Play to your strengths

Editor's note: Simon Calvert is chief strategy officer at B2B International, a Merkle Company. 

Everyone knows that great B2B customer experiences are more important than ever. Research by Forrester, McKinsey, the Temkin Group and Rosetta – to name but a few – underscores the significant commercial benefits for businesses that have great B2B customer experiences.

But how many B2B brands go beyond knowing this and get to what really matters: identifying exactly what it takes to build great customer experiences for today’s B2B buyers? 

To uncover the key ingredients that matter when creating compelling customer experiences for today’s B2B buyers, Merkle recently talked to 3,094 buyers of B2B products and services and got them to retrace their steps on their journeys for 5,622 recent B2B purchase experiences. They identified what mattered to them – and when it mattered. They scored the brands that featured on their journeys and how well they did against what mattered. 

As a result, we were able to develop a deep understanding of what it takes to create compelling customer experiences for the B2B sector as a whole and specifically for four B2B verticals (financial services, manufacturing, professional services and technology). We also identified the B2B brands that do it well – and those that don’t do it so well.

As a part of this analysis, we identified the 30 specific ingredients of superpowered customer experiences, along with the four superpowers that those create for B2B brands and the relative importance of them at different stages of a buyer’s journey. Taken together, these insights: 

  • provide actionable intelligence and insight about what adds value to a B2B buyer’s experience;
  • identify the ingredients that have a significant influence on a B2B buyer’s journey to purchase;
  • provide an understanding of how customer experiences currently work in key categories;
  • identify how specific brands perform against category benchmarks and against each other; 
  • enable marketers to focus resources on how to optimize against the category and step-change the category.

A few of the high-level key findings of this research – ones that B2B marketers must keep top of mind in crafting customer experiences – include the following: 

The decision-making experience is long and slow for buyers. From initial research to final decision (via shortlisting and tendering), the process can take, on average, anywhere between 138 days to 417 days.

The experience is difficult for buyers. Depending on size of company and size of purchase, between 33 percent and 62 percent of buying experiences are at best mediocre and at worst disappointing.

Buyers are pretty ruthless along the way. They reject 62 percent of suppliers initially considered before the supplier is approached and invited to tender/quote.

Beyond these high-level insights, we uncovered what it takes to succeed in this challenging market. Below are our key findings. You can read the full report at https://cutt.ly/3j7jMGz (registration required). 

Difference between success and failure 

Superpowered customer experiences are the difference between success and failure for B2B brands. According to our analysis, the B2B brands that buyers consistently chose outperformed their competitors in four superpowered areas: reliability, understanding, enrichment and preeminence. These four superpowers are made up of the specific ingredients of a customer experience that demonstrate that a B2B brand can add significant value to the business that the buyer works for or to the buyer themselves. 

  • Reliability. This superpower demonstrates that a B2B brand can add value to the buyers’ businesses. As part of a B2B customer experience it shows potential buyers that it can be trusted to deliver for their business. A reliability experience is characterized by ingredients such as the ability to deliver on time, take steps to mitigate risks and comply with regulations.
  • Understanding. This superpower also demonstrates that a B2B brand can add value to the buyers’ businesses. It shows potential buyers that this is a brand that gets what their business needs. An understanding experience is characterized by ingredients such as the ability to offer enough variety and choice, be approachable and transparent and be quick to respond to changing needs.
  • Enrichment. This superpower demonstrates that a B2B brand can add value to the buyer themselves. As part of a B2B customer experience, it shows potential buyers that it can make their work life a little better. An enrichment experience is characterized by ingredients such as the ability to be easy to sell on, teach new skills and make a buyer’s workday a little more fun/interesting.
  • Preeminence. This superpower also demonstrates that a B2B brand can add value to the buyer themselves. It shows potential buyers that this is a brand that you would be proud to work with. An experience of preeminence is characterized by ingredients such as the ability to be an active thought leader in a category, a source of inspiration in the wider business world and have a progressive approach to stakeholders.

Two of these superpowers – reliability and preeminence – most positively improve a brand’s chances of success at every stage of a buyer’s journey. Whether a buyer is on a 138-day journey or a 417-day one, reliability and preeminence are critical to success. For example, an experience that contains ingredients such as the ability to meet a company’s minimum quality needs, comply with regulations, take steps to mitigate risks, be an active thought leader and fulfill obligations to society are significantly influential at every stage of the purchase journey.

The two other superpowers – understanding and enrichment – play significant roles in the closing stages of a buyer’s journey. This is particularly true at the stage of being approached to tender/quote and the final choice stage of a buyer’s journey. Here, experiences that contain the following ingredients play significant roles for winning brands: the ability to provide support and information; to be approachable; to be transparent; to help make buyers more employable; and to make buyers’ work lives more enjoyable.

Could do better

Some B2B brands have superpowered customer experiences. Many could do better. We explored and evaluated 5,622 recent B2B purchase experiences across four industry verticals: technology, professional services, manufacturing and financial services. We asked our 3,094 buyers to rate the brands they experienced based on those that did well (had superpowered customer experiences), those that could do better and those that struggled. 

