When we think customer experience, we typically picture beautiful, well-laid-out stores, a clean and easy to navigate website, and helpful customer service. Retail, largely.
But customer experience matters just as much, if not more, in a B2B setting. When you deal directly with businesses, instead of individual consumers, you soon realize that more than anything else it’s your relationship with the decision-makers and how you make them feel that decides whether you close a deal or not.
So let’s look at three guaranteed ways to take your B2B business up a few notches…
Magnetic, Not Intrusive Marketing
Marketers are forever on the lookout for that one activity, that one platform, that one channel their customers’ love, so they can get on it before you can say Jack Robinson. Whether it’s display ads that your customer’s eyes glaze over or bidding on expensive PPC keywords in a futile attempt to get to the top of Google SERPs, the disruptive approach to marketing is neither effective nor efficient.
Why not build a marketing strategy around the “pull” not “push” philosophy then? Why not draw your audience in towards your website, store, app – whatever – instead of being just another irritating ad that they want to hit “Skip” on?
You probably already have a content marketing strategy in place to lure in traffic and conversions. But are you focusing on the right keywords through all of your fabulous content? Sure, it is much “easier” to focus on the big, meaty keywords. But make sure allocate resources towards those long tail keywords that only a handful of your target audience might care about. People searching for specifics, are more likely to convert into paying customers.
The Big Benefit of Long-Tail Keywords
Not only do a bulk of search queries consist of long-tail keywords, but such keywords also convert 2.5x better than short, popular keywords. That’s more bang for your buck, with little to no competition!
Reimagine your paid advertising with focused remarketing-based ads that target users that have already shown some interest in your product or services, if not your brand itself. From Facebook to Google to even your email marketing platform, each channel provides its own unique way in which you can reach out to customers who are already primed to learn more about your offerings. Pick from contextual retargeting to behavioral retargeting to get the best conversions for your marketing dollars.
If all fails, use retargeting to create ads that give something away for free. These help you to first generate, then nurture leads. Here’s an example of a webinar that shows web designers how to get leads:
First Impressions Matter
There’s something decidedly magical about your first date, your first interview, your first public speech. Each of them represents a hit or miss chance to get your impression just right in front of your audience.
For your business, that opportunity to make a great first impression is your website. Even courses on digital media and marketing typically have a UX and UI component to ensure that our future marketers are fully attuned to the importance of a smooth user experience for businesses across the board.
Besides opting for a clean, aesthetically pleasing design, it’s extremely important to ensure that your website is easily navigable by your users. Can they find what they’re looking for easily or does your site send them on a wild goose chase? Does your site perform well on smaller screens like smartphones or tablets? Is your messaging compelling enough to convince the user or just another word salad thrown together by an amateur?
Invest in a good usability testing tool. It should let you use heat maps and click maps to see what website visitors are doing on your site, including:
- Where they get stuck
- Where they click
- What content they spend time reading
- Which pages drive conversions.
You can work on improving user flows by redesigning elements of your site, armed with such information.
It’s not just the information architecture on your site that matters. The words you use to convey your USP to your visitors also make a big impact on the likelihood of a conversion. Do you have forms that quiz your users on inane details for no good reason? Think again, as nearly 70% of users will never submit an online form if it asks them for too much personal information.
Customer Care Doesn’t Belong to the Helpdesk
You’ve heard this a million times before. Customer service is the responsibility of the entire organization, not the customer care team alone. Pre-empt the need for a customer to reach out to customer care by keeping the lines of communication to every employee open.
Shoe retailer TOMS managed to increase their clarity in internal communications and reduced time spent handling stores’ queries by a whopping 60%. They used Retail Zipline, a collaborative communications tool to make sure that every small product, price, inventory or store-related change gets notified to every last store employee instantly.
When all employees are completely in the loop about internal changes or strategy shifts or even something as simple as product discounts, there’s no confusion or lost revenue. Customers get the best possible experience from well-informed and confident store staff, leading to fewer customer care issues. Any issues that may arise in-store or otherwise, can be resolved quickly and effortlessly with a dedicated system in place to communicate and notify across company lines.
Another effective way of managing customer care is by empowering customers to help themselves. A detailed FAQs page is a great start. A LiveChat option where customers can get their questions answered in seconds is even better.
Chatbots
One step ahead of live chat come custom-built chatbots. It has become so easy to build chatbots with AI technology today that you owe it to your customer service team to add a new non-human teammate who works while they sleep.
Business professionals can actually get the help they need from smart bots in the office. A lot of companies and organizations have already found unique ways to put these virtual assistants to work. A great example is the Bank of America’s AI bot Erica. “She” can answer questions through text messages and live voice chat.
Act Before It’s Too Late!
As we saw above, B2B buyers are at least as touchy-feely as their B2C counterparts, about each interaction they have with your product, business, and people. Align these fundamental elements in a way that appeases the fickle tastes of your target audience, and voila – you have a new loyal customer!
Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_fotogestoeber‘ / 123RF Stock Photo
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