Recognizing the true value of prioritizing B2B customer experience
Business-to-business firms often lag behind other markets when it comes to prioritizing and excelling in customer experience. Let’s explore why B2B customer experience is so important.
It’s important to note that high satisfaction scores don’t necessarily translate to high loyalty. While customers may be satisfied with a company’s products or services, they can easily be enticed by a competitor’s more appealing customer value proposition. On the other hand, a customer might not be satisfied with a company’s offerings but stays loyal due to inertia or the challenges associated with switching brands.
This is where the significance of customer experience truly comes into play. We now live in the experience economy, where customers have higher expectations than ever before. Brands strive to outperform their competitors by delivering exceptional experiences, making the customer journey smoother, and providing faster service. The most successful brands connect with their customers on an emotional level, invoking feelings of pride and accomplishment. They challenge the conventional notion that customers solely seek functional and rational benefits.
A positive customer experience not only fosters loyalty but also encourages customers to spend more. Take Amazon, for example, a frontrunner in experience innovation with its offerings like Amazon Prime and Amazon Dash. It enjoys an industry-leading position in Net Promoter Score (NPS) and attributes a significant portion of its revenue to cross-selling.
Unfortunately, many companies fall short in delivering an excellent customer experience. Studies show that customers are four times more likely to become disloyal following a service interaction. Poor customer experience drives brand switching, and the majority of dissatisfied customers spread negative word-of-mouth. Research conducted by McKinsey reveals a compelling insight: by elevating the customer experience from average to exceptional, where customers are “wowed” in some way, companies can achieve a remarkable 30 to 50 percent increase in key performance indicators (KPIs) such as likelihood to renew or purchase additional products.
