How to Build a Better B2B eCommerce Customer Experience

DynamicWeb

All eCommerce experiences need to be smooth, efficient, and convenient. However, B2B and B2C industries differ in demand. Running a B2B business often involves transactions, wholesale volumes, high price tags, time sensitivity etc. All these factors must be taken care of to avoid errors in the B2B buyer’s journey. 

Plus, not every type of B2B product can be sold through a simple shopping cart. Sometimes a custom ordering process is required to help sort out product specifics, customizations and pricing. 

Read on to get tips on how to build a better B2B eCommerce customer experience.

What is customer experience management?

Firstly, let us define customer experience management. It encapsulates all the customer lifecycle processes and how those processes are delivered by the company. Every company needs to organize, oversee, and track customer interactions to ensure successful business transactions, build customer loyalty, and find opportunities for growth. 

CEM or CXM?

Next, we need to understand the terminology. Customer experience management is sometimes referred to as the acronyms CEM or CXM. CEM and CXM explore how a company interacts with a customer, is the software that helps manage those processes and data. For the sake of simplicity, we will use CEM. 

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The B2B Buyer Process

The B2B buyer process involves a company identifying a problem or need, researching and evaluating the options, defining the solution requirements, choosing a supplier, making a purchase, and hopefully returning consistently. The B2B buyer's goal is to find the ideal product and the best supplier, and continually return to make the purchase. In short, if an acquired customer is satisfied, the foundation of a long-term relationship is made.

The B2B buyer process needs exceptional CEM, because a successful B2B eCommerce experience will support  building a solid base of recurring customers making high-volume purchases. Let us take a look at some key elements to why it is so important to prioritize the B2B customer experience.

Importance of Customer Experience Management for B2B eCommerce

The importance of customer experience management for B2B eCommerce cannot be understated. In fact, 86 % of buyers are willing to pay more for an excellent customer experience, and  73% of people consider customer experience to play an important role in their purchasing decisions. 

There are many benefits to deploying a refined CEM approach. For instance, retaining customers is less expensive than acquiring new customers. While satisfied customers share their positive experience with others, dissatisfied customers are twice as likely to do so. However, offering a satisfying B2B customer experience can be tricky, because the customers are businesses and often experienced in providing eCommerce themselves, they may have higher standards and more unique ordering requirements than an individual consumer. 

On the flip side, high-quality CEM also improves the employee experience. Excellent customer experiences translate to fewer issues and lower stress for the business staff. Instead of spending time troubleshooting customer issues, employees can focus on business growth pursuits. 

Strategies and Tools for Better B2B Customer Experience Management

There are many useful strategies and tools for better B2B CEM. 

First and foremost, the needs, behaviors, patterns, and goals of the enterprises need to be understood. Use your data  as the foundation to create customer journey maps  to improve the user interface and build brand and product loyalty. Journey maps help companies anticipate customer interactions and facilitate a sincere connection between the companies. The data, journey maps, and relationships provide critical insights and inspiration to determine your go-to-market strategy, tone-of-voice and content creation.

As a leading provider of cloud-based eCommerce solutions, Dynamicweb excels at connecting customers and businesses. Dynamicweb offers an eCommerce suite, ready to accelerate your digital business giving you one platform  that combines eCommerce, PIM, CMS and Marketing.

More than +4,000 brands worldwide trust Dynamicweb with digital solutions. Our customers include leading brands like Lego Wear, Vredestein, Unilever, Winnebago, L’Oréal, Flying Tiger, Toyota, Europcar, and Skanska. Built on Dynamicweb, these customers are empowered to gain lifelong customer relations, increase revenue and grow their brands. 

Learn how your company can grow and thrive with better B2B customer experiences.

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