B2B Customer Journey: A Step-By-Step Guide In 2024

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Hiba Ali

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green tickPublished : March 6, 2023

B2B companies are more aware of the importance of customer experience (CX). Manufacturers and distributors must differentiate themselves from their competitors, and buyers value customer experience as a key differentiator.

 what is the b2b customer journey Source

A visual representation of your sales process can be helpful when creating and managing buyer experiences. B2B customer journey maps help you do just that.

Many b2b customer journey touchpoints affect the customer experience, so it is crucial to understand that complexity when planning your journey maps and marketing campaigns.

How will you examine your journey and enhance it in the right way? Also, how to create a B2B customer journey map? We’ve compiled the essential guide to help you do exactly that.

What is B2B Customer Journey?

B2B customer journeys include the touchpoints and relations a customer has with a company from when they are introduced to them to when they have purchased the product. For example, consider a business buyer who discovers a SaaS software company that meets their needs.

Before dedicating to purchase, there are other measures to go through, and even after purchasing, there are still setup steps, confirming the consumer gets the most out of it, and so on.

A business-to-business buyer journey map visually depicts customer interactions before, during, and after purchasing your product. It is important to include pain points and blockages on the customer journey so that your customers are less likely to decide to go to your competitors.

To design an improved CX, you must optimize your procedures and reduce those pain points, an important function of an excellent customer journey map.

B2C & B2B Customer Journeys: Key Differences

B2B vs. B2C Source

B2B CJs vary from B2C consumer journeys mainly because they are more difficult and market to different audiences. This means that despite the overall structure, ranging from awareness to advocacy, it is the same. However, B2B behaviors are influenced by different motives, so some differences in B2B and B2C customer journeys are listed below.

1. Different target audience

It’s important to note that B2B and B2C companies differ in their intended customers. In B2B, the products are resold to businesses that use, resell, or incorporate into other products, whereas in B2C, the products are sold directly to consumers.

Each type of business operates differently and offers unique benefits at different B2B customer journey stages.

2. Diverse Sales Cycles

The buyer journey in a B2B environment is much longer, ranging from 1 month to a year or more. Decisions take more time and involve a greater number of stakeholders.

Since decision-making generally resides in a single individual, a B2C sales cycle is far shorter than a B2B sales cycle, and marketing and sales target campaigns at an identical group of mass consumers, B2C sales cycles are based on pain points and benefits relevant to more generic customer needs across multiple demographics.

3. Collaborations & Partnerships

Business-to-business collaboration is defined by its very definition as a collaboration between businesses for the common purpose of achieving business goals. In contrast, B2C customers typically don’t expect partnership, consultation, or deep customization of their products.

How To Map Out The B2B Customer Journey? [In 5 Stages]

To understand your buyers and turn them into loyal customers, you have to map their journey. Below are the measures you need to take to design a great B2B customer journey map that indicates who your customers are and help you optimize their user experience (UX):

Consumer-Journey-Map

1. Set Goals Unique To Your Business 

Consider your overall business and customer goals before creating the customer journey. For example, if you sell a hardware device to a business client, the customer journey will look different than if you sell a subscription service.

For companies that sell large machinery to B2B customers, goals such as generating more website conversions and creating brand advocates that recommend products to other businesses may be prioritized. On the other hand, software companies should emphasize the onboarding and renewal components of the customer journey to increase customer retention.

Prioritize your consumers’ and industry’s most significant measures before making a B2B customer journey map.

2. Identify Your Customer Segments 

As a result of the fact that your end users are often not the same people who make the purchase decision, the purchasing process is particularly nuanced for B2B businesses. Suppose you want to map out an accurate B2B customer journey.

In that case, you must comprehend every stakeholder in the purchasing procedure, not just those who will test out your product or service or the C-level decision-makers.

Depending on the extent and kind of your business, your user personas may vary based on the needs of end users versus purchasers. Consider Canva as an example: the design tool is used by freelancers, large corporations, and more.

With a deeper understanding of user profiles and needs, Canva was able to design its homepage for a variety of B2B customers who can choose their adventure and embark on their most relevant user journey by choosing their user journey.

3. Define The B2B Customer Journey Stages 

To build an effective customer journey, you must carefully define your goals, user personas, and stages. Here’s an example of a 7-stage B2B customer journey:

Define-The-B2B-Customer-Journey-Stages

A. Awareness

When buyers realize they have a problem, they begin to search for solutions, which is when they discover your brand.

For example, buyers know that improving website SEO performance is essential, so they search for “best SEO tools” and begin to investigate. You can make this phase more comfortable for consumers by ranking high on search engines.

B. Consideration

Customers consider your product and service when they research and compare it to your competitors.

This stage in the buyer journey is essential to the next step, so it is important to have readily obtainable research materials, such as white papers, videos, and extra, available online research materials.

C. Conversion

Every customer’s favorite part of the customer journey is conversion. They explored all their choices and chose you were the most useful, reached you, and are willing to buy your service.

A painless and easy buying process for the customer is essential to customer satisfaction, ensuring good business practices are used for their purchase.

D. Delivery

The delivery process is the most critical B2B customer journey step. Your company must fulfill all of the promises made during the previous stages, providing full customer support and making the delivery as easy as possible for your customers.

