Good B2B customer experience (CX) is no longer negotiable. As we speak, CX is fast becoming the biggest differentiator for attracting and retaining customers. Yep, even more than price or product quality.
As for exceptional B2B CX? That’ll drive revenue and brand loyalty while helping you differentiate your company even in a crowded market. But don’t just take my word for it: There’s a ton of data to support those bold statements.
In this post, I’ll cover what the data reveals about B2B customer experiences, the leading best practices, and examples to keep in mind when establishing your organization's experience.
Table of Contents
- B2B Customer Experience Best Practices
- What is the B2B Customer Experience?
- Why is B2B CX Important?
- B2B Customer Experience vs. B2C Customer Experience
- B2B Customer Experience Examples
What is the B2B Customer Experience?
B2B customer experience is how a customer experiences and, therefore, perceives your brand at every stage of the buyer's journey.
Whether interacting with a blog post during research or your customer success manager as they transition from the sales to support phase, it all forms their overall experience. Because of this, your marketing, sales, and service teams play a critical role in creating positive experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.
Why is B2B CX Important?
- B2B CX positively impacts revenue. Data from Gartner finds that around 50% of organizations surveyed claim “they can track the financial benefits of customer experience (CX) projects.”
- B2B CX drives brand loyalty. According to the Zendesk CX Trends Report, “60 percent of consumers have purchased something from one brand over another based on the service they expect to receive.”
- B2B CX keeps you competitive. The Gartner data above finds that “over 80% of organizations expect to compete mainly based on CX.”
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B2B Customer Experience vs. B2C Customer Experience
Like B2C customer experience, B2B customer experience encompasses every interaction a customer has with your brand throughout the customer lifecycle. Unlike B2C, however, B2B is more complex.
For example, the B2B customer experience typically involves multiple stakeholders and sign-offs at each stage. That’s opposed to B2C, where your target customer is usually an individual rather than a group.
B2B Customer Experience Examples
HubSpot
During the research phase, B2B customers can access plenty of educational content via the HubSpot blog and self-service chatbots. This approach facilitates independent research (more on the importance of that later!)
IBM
IBM assigns its B2B customers a designated team of specialists to help them set up the IBM cloud storage suite. This is a great way to build trust immediately, fostering long-term brand loyalty.
Tetra Pak
Tetra Pak proactively collects customer feedback during multiple stages of the buyer’s journey. The feedback allows them to improve CX throughout the customer lifecycle. It’s also an excellent opportunity to identify issues before a customer churns.
B2B Customer Experience Best Practices
- Know Your Customers
- Have a Customer-Centric Vision
- Offer Personalized Experiences
- Use Customer Service Technology
- Educate and Advice Customers
- Offer Post-Purchase Support
- Connect With Clients in Real Time
- Adobe Customer Self-Service
- Provide Proactive Customer Service
- Optimize Your Website's Accessibility and Usability
- Collect Customer Feedback
- Facilitate Independent Customer Research
- Tailor Your Web Content to Target ‘AI Search’
- Focus on Internal Alignment
Now we’re clear on the foundations of B2B customer experience, I’ll share 14 B2B customer experience best practices to help you drive revenue, increase brand loyalty, and stay competitive.
Expect to find data insights from HubSpot’s B2B Buyer Survey, a 2024 HubSpot Blog Survey of 422 U.S.-based B2B professionals who buy or scout new purchases for their teams. I also share data from HubSpot’s 2024 State of Customer Service Report.
1. Know your customers.
Before you can create a quality customer experience, you need to know who you’re working with. The sad reality is that in a B2B environment, it‘s likely people aren’t that excited to do business with you.
B2B buyers are also under a lot of pressure. They’re responsible for spending their company‘s money wisely and choosing a product to increase efficiency and revenue. That’s a tall order, and they face a lot of noise as they search for the best option.
They experience anxiety as they research and make a purchase, and that anxiety lingers after the purchase has been made. With that in mind, creating a customer experience that helps ease customers' fears and makes their jobs easier is essential.
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Understanding the unique needs and pressures of each B2B buyer is critical. You should also take advantage of the wealth of data available to know what industry the customer works in, their geographic focus, where they are in the customer journey, and their growth goals for the future. With these foundations of understanding, you can better deliver a successful customer experience.
