6 Building Blocks of a Better Customer Experience

Your customers have more choices now than ever before; why should they choose you? A better customer experience seems to be the answer. When polling B2B customers, researchers found that more than half of customers cited a positive customer experience as the deciding factor in their buying choices. They also spent more when their buying experience was positive and were more likely to recommend brands that exceeded their expectations. Marketing automation tools that help you provide more individualized, customized service are key to enhancing the customer experience.

When customer service is this important, it only makes sense to focus on it. Poor customer service leads to brand switching for as many as three out of four customers, yet B2B organizations don’t always make the customer’s experience a top priority. That’s potentially great news for the companies that do, and here’s how your organization can be one of them by combining marketing automation technology with personalized customer care.

Commitment

Relationships thrive on committed partners, and that includes the business relationship between you and your customers. When you’re committed to making your buyers feel valued not just for their buying power but as individuals, you’re on your way to providing a great customer experience. Find ways to let your customers know you’re committed to giving them outstanding service, and you’re well on your way to keeping them for life. With marketing automation, you’re able to customize communications and track leads’ behavioral histories so you can more closely align your service with their preferences.

Fulfillment

Too many B2B organizations put their emphasis on what they need to sell rather than what their customers truly want to buy. Discovering your customer’s needs and fulfilling them is fundamental to a good customer experience. Only about one-third of B2B firms performed well on fulfillment, according to their customers; if you score high on fulfillment, you’re already trouncing two out of three competitors.

Seamless Experience

How much effort do you make customers go through to buy from you? Every hurdle your marketing and selling processes place in front of potential customers can turn them away. In the digital marketplace, customers now demand a seamless experience that lets them move effortlessly from one part of their buying journey to the next. Marketing automation helps create this seamless experience through nurture programs that smooth the decision-making path, omni-channel marketing that coordinates all media streams, and data gathering that enhances rather than interferes with customers’ experiences with you.

Responsiveness

How well do you respond to your leads’ needs? You can build what looks like the perfect customer experience, but if you don’t create the means to respond quickly and accurately to their concerns, you won’t see the results you want. That’s like building an amusement park and forgetting to staff the rides – it looks good from a distance, but you aren’t giving customers the core experience they truly want. Marketing automation helps you respond quickly to your leads and alert your sales team when prospects need them.

Proactivity

The best customer experience not only meets needs, but anticipates them. A proactive customer experience answers leads’ questions even before they’re asked and actively removes pain points from the buying process. Drip nurture programs offer an outstanding way to anticipate customers’ questions before they ask them. By anticipating what your leads need to know and giving them information that helps them convince other decision-makers in their organization, you give them significantly fewer headaches – a key element of a great customer experience.

Adaptive Behavior

How well can your organization adapt to meet your customers’ changing needs? Your company must evolve and improve constantly, rising to meet the market where it is instead of trying to anchor it to where it was. Only a quarter of B2B organizations scored high on adapting to customers’ needs, so building agility into your marketing strategy gives you a distinct advantage.

Let your customers shape the experience they want, and you’ll have them lining up for more.

© Reach Marketing LLC 2016 All Rights Reserved.

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