Why B2B Marketing is Right In Obsessing Over Customer Experience?

Do you know how Morton’s steakhouse responded to a man’s tweet asking for a steak when he landed at the airport 2 hours later?

They literally met him with a steak at the airport.

Do you know why Sainsbury has a product called ‘giraffe bread’?

Because a 3-year old suggested it.

These are examples of obsession with customer experience. An obsession to go above and beyond to make your customer’s experience with your brand better.

But that’s not scalable.

True.

These are just some outliers.

You cannot always accept suggestions from 3-year-olds. You cannot deliver steak at the airport to your entire customer base.

What you can (and need) to do is make your efforts for customer experience enhancement reflect on everything you do.

All customer interactions with your brand should show that you care.

Does that apply to B2B sellers too?

Definitely.

90% of B2B executives say customer experience is important to achieve their goals.

Probably that’s why the customer experience is a buzzword that you hear everywhere.

And B2B marketers are obsessed with it.

• IBM makes its customers learn their software products by assigning a specialist team to them.
• Wells Fargo has a number of how to run a business right-type of resources that helps its small B2B customers.
• Slack introduced emoticons (emojis) when its client companies asked for them.
• Costco offers its business customers special services like delivery and early store access.
• Your competitors have also probably started detailing and acting on a customer experience enhancement plan.

Isn’t this obsession going too far?

Is it even logical to obsess so much about the customer’s experience?

Well, it is not just logical, but essential for your survival.

And once you use the right ways to channelize their obsession, it will be rewarding too.

Want to know how and why obsession over customer experience?

Reasons why the B2B market is right in obsessing over the customer experience. (And why you should start too!)

• Customer Obsessed Brands Exceed Their Revenue Targets

According to a joint study by Forrester Consulting and Adobe, 22% of ‘customer obsessed’ marketers said they exceed their revenue targets. Three years in a row.

How?

Well, your client companies are run by people, right? The decision-makers and feedback providers are ‘people.’

You just have to take one step.

Try to enhance or even ease the experience for these people.

And they will remember that.

When it comes to generating sales revenue for your business, these people keep in mind how interaction with your brand made them feel.

And they will let their experience dominate and dictate their actions and choices.

Suppose you start a training program for your B2B clients.

Whenever a company acquires a tech product from you, your team of specialists visits the customer’s office, train the employees who’ll be dealing with the product. You also make sure they can contact you in case of doubts or queries.

This makes their experience with the new product and your brand easier. They struggle less and don’t cancel your contract next year.

Why?

Because of just one step that you took to enhance their experience.

And the result?

A constant stream of revenue for you.

• Customer Experience Obsession Helps Cope With Change

Your marketers know enhancing customer experience is their goal. To do that, they keep asking customers for feedback. They keep looking around and noticing what others in the market are doing. And they keep improvising.

During this process, a lot of data is collected.

It is processed to generate valuable information.

Information that tells you what your customers need.

But with the data, they can also understand patterns in the change in customer behavior. They can predict trends. And forecast changes.

With data, you already know what’s going to change. And it gets way simpler to adapt to the changes then.

You can ditch the reactive approach. Go proactive.

Don’t just cope with the change, be the change.

• Customer Obsession Leads To Positive Differentiation

You don’t have a monopoly in your B2B market, right?

There are several other companies. They all offer somewhat similar solutions as you do. And you cannot just win the competition with a lower price.

You can keep adding new and better features, and your competitors can copy everything that you do.

Your claims, your features, and even your price can be mimicked.

You can either keep pulling down the price till you go bankrupt, or you can differentiate your business on some unique grounds.

But how do you do that?

How do you tell your business clients that you are different?

How do you beat your competitors?

How do you build a distinctive brand image?

By obsessing over the customer experience. You cannot make businesses say that you are offering an entirely unique B2B solution.

But you can make them say:

“I could have selected any B2B tech service provider, but I went ahead with “your company” because the experience was unmatched.”

• B2B markets are usually examples of perfect competition.
• The price is fixed.
• The only way to sell more of what everyone else is also selling?
• Create a positive difference.

And customer experience is one aspect that competitors cannot copy from you.

The efforts you put into an innovative customer experience are something that will stay unique to your brand. Forever.

While 100% of companies will say customer service is a workplace virtue they follow, only 14% of bigger B2B businesses can actually be called customer-centric.

You see the vantage point there?

The others are wasting time obsessing over ‘why the obsession,’ but you need to start working on the obsession and giving your customers the absolute best experience.

• Happy Customers Bring in More Customers

You know testimonials and video reviews work like magic. You have seen them work. For others. And for your own business too. Right?

But how many businesses actually leave testimonials? Just a couple. Even if someone leaves a negative review, consider it a brand building step and learn to respond in a positive manner.

And how many of these business decision-makers make personal recommendations for others? Each one of them.

A word about how their experience was with your brand does slip out.

In peer-to-peer conversations.

In business parties.

In get-together events.

And even during casual conversations.

And these casual recommendations affect people’s choices.

So, how do you get your customers to recommend you – in public and private?

By making their journey with your simpler, quicker, and more enjoyable.

Every dime you spend on enhancing your current clients’ experience, the more you can expect to get back in return.

One happy customer can tell tens and hundreds of prospective customers about your brand.

Imagine if even 10% of them were to actually convert. That’s a great deal for you.

You have to spend nothing extra. And you get more than you could have asked for.

Now, you see why the big shot B2B marketers are obsessing over the customer experience. They are not just customer aware. They are customer-led.

And that’s what you need to be too. Obsessed with customer experience. And driven by customers.

A word of advice: Don’t Forget the Employees

The B2B market hasn’t been the frontrunner in customer service. That’s changing now. But to be able to adapt to the change, don’t forget your employees.

Your customer experience enhancement plans and policies aren’t going to work unless your employees are happy too.

Make sure you first appease your employees so that they can make your customers happy in return.

Customer Experience Is The Driver Of B2B Markets. Get Obsessed or Go Home

B2B tech service owners often forget the fact that their target audience is not a ‘Business’ but decision-makers of business organizations.

And their minds work not much differently from regular B2C customers.

These decision-makers don’t want to struggle to be able to avail of your services.

These people don’t want to walk the extra mile to use your tech products.

They aren’t interested in making extra efforts.

They crave personalized solutions.

Simpler processes.

Easier navigation.

And a better overall experience.

If you can give them just that, you can make sure your business gets where it needs to be. In the hearts of their business decision-makers and on the outflow side of their bank accounts.