Pro tip: HubSpot’s 2024 B2B buyer survey finds that 81% of B2B professionals are more likely to buy a B2B product from vendors that offer self-service tools. Based on this knowledge, you can facilitate better customer experiences by providing self-service tools. (More on that later!)
2. Have a customer-centric vision.
Customer experience is built from every interaction a customer has with your company. Everything from phone calls to billboards or web ads contributes to their perception and overall experience. Creating a customer-centric vision that permeates the entire company is key. Every interaction the customer has should be positive and make them feel genuinely valued.
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A good customer experience must be intentional. It takes effort from everyone in the company to know the role they play in building trust with customers and meeting their needs. Customers can tell when a company is focused on them or just focused on making sales and earning money.
Set the tone within your organization to put customers first. Empower your employees to take action to meet customer needs and do what they think is best to solve problems and build relationships. Customer experience isn't successful unless it comes from everyone in the company.
Pro tip: If your goal is to become a customer-centric organization, Ben Johnson, the Growth Product Marketing Manager at Square, recommends making it a core value. “By including a customer-focused core value, you'll have a vision that the whole team can get behind,” says Johnson. “Literally putting your value up on the wall and your website commits the concept to your leadership, your entire team, and your customers.”
3. Offer personalized experiences.
Just like a B2C customer walking into a retail store doesn‘t want to be sold the same pair of shoes as everyone else, B2B buyers don’t want to be pushed a one-size-fits-all solution. With increased competition, B2B companies run the risk of simply becoming commodities. The best way to fight against this is to add value with personalized service.
Personalization needs to happen at every point in the customer journey. Why? 74% of customers say personalized information tailored to their specific needs/goals is critical to making a B2B purchase decision. Further, 78% are more likely to buy from vendors that offer personalized information tailored to their specific needs/goals than those who don’t.
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From getting to know the customer to establishing strong communication to offering the best product recommendations, personalization is at the center of it all. Customers need to know they are valued and appreciated, and that comes from taking the time to know them and creating offers that actually meet their needs.
B2B buyers are often pulled in multiple directions and appreciate when companies can simplify their offerings to what matters most. The best customer environment is simple, intuitive, and flexible. B2B buyers will appreciate a company that can wade through all the material and options and provide them with something that matters to them personally.
4. Use customer service technology.
Customers already use new technology and find information on the internet, so B2B companies need to match that with their own use of technology. Taking advantage of things like automation, AI, and machine learning helps create a more seamless customer experience and provides a competitive advantage.
There’s a lot of hype around AI, but when I say ‘competitive advantage,’ it’s not just some pie-in-the-sky notion. Around 67% of customers expect you to resolve tickets within three hours (State of Customer Service Report.) How can you keep up? Given over 90% of CRM leaders say AI has improved their customer service response times, AI might be the solution.
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Use customer data to automate as many small tasks as possible. Chatbots can help you connect with customers any time they want. Create an algorithm to predict when customers will need follow-up equipment. Build a digital system that streamlines communication. Use a database to generate tailored product recommendations.
The possibilities for new technology usage are endless and can be adapted to the needs of each company and customer. Keep a pulse on new technology developments to stay ahead of the curve.
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5. Educate and advise customers.
One of the biggest complaints from B2B buyers is that sales reps are too pushy and not useful. In many cases, buyers do much of the research on their own to avoid the sales rep as long as possible. In fact, 75% of B2B buyers prefer to gather information through self-service tools over communicating with sales reps. B2B companies should focus on proactively filling an advisory role to change this stigma.
Further, around 1 in 5 B2B software buyers expect 1:1 personalization in their communications with sales teams. So, showing that you understand buyer needs and challenges through hyper-personalization can help. Both sales and marketing teams should be mindful of this.
See This Tip in Action
Instead of just selling to customers, marketers should focus on educating and advising them. The most successful B2B marketers are the ones who ask questions about their customers' needs and take the time to educate them on the best options. This can come in several formats, such as establishing yourself as an industry expert with valuable content or providing one-on-one service to make key product recommendations.
