As time moves forward and as industries change the expectations from your customers change. For businesses to continue to stay ahead of their competition, they need to be able to anticipate the customers’ needs. Creating new products is not the only form of innovation that customers are looking for, there are also opportunities in updating the customer experience. According to Doblin, there are four areas in the experience that can be improved, service, channel, brand, and customer engagement.
Service-based innovation is centered around the way your customers interact with what surrounds your brand, like customer service, marketing, or sales departments. This could be in the availability of communication, productivity, and even the overall sales process. All departments will have interactions with your clients in one way or another and each interaction should end with a customer smile. Always be available to them and honor all requests, no matter how ridiculous they may seem. When looking for communication channels beyond regular business hours, look into chat AI’s that are easily installed onto your website. It allows you to program commonly asked questions and for more in-depth questions or comments, it will allow your website users to book time on your calendar without waiting until the next business day for a response.
Channel innovation is updating the way customers and clients interact with your products and services. It does not have to be reflected directly in the base service, but also complementary products and groups surrounding it. When it comes to the B2B realm, your customers hold just as much value to you as your service does to them. With longer lifecycles than the average B2C, communicating your value is one of the most important aspects when it comes to customer retention. Creating a users only group, hosting online webinars, or even hosting a networking event for stockholders and stakeholders, all are ways to create extra value for your customers.
Building a brand always has room for innovation. There are chapters in business, just like there are chapters in life, and your brand will grow and change along with your business. Telling a story with your business is just as important to conversions as the service itself. Your business needs to display its differentiators in a creative manner to attract new leads. According to a study by Binet and Field, brands that were outperforming their competition would allocate at least 60% of their budget to long term marketing goals. The goal is to build a brand that has instant recognition.
Customer engagement is the focal point of any successful business. The B2B customer experience is about what your product/service can do to solve the customer’s issues in a personalized manner. FedEx has streamlined its communication process by creating a single newsletter for customers instead of multiple emails from different departments. Instead of having customers search for answers, all updates are listed in one centralized place and sent directly to their emails. Anticipating your customer’s needs will keep them happy for years to come.