Designing valuable B2B experiences

Business buyer expectations are exceeding those of private customers

New evidence suggests that 82% of business buyers want the same experience as when they’re buying for themselves ¹.

According to a study by Salesforce Research ¹, business buyers’ expectations are even higher than those of private consumers in relation to:

• The experience is as important as the product
• The likelihood of being loyal to a company they trust
• The expected standards of good experiences being higher than ever
• Their willingness to pay more for a great experience

We’re all becoming used to services that are more personalised, proactive, real-time and rewarding because we experience these qualities every day when encountering leading brands in retail, hospitality, travel and banking, for instance.

We’ve come to expect our interactions to be seamlessly joined-up across all of the touchpoints, whether online or instore, in person or assisted by AI.

As more companies focus on customer experience, so their staff become more attuned to what’s possible and what good looks like, and a heightened expectation is transitioning into the workplace.

Whilst the B2C experience is well established as a competitive battleground, B2B and B2Employee experiences are now also firmly in the spotlight.

The Salesforce Research study ¹ also revealed that:

• More than 7 in 10 business buyers expect vendors to personalise engagement to their needs
• 69% of business buyers expect an Amazon-like business buying experience
• Yet only 27% of business buyers say companies generally excel at meeting their standards for an overall experience

More mature organisations, that have realised the value of designing more remarkable and compelling customer experiences, are now applying design-led approaches to improve their business processes and interdepartmental services.

They are also using service design methodologies to interrogate, map and redesign the complex business ecosystems in which they operate, identifying and unlocking opportunities to introduce new services, optimise existing offers, generate benefits for the interconnected contributors and have a positive impact on the end-customer.

If you’d like to find out more, do get in touch. We’d love to hear from you.

¹  The State of the Connected Customer - Salesforce Research, 2018