Providing advice can ease customers' purchase fear and anxiety and create a long-term, trusting relationship. Customers who know they can come to a sales rep for honest advice instead of just a sales pitch want to keep returning to the company.
6. Offer post-purchase support.
The customer experience doesn't end when the purchase has been made. In B2B, customers want to have companies they can turn to instead of having to find a new supplier every time they need something new.
One of the keys to building those long-term relationships is through post-purchase support. Service means more than just making sure customers are happy with their purchases, although that is part of it. It also means helping customers find ways to work more efficiently with their new products and to constantly meet their needs.
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Post-purchase service includes staying in touch with customers and knowing their changing needs as their company grows and evolves. It also means providing troubleshooting assistance and continued education to use the products to their full potential. Providing trusted post-purchase service ensures the relationship will continue.
7. Connect with clients in real time.
Speed is an important factor to consider in any customer service case. But, it's even more important when working in a B2B environment as your clients will have higher expectations than if you were selling consumer goods.
See This Tip in Action
Live chat is an excellent channel for real-time communication. When people visit your website, live chat gives them a direct way to contact your team, whether to ask a question or close a sale.
You should also monitor your social media accounts for customer inquiries. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook Messenger are great for connecting with clients and providing a speedy response.
8. Adopt customer self-service.
You can further improve response times by adopting customer self-service. Worried this is too hands-off? Don’t be. HubSpot’s 2024 State of Customer Service Report finds that 78% of service leaders believe their customers aren’t afraid to resolve problems themselves.
Resources like knowledge bases, chatbots, and community forums help customers find solutions to problems without the help of your customer service team. This reduces your total incoming case volume, making it easier to respond to all customer inquiries.
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Knowledge bases are one of the most common forms of customer self-service. They‘re a section of your website dedicated to support documentation that customers use to find answers to common problems. This resource saves your clients valuable time and enhances their experience with your business. They don’t have to call your support team whenever they have a question, making your product seem more user-friendly and easy to troubleshoot.
9. Provide proactive customer service.
Proactive customer service solves problems before customers even know they are there. It is typically the customer success team's job to monitor customer health scores and where clients are in the customer journey. By looking ahead and preparing for potential roadblocks, customer success can help clients navigate away from incoming pain points and keep buyers satisfied with their customer experience.
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Scoring the health of your customer accounts is one way to get started with proactive customer service. This metric will help you identify your most loyal customers so you can continue to provide an exceptional experience. It will also help you identify your most unhappy customers, allowing you to flag their accounts for potential churn. Rather than waiting for these customers to reach out to you, your customer success team should set a benchmark and contact any clients who surpass that score.
Pro tip: According to former HubSpot Customer Support Team Lead Clint Fontanella, aside from preventing churn, “customer health scores also help you pinpoint your biggest promoters.” He adds, "You can leverage your high scorers to share reviews about your products and services and champion your business to prospective customers.”
10. Optimize your website's accessibility and usability.
If you‘re going to go online, it’s important to do it right. Web accessibility ensures everyone can use and navigate your website regardless if they have a disability or limitation. This makes it crucial to follow web accessibility guidelines and create a web experience that includes everyone.
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Ensuring that all customers can easily navigate the website, consider features such as alt text for images, providing captioning for videos, using clear and concise website content, and ensuring easy keyboard navigation.
11. Collect customer feedback.
Since every B2B company is a little different, the ideal customer experience will depend on the specific needs of your customer base and the competing businesses operating in your industry. While you can compare what you‘re offering against your competitors, it’s harder to tell what your customers think of your business.
See this tip in action:
To find out, you'll need a customer feedback loop to collect, analyze, and distribute feedback. That way, you'll know firsthand what problems your customers are experiencing and how you can help them overcome those obstacles.
Customer experience is crucial in the B2B space, and clearly, there are many facets involved. Staying on top of customer needs can help companies continue to refine the customer experience to stand out from the competition and create loyal, satisfied customers.
Pro tip: Consider using customer feedback to improve your customer journey map. Save time with our free customer journey map template.
12. Facilitate independent customer research.
According to 50% of B2B software buyers, the B2B buying experience is outdated (HubSpot’s 2024 B2B Buyer Survey.) More specifically, B2B prospects increasingly prefer to research products independently.
