Acquisition and retention are key to the success of any business. Because experience has become the new battleground in B2C and B2B, businesses find themselves working harder than ever to optimise each aspect of a customer’s interaction with their organisation—from awareness through action to advocacy. Thus, we’ve seen a rising emphasis on the customer’s journey.
Every customer is on a journey, and they will only engage your services if they believe that your company is in a position to help them get where they’re going. To acquire new customers and retain existing ones in the competitive B2B space, you need to understand who they are (e.g. personae), where they’re going, and what precise steps they will take to get from here to there.
In this article, we'll explain what a B2B customer journey is and how it differs from a B2C journey. And we’ll present 7 steps to optimising the journey for peak customer satisfaction.
What is a customer journey?
The moment a customer encounters your brand through the day they sign a contract and on into the future, they are on a journey with you. There are many ways to conceptualise this journey. Businesses often use a funnel to visualise the various stages customers move through. Others use something more like a map. Regardless, there are 5 main touchpoints in every journey:
- Awareness - The moment prospects learn you exist.
- Consideration - The process by which they determine whether you can help them.
- Conversion/Purchase - The decision point at which the prospect becomes a customer.
- Retention - The ongoing service and support that keeps customers engaged.
- Advocacy - The point or process through which customers spread the word about you.
Depending on your business, these touchpoints might span several customer interactions and involve different stakeholders. One of the most important things a business can do is to map each significant touchpoint, attach customer journey KPIs to each one, solicit feedback, and begin to analyse at which points in the journey the customer may be getting bogged down and frustrated.
What is the difference between a B2B and a B2C customer journey?
A B2C journey typically involves a single decision-maker. Whereas the B2B journey is complicated by the fact that businesses are made up of multiple persons with complex decision-making processes spread across a variety of stakeholders. B2C journeys are usually short and driven by impulse and emotion. A B2B journey may involve months of internal deliberation.
All of this puts more pressure on B2B companies to build customer relationships that are rooted in expert collaboration. Personal advice plays a significant role here since the decisions are complex and require more know-how than most B2C relationships. Connections must be built over time, and they require ongoing nurturing, communication and collaboration.
Because expertise is so important, B2B marketing is often focused on educating customers and building relationships, whereas much of B2C marketing trades in emotional appeals and brand perception. This is why B2B customer journeys usually involve more touchpoints that enable companies to share their expertise and build a prospective client’s knowledge: website visits, webinars, whitepapers, case studies, sales consultations, product demos, etc.
Finally, B2B customers are typically prepared to make large purchases to improve their operations. The cost of making a mistake is higher than your typical B2C customer, which means the B2B journey ought to be geared toward demonstrating competence, assuaging fears, and giving the customer every reason to believe you’re the right guide to shepherd them along.
Therefore, the ability to guide the customer decision-making process with a seamless digital and physical experience is key. The potential for B2B businesses is to understand how to leverage their diversified sales channels, to serve the customer through the proper channels based on their preferences, type of request, size and potential, hence maximing the customer experience and achieving operational effectiveness.
7 steps to optimise your B2B customer journey mapping
Now that we’ve considered the broad outlines of a customer journey and how the B2B journey differs from its B2C counterpart, we’re ready to look at seven specific steps you can take to boost conversion and minimise churn by optimising your own customer journey.
To optimise the customer’s journey, you have to understand who they are and what they’re looking for at every moment in the process. Construct a detailed persona for each stakeholder in the buying group. To craft personae that yield actionable insight, work with your marketing, sales, and client service/relationship teams to include both objective (demographics, roles, activities) and subjective (aspirations, anxieties, challenges, motivators, etc.) information.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Static personas - Personae are not static but evolving, so be ready to adjust over time.
- Guesswork - Testing and observation is key to ensuring you’ve accurately represented your customers. Use analytics to ensure your personae match reality.
Take a bird’s-eye look at your typical customer’s interaction with your business and develop a detailed timeline from start (awareness) to finish (advocacy). Step into their shoes, as it were, and think through every website visit, email, phone call, social media interaction, etc. Be sure to include the entire buying group with its multiple stakeholders and their varying interactions.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Overlooking digital - Make sure your list includes both traditional and digital interactions (ads, web, email, etc.).
- Missing non-decision makers - They may not write the check, but they often have more power to influence the decision than you realise.
