The new normal is rapidly emerging in the B2B buyer experience space. Buyers demand a seamless, personalized experience that adapts to their preferences and needs.
They are beginning to demand more digital experiences than simple information delivery. They want interactive and immersive experiences, providing them with opportunities to interact with the brand on a human level.
To meet these new customer expectations, B2B companies must evolve how they interact with their buyers.
The B2B buyer experience is rapidly becoming a key differentiator for market leaders. The future of this critical customer experience is quickly becoming the focus of marketers and sales leaders across the industry.
This is why you must take the time to look at where the B2B buyer experience currently stands and familiarize yourself with the trends to come in the upcoming year.
What Does the B2B Buyer Experience Currently Look Like?
What is the B2B buyer experience? It’s a set of activities that defines the customer journey in the B2B buying process.
B2B buyers interact with your company’s brand, products, and services before, during, and after the purchase. Each of these stages requires a different approach, and your company must be prepared to handle it in the best way possible.
In the last few years, the B2B buyer experience has focused heavily on getting the correct information in front of the right people at the right time in the buying process. While that’s still very much the case, things have taken a turn thanks to the ongoing pandemic.
The new era of the B2B buyer experience is focused on creating a more immersive and personalized experience for your consumers. Instead of simply providing information and hoping for the best, modern B2B companies must work to build relationships with their buyers. They must find ways to connect with their customers on an emotional level and provide them with opportunities to interact with the brand on a human level. The result is a buying experience that is increasingly personalized, interactive, and engaging.
3 B2B Buyer Experience Trends for 2022
As the B2B buyer experience continues to evolve, marketers and sales leaders across the industry are looking at the current state of this critical customer journey and noting the trends that will define the future of the B2B buying experience. Here are three B2B buyer experience trends that you can expect in 2022:
1. Account-Centricity
Account-centricity is the idea that the B2B buyer experience should be personalized and centered on the buyer’s specific needs and interests. This is the result of the ongoing shift to the digital buyer journey, allowing B2B companies to gather a great deal of information about their buyers and tailor their messaging and interactions accordingly.
Now, a buyer-centric approach is nothing new in the world of business. However, unlike the B2C process, where a brand usually deals with a single person at a time, B2B companies are often working with groups of people. On average, B2B buyers are made up of six to 10 people, making these purchases much more complex than the standard B2C purchase.
Source: Gartner
To build an account-centric B2B buyer experience, marketers and sales leaders must understand how each buyer in the group is different, and provide them with the specific content, offers, and interactions that will bring them the best results. In addition, they must build a sense of community among the buyers in their accounts, which will allow them to work together to grow their business. The result is a B2B buyer experience that feels more like a relationship than a transaction.
2. Increase in Information that Advances the Buying Journey
The B2B buying experience can be quite long and complex, with the average customer account (again, made up of six to 10 people) interacting with at least 10 channels and consuming a minimum of four to five pieces of content each before coming together and making a purchasing decision.
Source: McKinsey
While having a wealth of information available to your buyers can be a powerful way to build trust and provide them with the resources they need to make good purchasing decisions, it can also be overbearing and cause confusion.
This is why the B2B buyer experience moves away from information-centricity and towards information-advanced. Instead of providing your buyers with a wide variety of information and hoping that something in that sea of data will help them make a purchasing decision, you should be providing them with the specific information and content that will advance their buying journey. In other words, you should be giving them the information that will push them closer to making a decision and will help them make a compelling case to the people in their organization who will be making the final call.
3. Self-Serve Sales Environment
One of the most significant shifts in the B2B buyer experience over the past few years has been the increasing use of self-serving sales environments. In the past, buyers would come together in person or on the phone with a sales representative from their company to discuss their needs and make a purchasing decision. Today, however, most of the B2B buying process is happening online, which has led to the emergence of self-serving sales environments.
This is primarily due to the changes forced upon businesses due to the ongoing pandemic.
Source: McKinsey
With so many businesses still having to do remote work, it is no surprise that many companies are still choosing to interact with sales reps via remote means or by using self-serving sales environments.
However, with more B2B buyers looking to self-serve, this means that your sales reps need to be able to interact with them in a way that feels like a B2B conversation, not a transaction. This means that your sales reps must be able to provide your buyers with the information that will help them advance their buying journey and allow them to decide on their own and feel confident in their choice.
Create a One-of-a-Kind Account-Based Experience with Hushly
Hushly is a platform that allows you to create a one-of-a-kind experience for your buyers, allowing you to personalize the content, offers, and interactions that will bring them the results they need.
Ready to see what a personalized account experience can do for your brand? Request your demo today!
