B2B customer experience research can have numerous positive effects on a business.
By ensuring each interaction between businesses is top-notch, organizations have a higher chance of repeat customers, increased customer loyalty, and many more bonuses that we'll cover in this post.
Keep reading to learn more about what B2B customer experience and how market research fits into it.
What Is B2B Customer Experience?
B2B customer experience refers to the interactions that one business has with another from start to finish. More specifically, one business is selling another business a product or service.
Key aspects of B2B customer experience include:
- Tracking initial interactions through to the final delivery and even post-sales support
- Maintaining regular communication with customers throughout the process
- Adjusting projects to meet evolving customer needs, if necessary
These key points will help ensure the main goals of the business are met and any issues that arise are addressed promptly.
Why Is B2B Customer Experience So Important?
A great B2B customer experience is essential for a company's long-term success.
Prioritizing outstanding B2B customer experiences means increased business, customer loyalty, and strong business relationships over a long period of time.
What's more, companies that care about fostering a positive B2B customer experience automatically gain a competitive edge against rival businesses. In fact, 52% of customers will switch to a competitor after a single poor interaction with a business.
Not only will this make them more attractive to potential customers down the road, but it will give them more authority in their industry.
Watch our brief video on why every business should have a customer experience program: 3 Reasons Every Company Should Have a Customer Experience (CX) Program in Place.
How B2B & B2C Differ in CX
Just as B2B and B2C interactions differ greatly, so does the approach to customer experience.
B2C
B2C (business-to-consumer) interactions are between a business and a single consumer. Because of this, these customer experience programs rely heavily on personalizing connections and establishing an emotional bond with shoppers.
Additionally, it may be argued that B2C customer experience is less nuanced than B2B, as it involves a single consumer versus an entire business.
B2B
B2B interactions are between two businesses where Business A is selling Business B a product or service.
In this case, an entire team within a business is along for the ride, not one single customer.
This means that B2B customer experiences will rely heavily on communication since it's likely multiple stakeholders will be involved in the process. B2B customer experience also must address the business goals of the customer, ensuring their needs are met throughout the sales process.
How Research Helps Businesses With CX in B2B
Here's where market research comes in!
In our experience, we find that market research can be used to enhance B2B customer experience plans by gathering data around branding, pricing, and customer satisfaction needs.
Brand Research
For businesses wanting to discover how B2B clients perceive them, brand research is essential. Investing in brand research will enable companies to improve their reputation, ultimately leading to increased business.
Brand research will reveal the following data:
- Key insights about reputation
- Market positioning
- Quality of connection with clients
Businesses in uber-competitive markets should take note here, as brand research can enhance credibility among competitors.
Pricing Research
Is a business overcharging for its B2B services? What if it's undercharging?
Pricing research comes in here to answer these questions for a business. The data will reveal the best pricing strategies for B2B services and, even more importantly, what customers are willing to pay.
Using this data, businesses can be sure they're not overselling or underselling their offerings.
Customer Satisfaction
Measuring customer satisfaction is crucial for a business offering B2B services, as it highlights customer pain points (and successes, too).
Using the data, businesses can then improve issues and continue to expand on what's working well for them.
By tracking customer satisfaction, businesses can better understand the needs of their target audience. This will often lead to long-term partnerships with clients, as the businesses will be better equipped to handle their specific needs.
B2B Customer Experience Trends in 2025
B2B customer experience trends are always evolving.
In 2025, we can expect to see a shift towards increased personalization, channel optimization, and self-service tools. We'll explain more below.
Personalization
Only getting more popular in 2025 is the emphasis on personalization within the B2B customer experience.
Personalization isn't gathering a client's needs and then checking them off. It involves creating an actual relationship with a client and gaining a unique understanding of their goals.
Not only will this strengthen customer relationships, but it will enhance project outcomes as well.
Channel Optimization
Providing customers with a seamless multi-channel experience will continue to be key in 2025.
This means that no matter the method (video chat, email, and everything in between), communication has to be seamless.
One part of this is ensuring the quality of communication is 100%, and the other part is ensuring both the business and the client are always on the same page throughout a project.
