In the rapidly changing consumer market, the highest customer-rated Integrated CX company, InMoment, took a bold and proactive approach. On Thursday, January 25th, we hosted the “Changing The Game” event in Austin, TX—a crucible for innovative ideas and game-changing strategies to address the consumer market in 2024 and beyond. 

The event brought in senior leadership from analytics, CX, insights, and VoC programs  from 44 different brands, all with the common goal: sharing how integrated CX is making groundbreaking changes to their companies, customer experiences, and the market as a whole. 

Dive in with us as we share key takeaways from our panels—Integrated CX: Listening Differently, ROI: Measuring Success Beyond NPS, and Reimagining CX with AI— and see how some of the biggest brands in retail, auto, hospitality, B2B, and consumer goods are reshaping their interactions with customers and setting new standards in their respective industries.

Major Hospitality Conglomerate Masters The Art of Engagement

At the heart of one of the biggest dining, entertainment, and hospitality conglomerates in the nation lies a balanced approach to customer feedback: they’ve mastered the art of both reactive and proactive engagement. 

What’s particularly remarkable is that their expansive operation of over 600 locations and reviews is managed by a lean team of two.

By responding to over 95% of negative reviews, their company guarantees that customer concerns are not just heard but addressed; the art of engaged, active listening. This reactive approach is complemented by their proactive strategy of acknowledging and responding to positive feedback—something that businesses often overlook. 

Responding to both positive and negative feedback can’t be overstated enough. Studies have shown that companies that engage with customer feedback can see up to a 5-10% increase in customer retention rates. It lets customers know that there’s a human behind your brand, and you’re open and receptive to changing your processes if inefficiencies are continually being called to attention. 

Engaging with positive and negative feedback consistently, across a vast number of locations, shows that scalability is possible with a small team if the approach is thoughtful and customer-centric.

Worldwide Furniture Retailer Redefines Comfort through Integrated CX

One of the biggest companies in the furniture space is pioneering a future where relaxation meets technology. They’re reimagining  ‘dad’s recliner’ into a modern-day relaxation experience. By merging AI with their products, they’re crafting personalized experiences that evolve with the user. 

McKinsey’s Global Survey on artificial intelligence has reported that businesses adopting AI can see a significant improvement in their performance, with some sectors witnessing profit increases of up to 20% attributable directly to AI. This isn’t just in industries like tech or finserv—this tech is breaching every market. 

Their story exemplifies that the utilization of AI can keep any business competitive and relevant by modernizing their approach. Companies like theirs can meet current consumer expectations while anticipating future needs, securing a leading position in innovation and customer satisfaction.

Major Tech Company Takes a New Angle on NPS Scores

One of the biggest, multinational tech companies in the world is utilizing every available feedback signal—reviews, call center transcripts, social media, and many more—to benchmark against the competition as well as to ensure a balanced view of feedback and signals across different areas of their own company. 

A Harvard Business Review study found that a 12-point increase in NPS leads to a doubling of a company’s growth rate. This approach, especially when applied alongside other feedback mechanisms, offers a comprehensive view of customer and employee satisfaction, enabling businesses to fine-tune their offerings and internal culture. This holistic understanding of feedback signals ensures companies stay ahead in competitive industries by maintaining a pulse on both customer loyalty and operational efficiency.

Through their comprehensive analysis of various feedback signals, they’ve created and maintained a distinct differentiation in their CX program apart from the competitors in their industry. Their detailed assessment offers deeper insights into customer loyalty and competitive positioning in the tech industry, ensuring that they have a complete and actionable view of both their business and the market as a whole. 

Top Car Manufacturer Provides a Human Touch in the Digital Age

One of the leading car manufacturers in the world spoke on a compelling narrative of human-centric customer experience. 

Amidst the digital transformation, they emphasized personal touches, like writing thank-you notes to employees. Emphasizing the employee-customer link has done wonders for their business, where appreciated employees are more engaged and happy at their jobs, which ultimately affects their customer interactions. 

The ability to offer personalized experiences is a critical differentiator for brands, particularly those where customers are dealing with high-cost, heavily-considered purchases such as automobiles and luxury goods. Personalization goes beyond mere customization of products or services; it encompasses understanding and anticipating the unique needs and desires of each customer, forging a deeper connection. 

A study by Epsilon found that 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences. This statistic underscores the importance of a human touch in creating meaningful customer interactions. Brands that master the art of personalization significantly enhance loyalty and a competitive edge. In the context of high-value transactions, it can be the deciding factor that tilts the scales in a brand’s favor, with a higher probability of both a sale and a lifelong customer.

