as an example here. When you are working with testing centers and fail to prioritize creating user friendly relationships with your partners, they will not prioritize testing your drug in an efficient matter.

    Treating others the way you want to be treated is a safe business practice. For some reason, B2B organizations historically thought they were exempt from this basic principle. Not to mention the very intuitive business case here.

    Another example, even closer to home – as a women-owned business, we are in the process of getting certified by NY State. The paper-based process is going to delay our application, which in turn will yield fewer certified women-owned business. In turn, this will make it harder for the State to utilize the funding requirement to acquire state funding awarded to women-certified businesses.

    The business case for making B2B relationships customer-centric is even easier and more impactful than for B2B vs B2C businesses. Yet, the ROI is neither fully understood, nor prioritized.

    Regardless of B2B vs B2C, Feedback is the Best Gift. Don’t Miss Out on It!

    Asking for feedback will grow your business regardless, whether you are B2B or B2C. Yet, generally B2B organizations have not heard of NPS. Or they are not listening effectively to what is coming back from customers.

    When you listen to your customers’ needs and adjust to meet them, your customers reward you with loyalty – and with more business. Tracking how you are doing is a must in the business of the future.

    If you have one goal in 2020, make that goal to infuse customer satisfaction scores into the way you do business. Just do it. And thank me later.

    Liliana Petrova, CCXP

    Published on 10/11/2019

    Liliana Petrova, CCXP

    Liliana Petrova CCXP pioneered a new customer-centric culture that energized more than 15,000 JetBlue employees. Future Travel Experience & Popular Science awarded her for her  JFK Lobby redesign & facial recognition program. Committed to creating seamless experiences for customers and greater value for brands, she founded The Petrova Experience, an international customer experience consulting firm that helps brands improve CX. To elevate the industry, she launched a membership program to help CX professionals grow their careers. Ms Petrova lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.

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