Self-Service
Customers want to feel in control of their projects, which is why businesses should make this possible for their B2B clients in 2025.
Consider offering customer tools such as:
- Customer portals
- Chatbots
- Order tracking
These tools (among others) ensure that customers stay updated throughout their project. An additional bonus? Implementing these tools shows that a business truly cares about their customer's experience.
How to Improve Your B2B CX
Improving a B2B customer experience plan takes some time and an existing knowledge of what they need. We'll cover some of the key improvement points below.
Utilize Data Whenever Possible
Take it from us: data always helps.
Using customer data, businesses can make better decisions when it comes to fostering customer relationships, and so on. Reviewing customer behavior patterns, sales data, and gathering customer feedback via surveys can help enhance experience strategies.
Identify Customer Churn
Keep an eye out for waning customer engagement levels, less purchasing, and poor feedback.
All of these often go hand-in-hand with increased customer churn, which is never desirable for businesses. Understanding what to look out for and continuing to track these metrics will help businesses nip churn in the bud.
More Channels For Customer Engagement
The more the merrier - especially when it comes to B2B customer engagement. As businesses increase communication methods, they will likely see an increase in customer engagement.
This can look like using social media, live chat, or even hosting in-person events if that's relevant for a business.
The goal is to add more opportunities where customers can interact with a brand, creating a more personalized experience.
Understand Why Customers Buy From You
What makes a customer purchase from a business? Whatever the answer may be, businesses need to capitalize on that to increase their experience strategy.
Maybe it's effective marketing campaigns, or maybe it's the outstanding customer service a business offers. The main goal is to pinpoint what makes a business attractive enough for customers to purchase from them. Furthermore, pinpointing this can give businesses an edge against competitors.
Responsiveness
Prioritizing responsiveness can only help enhance the B2B customer experience.
Replying to customers quickly and following up with them immediately shows a business cares about their experience. Customers will notice this and have a higher chance of becoming loyal to the business as a result.
Create a B2B Customer Experience Strategy For Your Brand
Now it's time to put all this information into action! Before we wrap up, we'll run through the four key ways businesses can create a robust B2B customer experience strategy.
Benchmark Your Performance
Businesses can take time to review their current B2B customer experience strategy.
Once this has been done, it's advantageous for them to compare customer experience strategies with competitors to see what they can learn. For example, if a major competitor is lacking in a certain area, another business can hop in to fill in the gap.
Collect Data & Feedback
In our experience, collecting customer data and feedback is a sure-fire way to enhance their experience. This is often done through surveys, but can also be gathered via focus groups, in-depth interviews, mystery shopping, and other methods.
Businesses can then use that data, knowing that it's accurate and safe to base decisions on.
Understand Your Customers & the Customer Journey
Better understanding your customers comes from knowing more about their journey.
The customer journey refers to a shopper's interactions with a business from start to finish. Creating a map based on these interactions will provide insights into the customer experience.
Common points in a customer journey map include defining personas, segmenting customers, and gathering data with market research.
Take a look at this example customer journey map we created for an airline.
Follow Up On Changes
Once businesses have made adjustments to their B2B customer experience program, it's time to track how they unfold.
If certain adjustments are a success with customers, then businesses should continue them. If not, then they can potentially be discontinued.
Doing this kind of regular performance tracking will ensure businesses spend time and money on what works, versus what doesn't.
Implementing changes is only the first step—following up ensures they’re effective. Monitor the impact of adjustments on customer satisfaction and behavior. Continuous improvement based on feedback keeps your strategy relevant and effective over time.
Hire an Expert For B2B Customer Experience Help
While B2B customer experience research can be done internally, we suggest partnering with a third-party firm like Drive Research.
In doing this, businesses can focus on what they do best, without having the stress of monitoring market research efforts. A team like ours will also provide a dedicated project manager, along with a full report of key findings from the customer data.
Contact Our Customer Experience Company
Drive Research is a full-service market research firm specializing in customer research services. By partnering with us, your business will receive actionable insights on how to improve your B2B customer experience strategy.
To learn more about our market research services, contact us today.
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
