{"id":233,"date":"2021-11-01T15:52:31","date_gmt":"2021-11-01T15:52:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/?p=233"},"modified":"2021-11-01T15:52:31","modified_gmt":"2021-11-01T15:52:31","slug":"b2b-clients-are-starting-to-think-like-b2c-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/2021\/11\/01\/b2b-clients-are-starting-to-think-like-b2c-customers\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cB2B clients are starting to think like B2C customers.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This month, we spoke to\u00a0Shep Hyken,<\/a>\u00a0a customer experience (CX) expert and New York Times bestselling author who has worked with many businesses including IBM and KPMG to advise on improving client experience, including the importance of feedback to B2B organizations. He argues that B2B clients are becoming more akin to B2C customers in their need for customised responses and the ability to interact with their suppliers.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is client feedback important in a B2B environment?<\/strong>

If you make a mistake in the B2B world it\u2019s worse than the B2C world because, typically, there are far fewer choices for B2B organisations. Take a specialist machine manufacturer, where there are only five competitors in the whole world clients can buy this machine from.

If you make a mistake and the customer decides to deal with someone else, to me that is a \u2018generational mistake\u2019. B2C customers often shop around, B2B clients much less so; it might be ten years before they consider dealing with you again. Ten years from now, it is likely whoever you are doing business with at the company today has moved on and you deal with somebody completely different. You\u2019ve got to get that feedback and understand what is driving that client’s choice to do business with you and what their mind set is.

What would you say are the shortcomings of existing solutions, for example Net Promoter Score, for getting feedback?<\/strong>

Net Promoter Score (NPS) can give an instant indication of the likelihood of someone recommending you. This is useful if they will definitely promote you, but if they\u2019re not definite promoters, you can\u2019t see why they are hesitant to recommend you elsewhere. If somebody gave me a five, what did I do wrong? What changes would it take to get a six or seven from you?

The other issue with NPS in B2B feedback relates to lead generation. When somebody on a scale of zero to ten gives me a ten, I don\u2019t want to leave it there and say \u201cgreat, we are doing fantastic\u201d. Instead, I want to call that customer up and say, \u201cI noticed you said you would give us a ten and you would recommend us; is there somebody you can recommend us to?\u201d If NPS tells us someone would recommend us, find out exactly who they would recommend you to.

Do you feel that the pandemic has changed B2B client expectations of how involved they should be in areas like the quality assurance process?<\/strong>

The biggest change with B2B expectations hasn\u2019t come from the pandemic (everything that \u2018changed\u2019, like video conferencing, was just an acceleration of what was already there), it comes from the fact that B2B clients are comparing us to B2C retailers.

I have a healthcare client that ordered a $500,000 X-Ray machine that needed its own room and electricity supply. This piece of equipment showed up more than two weeks early, which was not ideal, given the work that needed to be finished before its arrival. The client said, \u201cI ordered toilet paper from Amazon and they send me a dispatch notification. Couldn\u2019t this company have told me this was going to be early so we could have said no, don\u2019t send it.\u201d I thought, this man just compared a half a million dollar piece of equipment to toilet paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

B2B clients are starting to think like B2C customers. Customers have always wanted a quick response and wanted to be able to connect with the company when they want to, and the pandemic has accelerated this change.

What would you say is the best way for business to collect B2B feedback, particularly in terms of timescale and method of collection?<\/strong>

Ultimately, I want to construct a survey or a set of questions (in-person or digital) that will give me the best answers.

For surveys, include open-ended follow-up questions. For example, after asking \u201cOn a scale of zero to ten what is the likelihood that you would recommend us?\u201d, if I score nine, follow up asking for one thing that could make it even better. If I score six, something clearly wasn\u2019t right, so ask what went wrong and how it could be improved.

Feedback requests must be timed correctly. If you have a longer term project it\u2019s good to keep checking in. Once it\u2019s done, however, you don\u2019t want to ask for feedback immediately. The client likely hasn\u2019t used the product, so don\u2019t ask them how they like it, because they can\u2019t tell you.

It should also be customised, which doesn\u2019t mean individually, but certainly in scale: second time client; third time; five year etc. There should be different questions based on the type of business and the length of the relationship.

Would online-based, real-time feedback platforms that allow clients to feed back regarding services as well as other stakeholder groups (internally and externally) be useful in the modern B2B environment?<\/strong>

Yes, there is a place for this. Furthermore, tell the client or the customer this is what is going to happen. If it\u2019s over the course of a project, for example, say you\u2019ll be sending a survey about how we are doing, as we want to make sure you are happy. This real-time feedback is going to allow me to better serve you for the remainder of the project.

You can even ask them to promise to give you the feedback so you can ensure the best experience. I have clients in the B2B world that specifically say if you\u2019ve got a problem and you don\u2019t tell me about it you are in breach of contract. That\u2019s the only way we can make sure we give you what you want.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We spoke to CX expert Shep Hyken on B2B feedback, and how B2B clients are becoming more like B2C customers with their expectations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[88,89],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=233"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":235,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233\/revisions\/235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.viewshub.com\/theloop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}