Increase customer loyalty and positive recommendations
Creating an excellent customer experience means making a difference in the moments of truth. Marlies Wilms Floet, Lead Conversion Rate Optimization, UX Research, and Customer Insights from De Nieuwe Zaak, guides you through the process.
This article has been written based on a live presentation. Visit “All eyes on B2B” to enjoy the recording and other inspirational videos.
Did you know that 90% of all B2B orders are online? The pandemic accelerated online sales. The reasons are clear, ordering online is timesaving, easy, and possible 24/7. We even see that B2B buyers purchase during the weekends. So, the skies are blue because online channels must work hard to keep customers happy.
Top 6 complaints of bad customer experience
When buyers are unhappy with their experience online, it is mainly about these six complaints:
-
The website or portal is too slow
-
Not being able to find specific products easily (in combination with other products)
-
Questions or problems not being solved, having to explain them repeatedly
-
The complicated process for returning products
-
Long waiting times at customer service
-
Too much automation or too little human contact
What is customer experience?
It is essential to understand the definition of customer experience before developing this: Customer experience (or CX) is the holistic perception of the experience customers have with your company or brand. This experience can be about both digital and non-digital touchpoints. Behavior is omnichannel.
Customer experience: These are the moments of truth
The customer experience covers all touchpoints in the customer journey. In this journey, the moments of truth are crucial. These can be moments of delight but also moments of despair. They are so important because they contain emotion. These are the moments you talk about to your colleagues or friends. It is vital to find these moments of truth. According to McKinsey, 58% reported increased customer value after a positive moment of truth. This increased brand loyalty, higher client value, and positive word of mouth. In cases where customer experience was low, 23% reported a loss of customers. So, customer experience has value.
How to create a great customer experience? 6 steps
There is no checklist. The ultimate customer experience depends on your company. There are tips that you can apply!
Step 1 Determine the sweet spots by understanding your customers. Find out what (most valuable) client segments are. What are their needs? Which problems do they encounter? Know your customer. Making personas can help. But also: Look at your company. Where are the sweet spots? What do stakeholders say? Are there specific processes that are complex or even annoying? Or are there very inefficient processes that cost money? When you solve the issues, the result is more than a win-win situation.
Step 2 Get insights. Research what is going on, what behavior you see, and what the needs are. There are many ways to research user experience, from A/B-testing, and funnel analysis to polls & surveys, heatmaps, and – an easy one – a feedback button on your portal.
Step 3 Now that you know the sweet spots and where things go wrong, it is time to make it easy for your customer and eliminate friction. For example, create a prototype based on the insights you collected and do some prototype testing. A/B testing is beneficial as well.
Step 4 You have improved the customer experience; what’s next? This step motivates the user by pointing out advantages for the specific user groups. An example of positive results was on a registration page showing different reasons to register for a B2B and a B2c target group.
Step 5 After making it easy for the customer and motivating them, make the customer experience more relevant. Personalization is powerful; you can use Artificial Intelligence for this.
Step 6 Measure your efforts. For example, you can measure the customer satisfaction score for experience, the customer effort for process, and the net promoter score for customer loyalty.
Digitize and automate where possible, but never forget the importance of the human touch!
Would you like to see the expert’s video presentation or read about other e-commerce topics? Then browse through our content collection "All eyes on B2B"!