Use surveys, interviews, and social listening tools to understand your customers’ pain points, needs, and expectations at every stage in the journey. Augment feedback with careful data analysis to determine whether and where your customers are getting bogged down or neglected in the journey. In gathering information, take great care to discern appropriate KPIs and design analytic tools and surveys that do not lead or bias customers but produce objective, actionable data that you can then share with all the relevant stakeholders in your own organisation.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Shortened timeframes/rushed surveys - Give customers enough time to move through the process and provide feedback at every stage.
- Over-reliance on self-reporting - Customers don’t always express their needs accurately. Be sure to confirm subjective reporting with objective data analysis.
- Disconnected/siloed data - Share data and collaborate internally to ensure that the entire organisation is working together to optimise the customer’s journey.
Make a visual map to plot out every touchpoint on the journey, including the emotional state, goals, and expectations of customers at each stage. Creating a visual representation like the one displayed below will help you to conceptualise the journey and develop a strategy for entering in and optimising its various stages.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Assuming uniform emotions and goals - Overgeneralising emotions and goals at each stage can overlook individual variations and hinder the accuracy of the journey map.
- Neglecting negative touchpoints - Focusing only on positive interactions can lead you to ignore critical pain points and challenges that customers face in their journey.
Optimising the customer journey is a long-term, iterative process. It will take strategic thinking and commitment from the entire organisation. Bringing together representatives from each department represented in the journey map, work together to identify the areas where customers are experiencing the most pain, weigh your collective ability to alleviate that pain, and prioritise the areas in which your company can make the most impact in the least amount of time.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Prioritising short-term wins over long-term value - Strategiszing for immediate impact is not the same as applying quick superficial fixes to deep systemic issues.
- Ignoring cross-functional collaboration - Developing the strategy without input from various departments will result in a lack of alignment and ineffective implementation.
Implement the necessary changes across all touchpoints and measure the impact on customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue. Rely on the same objective/subjective analytics used in Step 3 to determine whether the changes you’ve implemented have made the intended difference. Consistency is key, as is careful, intentional data gathering and analysis. Make your changes incrementally, measure their impact, and adjust as necessary.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Incomplete implementation - Failing to implement changes across all touchpoints can result in inconsistencies and adversely affect the overall customer experience.
- Choosing the wrong metrics - Overemphasis on revenue metrics alone might not provide a comprehensive view of customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Continuously review your mapping and data gathering to adapt to shifting needs and market trends. Factors outside your control will impact the shape and direction of the customer’s journey. It’s important to stay on top of the journey so that you can adjust in real-time.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Neglecting real-time data - Periodic reviews will not be enough. You’ll need dynamic analysis to ensure you don’t miss crucial shifts in customer needs and behaviour.
- Lack of organisational commitment - Without a culture of continuous improvement, optimiszation efforts will not receive the support and resources they need to succeed.
How can PwC help with the design of your customer journey?
While the steps we’ve shared for optimising your customer journey are straightforward, the process is rife with pitfalls and opportunities to go astray. Underdeveloped personae, faulty data, siloed thinking, and incomplete execution are just a few of the many errors committed by B2B companies as they attempt to improve their customers’ experience.
At PwC, we help B2B clients close the gaps in their customer journey. Drawing on our extensive expertise, we enable them to provide a tailor-made journey that aligns with their customers’ core brand and values. The resulting boost in acquisition, retention, and advocacy has increased our clients’ profitability and grown their businesses. If you’d like to know more about how we can help you do the same, click here.
Conclusion
Optimising your B2B customer journey is the key to providing an experience that successfully acquires new customers, retains them for as long as possible, and turns them into effective advocates who bring positive awareness to your brand. Peak performance across these crucial indicators is indispensable for business growth, which is why investing in your customer’s journey is one of the wisest and most impactful investments your business can make.
By understanding the differences between B2B and B2C journeys and taking the necessary steps to optimise your own, you will do more to improve your customers’ experience and grow your business than any other isolated intervention ever could. Every customer is on a journey. Help them reach their destination, and they will help you and your business reach yours.
Would you like to discuss your customer journey in more detail?
One of our experts would be happy to discuss it with you. Please let us know your details and we will get back to you.
For more information on our services, please visit our Marketing Consulting website.
https://pages.pwc.ch/core-contact-page?form_id=7014L000000UgraQAC&embed=true&lang=en
Contact us
