Creating a great customer experience is essential for the success of a startup business. And this is even more so the case with a B2B company. Decision makers from these client companies are more willing to engage with you if they get a good experience with your products.
However, most of the B2B customer experiences are often seller-dictated. The experience runs based on what you think they will best respond to. While it can work, your customers might not get the most out of these. In that case, you might want to look into a new approach: buyer-driven experiences. Let’s explore how such experiences work and how you can create them.
Understanding What Buyer-Driven Experiences Exactly Are
As the name implies, a buyer-driven experience is a strategy where the buyer is the one directing their journey. The goal here is to help them reach their desired outcome. For that, you need to provide enough relevance, context, choice, and simplicity.
Buyer-Driven Experiences Vs. Customer-Centrism
That definition can lead you to the notion that buyer-driven experiences are the same as customer centrism. However, while both business mindsets put the customers front and center, they have several key differences. Understanding these differences will help you decide which route to take.
Image from MIT Sloan Management Review.
One of the main differences here is perspective. Customer centrism still puts buyers in a view that companies want to see them. In this case, companies want to see them spending more. As such, they serve customers only as a way to encourage more spending.
Buyer-driven experiences take a considerably different approach. In this one, there is a genuine desire to help customers. There is still the desire to generate more revenues. But it becomes secondary to that goal.
Companies who delve into buyer-driven experiences also recognize that each buyer experience is truly unique. As such, it is not easy to categorize them into predetermined maps. Instead, the focus is on serving them at a specific moment.
Image from Pragmatic Institute.
A buyer-driven experience also recognizes that emotions play a significant role in the journey. That is even the case when it comes to B2B. Decision-makers are still human, and their emotional state can influence the direction they take in the buyer’s journey. It is something often overlooked even by those who claim to be customer-centric.
In particular, emotions can influence the direction the customer journey can take. Buyer-driven experiences recognize these and allow customers to bet more attuned their emotions. That gives them greater control over where they want the journey to proceed.
The Five Elements Your Startup Business You Should Know
Now that you have a picture of what buyer-driven experiences are, you might wonder how you can create them. Here, you need to be familiar with the five elements that make up such an experience. Note that each element is also present in other customer engagement strategies. But this type of experience focuses more on how these elements interact to create a unique environment for each buyer.
Meeting Expectations For Your Startup Business
The first element you have to consider is the expectations customers have. As mentioned above, B2B customers have a more definite set of expectations. After all, they came to your startup business specifically to fulfill those.
Image from Calm Sage.
Here, one thing that you need to watch out for is vendor bias. That means your content is geared more towards promoting your business than giving users the info they need. Avoid that by always considering the context in which customers arrived at your service. You should also be ready to provide them with information that might not be readily apparent to them. That helps them learn more than what they initially expected.
Irresistible Engagement
Once you have gotten their attention, the next task is to get customers interacting more. The key here is keeping them invested in that engagement. Here, you need to understand more about what drives them to engage with you.
Some things you can consider here are:
- Content sharing: See what kind of content customers share from your online portals. Determine what other relevant pieces they might be interested in based on these.
- ”What’s next” content: Review if customers are accessing your “Recommended” sections. That indicates that they are delving into your content more.
- Customer participation: You would also want to see how active they are in participating in your various engagement sessions like webinars, social media posts, and polls.
- Emotional engagement: Think about the kinds of emotions that customers display when engaging with your posts.
These considerations will give you an idea of the level of engagement customers have with your brand. From there, you can tailor your strategies to create a more interesting engagement environment for them.
Differentiated Enlightenment For Startup Business Customers
Continuous learning is an integral part of a buyer-driven B2B experience. As they discover new information, customers will also want to learn what they can do with this. Thus, you should be ready to nurture that sense of learning in them.
Image from LinkedIn.
Your goal here is to facilitate their enlightenment. It need not be something big. Even small discoveries are something that people will be enthusiastic about. Be ready to pepper their journey with these discoveries to encourage them to move forward.
Buyer Enablement
After enlightenment, the next step is enablement. B2B decision makers especially want greater control of their journey so they can make necessary changes. For that, you should consider the following.
- Ease of backtracking: Buyers should be able to return to previous steps based on new information.
- Committee-directed content: Create content that can help members of a buying committee reach common ground.
- Overcoming obstacles: Provide your buyers with tools and other assets they can readily use to deal with obstacles to their purchase.
- Moving forward: Help your buyers decide what steps to take next through their journey.
Remember that your main role here is a guide. As such, you don’t want to force these things on customers. Instead, let them be a natural part of the journey. That will encourage customers to explore your brand at their own pace.
Continued Evolution
The last element of a buyer-enabled customer journey is evolution. As it is, customer journeys are not static. Even if it is the same person, you can expect their next visit will be different from the previous one. Thus, the experience you provide them must be ready to evolve to meet those changes.
Image from Customer Strategist.
To better catch up with these changes, you need to have an idea of what they are. Review your customer personas and see how much people have deviated from these. Once you determine that, redefine these personas to reflect those changes better.
Beyond this, you also have to revisit your existing content. Given the above changes, plan how you can update these content to realign them. It would also help to be more proactive and determine what future needs you can fulfill for them in their next visit.
Where Does Your Startup Business Go From Here
Developing a buyer-driven customer experience is not a one-off project. Your startup business will be continuously refining its strategy to better cater to your customers. Virtua Solutions is ready to help you achieve that goal and more. Contact us today to find out what we can do for you.