E. Support

Customer success is the key to business success, so you should ensure they succeed as much as possible.

It would help if you continued to support your customer, answer questions about your product, deal with any issues that may arise, and help them in every aspect of the product. Getting new customers is easier if you nurture your current customers.

F. Loyalty

Customer faithfulness and trust in you and your service will grow due to personalized customer experience and support. For businesses that provide services such as SaaS, this will boost customer lifetime value since they’ll be more likely to choose you in the future.

G. Advocacy

An effective advertisement comes straight from the consumer’s mouth. A great brand experience will result in positive testimonials and positive reviews, fetching in more customers, and this will start the whole process over

In addition to creating a never-ending cycle of success for you, this final stage in the buyer journey assists you in getting more buyers to provide into the process again.

4. List All Possible B2B Customer Touch Points 

After mapping out your customer’s journey phases, determine the b2b customer journey touchpoints between your product, social media posts, and homepage CTAs.

The homepage and a straightforward (CTA) button play an important role during the awareness and purchase steps of the B2B customer journey.

Onsite touchpoint gives customers the information they need to decide on their next steps in the product experience (PX).

It is also important to consider how b2b customer journey touchpoints are experienced by different user personas and map out touchpoints by customer journey phases.

For example, high-level managers who buy may experience the product differently than their workers, who become your customers.

You can improve UX by identifying key touch points along the B2B customer journey for different customer types and stages of the purchase process, making your buyers more loyal to your product.

5. Customer Journey Measurement and Analysis

It would be best to use the correct B2B customer journey mapping tools to assess the effect of touchpoints to estimate your customer journey’s success.

Combining website analysis tools with product experience insights and feedback software can achieve the best results.

To find out what your users think and feel about their B2B experience, you can track how they engage with your touchpoints and use various tools.

You can also use many tools to map and analyze the customer journey, giving you information on the types of users who visit your site and whether they convert or bounce.

Then, keep measuring the outcomes of your B2B customer journey to understand which aspects are successful and what needs improving.

Once you have mapped the customer journey, check in on your key goals and what your customers care about most.

How To Improve Your B2B Customer Journey? 

As part of a move towards a customer-centric approach, B2B customer journey mapping marks the beginning, putting the customer’s experience at the core of everything an organization does.

It gives a wide view of how customers interact with the company, emphasizing its focus on the client and how the service/product seems from the outside.

Often, B2B buyers find it difficult to make a purchase, which can negatively affect their business. Here are some tips to minimize complications in your B2B customer journey:

1. Create Buyer Personas 

The product we buy is a tool we’re hiring to help us do a job, so the best place to begin is by listing what your customer needs to do.

It’s important to consider factors such as your customer data, like your contact’s position within their organization, the needs of their organization, and their role in the decision-making process when considering your connection.

2. Focus On Creating Content

Focus On Creating ContentSource

Buyers have high expectations for the content they receive, as vendor content is one of the top sources of information as they evaluate technology purchase options, and 89% of respondents say it is extremely important/important that vendors provide relevant content at every stage of the buying process when choosing vendors.

Design content around the problems most essential to your customers to ensure that every piece sets up the next action you want your consumers to take to move potentials along the buyer journey.

3. Identify And Remove Roadblocks 

By working backward, identify any factors that could interfere with a sale and make targeted interventions to remove friction. Elements closest to purchase points are often the easiest to address.

4. Qualify Your Leads Properly 

Lead qualification shouldn’t be based solely on form fills. In the end, forcing an unready lead through the process will harm your business.

5. Get Onboarding Right 

The employee onboarding process should be as smooth as possible. It will place you ahead of the competitor and pave the way for consumer success in the future.

6. Stay Aware 

Maintaining contact with existing customers, informing them how things are going, and giving them access to useful reports are essential. Keep in touch regarding renewal dates, and send reminders promptly.

Conclusion

In the continuously developing world of B2B sales, manufacturers and distributors must deliver a seamless digital consumer experience to stay ahead of their competition.

B2B customer journey maps are important for visualizing the buyer journey, identifying B2B customer journey touchpoints, and identifying areas you can improve. By creating the map, every department becomes more customer-focused, and this renewed customer focus benefits the client and the company.

You must deeply understand all your consumers and how they interact with your product to map out the B2B customer journey effectively.

To provide your users with the best possible experience, you can adapt these steps to your company and your users to create a customer journey map that identifies what they need at each buying cycle stage.

Business level strategy FAQ's

You can use a customer journey map to visualize the experience your customers have at all brand touchpoints, so you can anticipate potential problems before they arise, improve retention, and find key information to make informed decisions for your business.

B2B customer journeys are split into five phases: awareness, conversion, advocacy, consideration, and loyalty. Depending on the kind of industry (for instance, some organizations may need onboarding or have numerous purchase points), you can break down these stages further.

Marketers and sales professionals can use these five A's - Awareness, Appeal, Ask, Act, and Advocacy to map clients' requirements and preferences throughout their purchase journey.

The B2B Customer journey mapping isn't one of the easy ones. Below are the 5 challenges with CJM you need to overcome:

  1. Underestimating the significance of CJM
  2. Not establishing a customer-centric culture
  3. Incorporating only touchpoints
  4. Relying on out-of-date software
  5. Focusing solely on brand advocates

Updated : December 19, 2023

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