Mobility Industry Expert Reshapes Customer Experience

The journey of one of the big three in the car rental space evolved from traditional survey methods to dynamic feedback systems. Their focus on swift personalization reflects a deep understanding of modern consumer desires. 

A study by Salesforce revealed that 76% of customers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations. In this context, their company’s strategy reflects an acute awareness of modern consumer demands, emphasizing the importance of agile, responsive customer service frameworks that cater to individual needs.

They  prioritized employee well-being alongside customer satisfaction, emphasizing the importance of nurturing a growth-centric ecosystem. Their transformation signifies a broader shift in their identity, from a holdings company to a mobility company, attuned to the nuanced needs of today’s consumer.

Energy Leader Finds AI at the Forefront of Customer Service

A key player in the U.S. energy sector focused on how AI is revolutionizing how call center operations are managed and optimized, particularly in the processing and comprehension of call transcripts. 

InMoment’s toolkit excels in extracting meaningful data from these transcripts, which are often unstructured and varied. The algorithms sift through the data, identifying key themes, customer sentiments, and specific queries, unifying them in a holistic view. This process involves not just transcribing words, but also understanding the context and nuances of each conversation. 

Going a step further, their  AI-powered predictive analytics have been at the forefront of interpreting and extrapolating on data in real-time, helping brands gain a competitive advantage in the ever-evolving marketplace. 

It goes beyond data analysis by setting the foundation where decisions are anticipated, and deeper understanding of current trends helps mitigate future risk. The strategic use of this technology to inform decision-making processes is an advanced approach to business strategy.

As a result, what was once a simple record of customer interactions becomes a rich source of insights, allowing for a deeper understanding of customer needs and experiences.

With AI assisting in call center operations and making systems more optimized, they’re not just retaining loyal customers but also setting a new standard in an industry with historically poor customer feedback mechanisms. Their approach reflects a deep understanding of the need for efficient and personalized customer interactions in the coming decade.

Footwear Retailer Utilizes Unstructured Data as a Training Tool

One of the largest sneaker retailers in the country was one of the earliest adopters of Spotlight, by InMoment. This AI-powered CX software captures and analyzes all customer feedback signals to deliver stronger, more actionable customer experience insights. Like the company mentioned in the previous section, this retailer is also using this tool to pull unstructured data from call transcripts, and taking strategic actions based off of the analyzed data. 

According to IBM, 90% of all data generated by devices such as smartphones, tablets, and connected vehicles is unstructured. The untapped potential of unstructured data is staggering. Leveraging AI to analyze this data, companies can significantly enhance their understanding of customer experiences, leading to more informed decisions and better-aligned strategies.

By using real customer complaints as part of their training, this company ensures that their employees are well-informed and empathetically aligned with customer needs. This approach is a brilliant use of data to enhance customer interactions.

A New Era of Customer Experience

The InMoment (integrated) Experience | Changing The Game was more than a gathering of industry leaders; it was a showcase of the future of customer experience. Each brand, in its unique way, demonstrated that innovation, whether through technology, human touch, or the combination of both, is key to staying relevant and creating customer experiences that drive loyalty. 

As these brands continue to push the boundaries, they’re not only changing the game for themselves, but setting new and revolutionary standards for consumers. It marks the dawn of an era where innovation transcends tradition, compelling the entire industry to follow suit or risk obsolescence. They’re not just leading the change–they’re becoming the change—inspiring a future where excellence in CX is not an aspiration but a given.

Ready to revolutionize your customer experience strategy? Discover how InMoment’s integrated CX solutions can empower your business to listen differently, measure success beyond traditional metrics, and reimagine customer interactions with the power of AI.

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Did you know that 92% of CEOs agree that customer experience (CX) improvements have a direct impact on their bottom line? It’s clear that a customer experience program is no longer a luxury, but a necessity. 

The process of choosing the best customer experience management software can be tricky and extensive, so there are some things you need to keep in mind as you work to discover a CX solution that works for your business. 

