Designing for B2B customer experience

Image credit: Charisse Kenion on Unsplash

The starting point on this journey is to understand the customers. Doing proper research and gaining insights into what those customers want, need and expect informs many things, one of which is how we can create an experience that’s relevant to their needs. Getting a clear understanding of the audience results in the delivery of a well-polished strategy, which drives better creative.

From customer journey mapping to journey management

Antony Adelaar  11 Jul 2019

CX sits at the intersection of product, brand, customer engagement, transactions and customer care, so designing (or redesigning, which is more often the case) a business around the client requires extraordinary collaboration and effort. Think of CX as an invisible thread that ties all interactions into a cohesive whole, with the end result being a happy customer who won’t hesitate to continue to do business with you.

The CX needs to maximise the potential of an advert by refining its focus and determining where in the sales funnel the customer will see it – and how it will inform that stage of their purchase journey.

Understanding clients and their consumers

In a post-modern marketing world, I'm guided internally by Demographica’s seven golden rules for B2B ATL to help me understand clients, their customers and what needs to be delivered to help build businesses. These rules help to deliver the most effective B2B creative experience that not only benefits the selected target audience but the business as well. These rules help determine how far one can push the ad and maximise the value exchange it delivers.

Future-proof your CX with robust innovation management

Calton Nhando  1 Jul 2019

A key element of this targeting is using marketing automation that helps clients get sales-qualified leads. Whether it’s grabbing the attention of the decision-making units (DMUs) or simply educating them, this approach helps refine what you’re doing. This automation adds real value for clients, no matter how complex their customers’ sales journeys because of the way it drives a better CX and delivers more business success.

It’s always valuable to look to drive CX at scale – by this, I mean that when you’re speaking to large corporates, the CX doesn’t just benefit your clients, but their customers too. In a typical B2C environment, campaigns are used to attract and retain new shoppers. In the B2B CX space, you’re speaking to the DMUs – single or even multiple people who have an impact on the purchase decision.

Creating competitive advantage through CX

Derek Bose  28 Jun 2019

There’s always the risk that CX can be viewed by internal stakeholders as an academic exercise with little practical application – but CX actually plays a vital role as a metric for the business’s health. If your customers don’t ‘get’ what you’re trying to tell them, there’s something wrong with your approach and if you don’t make a change in time, it’s going to start impacting your bottom line.

While the tech and research underpin what needs to be done, it’s ultimately the creative output that matters. This is where science and magic converge to tell stories for clients that, in turn, engage their clients.