Here a breakdown of what we found drives success in our four industry verticals: 

Technology. Success in the technology category is currently driven by the reliability and understanding superpowers. Microsoft, IBM, Dell, Verizon, AT&T and Huawei are examples of brands that our B2B buyers deemed to have superpowered customer experiences. (Google, HP and BT come close.) Enrichment plays a strong role when buyers are looking to make the final decision following the tender/quote stage and when buyers are looking to repeat purchase with a brand. In both situations, they are looking for brand experiences that make people feel safe contracting a brand, make their work life more enjoyable and teach them new skills.

Financial services. Like the technology category, success in financial services is currently driven by the reliability and understanding superpowers. Our B2B buyers deemed PayPal, Bank of China, American Express, Capital One and Commonwealth Bank to have superpowered customer experiences. (Bank of America, Barclays and Starling come close.) Enrichment plays a strong role when buyers are looking to make the final decision following the tender/quote stage – specifically, making people feel safe and being easy to sell on. Preeminence plays a strong role when buyers are looking to repeat purchase. Specifically, they are looking for thought leaders in the category and a progressive approach to stakeholders.

Manufacturing. Success in the manufacturing category is currently driven by all four of the superpowers. Our B2B buyers deemed 3M and DeWalt to have superpowered customer experiences. (Caterpillar comes close.) Again, reliability and understanding are important but enrichment and preeminence play significant roles earlier on in the decision-making process. Here buyers are looking for brand experiences that make people feel safe, are easy to sell on, are thought leaders in their category and have a clear vision of their obligations to society.

Professional services. Like the manufacturing category, success in the professional services category is currently driven by all four of the superpowers. However, despite all of the usual global suspects being explored and evaluated, our B2B buyers did not deem any of them to have a superpowered customer experience. (KPMG comes close.) The category performed best for reliability but did not do so well for understanding, enrichment and preeminence. Specifically, there was an absence of brand experiences in the professional services category that were approachable and transparent, made work enjoyable, were thought leaders in their category, had a clear vision of their obligations to society and were leaders in innovative products and services.

Notably, clear differences exist in what different-sized businesses value in B2B companies. In comparison to enterprises, SME buyers are more likely to value B2B customer experiences that have a smoothly integrated offering, aren’t too complicated, can be customized and keep them up-to-date and employable. In short, they are more likely to value experiences that deliver more of the understanding and enrichment superpowers. On the other hand, enterprise buyers are more likely to value B2B customer experiences that can adapt to change, demonstrate leadership in innovative products and services and have a progressive approach to stakeholders. In short, they are more likely to value experiences that deliver more of the preeminence superpower.

In addition, clear differences also exist between the different generations of B2B buyers and what they value. Reliability, understanding, enrichment and preeminence are important to all but they play out differently across the generations. In comparison to the Boomer generation, Millennials are more likely to value B2B customer experiences that increase revenue, provide support and information, make work more enjoyable and have a clear vision of their obligations to society. On the other hand, Boomers are more likely to value B2B customer experiences that help grow their personal network and are a source of inspiration in the wider business world. In comparison to the other two, Generation X are more likely to value B2B customer experiences that teach them new skills and demonstrate thought leadership in category.
Regardless of industry, company size or buyer generation, one thing is clear for B2B companies: Creating compelling customer experiences is now more challenging than ever for B2B marketers. 

Our research underscores the fact that there are no silver bullets – and that every B2B brand is a collection of impressions built up over time and several moments of truth. The challenge is that B2B brands either deliver in these moments and live on or they fall by the wayside. Creating good customer experiences is now more challenging than ever because: 

  • Marketers must deliver against expectations inflation. B2B customers are demanding more value from the brands with which they do business. 
  • Marketers must tame complexity – the never-ending explosion of touchpoints, platforms, data and technologies to work with.
  • Marketers must succeed with finite resources – so many more things to do with less budget to do each one. 

Creating the experiences that matter 

Today’s B2B brands must focus on creating the experiences that matter with the people who matter the most. Doing this successfully starts with an understanding of the ingredients of superpowered customer experiences, the superpowers that create them for B2B brands and their relative importance at different stages of a buyer’s journey.

The four superpowers identified above demonstrate that B2B businesses need to go well beyond just trying to add value to businesses through the reliability and understanding superpowers. B2B marketers should also use the enrichment and preeminence superpowers for the buyers who work for those businesses. 

There are huge opportunities for B2B brands to leverage these superpowers to differentiate themselves. In fact, most B2B brands are either underperforming or not performing at all when it comes to reliability, understanding, enrichment and preeminence. To get started, we recommend the following:

Discovery: Review how your brand and competitors perform against the four superpowers.

Analysis: Identify the gaps between your brand and success in the category.

Evidence: Conduct a survey to establish the full, unvarnished picture.

Optimize: Close the gaps. Deliver improvements on what buyers currently deem to be important in the category.

Step-change: Revisit the “empty spaces” – the remaining value-add ingredients that buyers currently don’t deem important but could be made meaningful to them and differentiating for your B2B brand.