Looking at the data, 57% of folks surveyed purchased a tool in the last year without a single meeting with the vendor's sales team. And 65% of B2B buyers say they prefer to do most or all of their research completely independently. Meanwhile, 24% do it all independently.
See This Tip in Action
For 75% of B2B buyers, independent research means gathering information through self-service tools rather than communicating with sales reps. While providing self-service tools for your B2B prospects to research independently is essential, don’t forget their limitations.
In my article covering the pros and cons of AI in service, I spoke to Badger Chat Co-founder Mark Woodward. He warns that:
"It‘s easy to forget that ChatGPT doesn’t actually understand humans or social norms or even language. It‘s merely reciting patterns in text it’s seen before and told are good. There are situations that need to be handled with a sensitivity that comes from an understanding that we gain from life experience and social conditioning." And that level of nuance isn't always “possible to infer from text.”
Pro tip: Aside from self-service tools, blog posts from third parties, industry-specific data, case studies/customer stories, and product demos sway the biggest influence over B2B buyer decision-making.
13. Tailor your web content to target ‘AI search.’
I’ve already established how vital independent research is to the buying stage of the B2B customer journey. Here’s how AI fits into that process, according to HubSpot’s 2024 B2B Buyer Survey.
Nearly half of B2B buyers use AI tools specifically for their product research. Meanwhile, 98% of folks using AI for research find it impactful in researching software solutions. Buyers find AI saves them time in the research/evaluation phase because it helps them quickly gather information and compare choices.
You can cover yourself in this respect internally with self-service tools like chatbots. But what about third-party AIs like ChatGPT, Google AI Overview, and Google Gemini? How can you increase your chances of appearing in relevant user searches on these external AI platforms?
See This Tip in Action
According to Ed Sussman, CEO of Citate.ai, an AI analytics and AI optimization tools company, AI is a new category in marketing.
“Looking forward even a few months, it’s very likely that organic search links are going to become less important and AI presence much more important. If you can afford to stay ahead of the curve, it will pay off,” says Sussman. This means monitoring “all the major AI platforms to see what’s being said about you” and turning “your most important keywords into questions a user might ask a chatbot.”
Further, Sussman recommends checking the topics the different AIs discuss in their responses. He adds: “You’re going to need content that focuses very carefully on the same topics … No one response is going to be representative, so you’ll need a few different user accounts to check for more than one AI response.” Regarding your website content, it “should be suitable to contribute usefully to the dialogue taking place on the AI chatbots for the queries you care about.”
14. Focus on internal alignment.
According to HubSpot’s 2024 State of Customer Service Report: “Only 24% of service leaders had full-funnel visibility of their customer’s experience, with more than 75% of leaders facing gaps in their data. Those gaps are the direct result of internal misalignment, but they’re also symptoms of ineffective CRM software.”
When your sales, marketing, and service teams aren’t on the same page due to data gaps, the misalignment can negatively impact a customer’s experience. Want to get aligned? Adopt relevant KPIs. Internally aligned teams focus on KPIs like personalization, retention, and operational efficiency — all of which require full-funnel visibility, ideally through one tool. This visibility helps:
- Service agents offer personalized responses to customers.
- Customers feel more valued at every stage of the customer experience journey, reducing churn.
- Service reps spend less time switching between disparate tools.
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HubSpot’s 2024 Service Report finds that tool sprawl is a widespread blocker to teams achieving internal alignment. In fact, “74% of service leaders shared that tool switching negatively impacted their teams’ efficiency and slowed down ticket resolutions.”
To achieve alignment and avoid tool sprawl, consider integrating a single source of truth, such as HubSpot’s CRM, to unify sales, marketing, and service teams. Aside from that, internal alignment could be as simple as instituting a weekly stand-up for all teams.
Editor's Note: This post was originally published in February 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.
This article was written by a human, but our team uses AI in our editorial process. Check out our full disclosure to learn more about how we use AI.
Free Customer Journey Template
Outline your company's customer journey and experience with these 7 free templates.
- Buyer's Journey Template
- Future State Template
- Day-in-the-Life Template
- And more!
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