Benefits of Customer Experience Management Software

Delivering consistent, memorable experiences is no longer a luxury, it’s a necessity. Consumers are more likely to become repeat customers if they have great experiences. But, in order to achieve this, you need an actionable customer experience strategy. That is where customer experience management software comes in. Customer experience management (CXM) software offers several benefits for businesses aiming to enhance their customer interactions and satisfaction such as:

• Improved Customer Satisfaction: CXM software helps businesses understand customer needs, preferences, and expectations. By addressing these effectively, businesses can enhance overall customer satisfaction.
• Enhanced Customer Loyalty: By consistently providing positive experiences, CXM software contributes to building customer loyalty. Satisfied customers are more likely to become repeat customers and advocates for the brand.
• Reduce Customer Churn: According to research by PwC, customers are willing to pay up to 16% more for products or services from companies that offer a better customer experience. Additionally, research by Temkin Group indicates that companies that excel at customer experience have a 16.9% advantage in customer retention rates over companies that provide a poor experience.
• Personalized Interactions: CXM software allows businesses to collect and analyze customer data, enabling personalized interactions. Personalization enhances the customer experience by delivering relevant content, recommendations, and offers.
• Brand Differentiation: Providing an exceptional customer experience through CXM software can set a business apart from competitors. Positive experiences contribute to a positive image, and improved brand reputation management, which aids in differentiating your brand in the market.
• Employee Engagement: Happy and engaged employees are more likely to provide better customer service. CXM software can also contribute to employee satisfaction by providing tools and insights to enhance their ability to serve customers effectively.

How to Choose the Best Customer Experience Management Platform

Choosing the right customer experience management is a critical decision for businesses aiming to elevate their customer interactions. A robust CXM platform can significantly impact customer satisfaction, loyalty, and overall business success. But, choosing the right partner for your business is a complex process. In order to ensure you choose the right vendor, there are some preliminary steps you need to take. 

Look at Third-Party Evaluations

When evaluating CXM platforms, it’s essential to consider third-party evaluations and industry reviews. Independent research firms like Forrester and Gartner provide assessments, such as the Gartner CX Magic Quadrant, that provide valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of different platforms, helping you make an informed decision. Look for reviews from reputable sources, industry analysts, and customer experience experts. Assessments often highlight features, scalability, integration capabilities, and overall performance. By leveraging third-party evaluations, you can gain a well-rounded perspective on the platforms you’re considering, ensuring that your choice aligns with industry standards and best practices.

Look at Customer References

Another crucial aspect of selecting a CXM platform is examining customer references. Real-world experiences from businesses similar to yours can offer unparalleled insights into the platform’s practicality and effectiveness. Focus on understanding how the platform addressed their specific needs, the level of support provided, and any challenges faced during implementation. Customer references provide a firsthand account of the platform’s performance in diverse business environments, aiding you in making a decision that aligns with your unique requirements. 

For example, if you are looking for an example of how a customer experience platform helped a large organization put loads of data into one place, look no further than Foot Locker. Foot Locker utilized InMoment’s AI technology to gather data into one place, and sort by sentiment so that customers with negative experiences could be contacted and prevented from churning. 

Look at Their Integrated CX Offering

When considering a CXM platform, it is important to choose a partner that will allow you to do more than one thing. You don’t want a partner who can only do surveys or contact center optimization, you want a partner who will give you an end-to-end look into the customer journey. 

That is why Integrated CX is so important. Integrated CX allows you to bring in data from multiple sources into one central location. From there, you can uncover holistic insights that lead to data-driven decisions. 

10 Questions to Ask CX Companies

When in discussions with your top CX companies, it is important that you delve deeper into their specific product offerings and understand how they go about supporting their customers. You want to ensure that you have a dedicated partner that will help you reach your goals, not just a platform that you will be left in the dark with. In order to do so, make sure you ask questions that will allow you to make an informed decision on a vendor that will work best for you. 

1. What Percentage of Your Total Customer Base Relies on You for Enterprise CX Programs?

When you’re looking for a partner in business, you want them to be an expert in their field. This holds true for customer experience, yet some major companies only dedicate a small percentage of their resources to CX expertise. For example, some major companies claim to specialize in CX, but really the vast majority of their business is devoted to market research. For great customer experience, pick a vendor that is 100% dedicated and will not be distracted by other ventures.

2. What Percentage of Those Customers Have Been With You for Over Three Years?

Some vendors will tout big numbers of clients, but the information that really matters is how long those clients have been with the company. With a strong partner, you get what you were promised and clients are more likely to stick with them longer. Get past the smoke and mirrors and find the right vendor by asking about client longevity.

3. How Many of Those Customers Exceed 1 Million Interactions with You?

If you’re an enterprise, you want to differentiate those who say they can handle a large program with over a million responses and those who are just running a small research survey at

a big company. So how do you tell? Some companies will charge extra with “custom pricing” for responses over 1 million, which highlights their high cost of business and limited experience. You want a partner who doesn’t blink at 1 million.

4. Who Specifically Will Provide Implementation and Strategic Consulting Services?

Continuing the point from the previous question, it’s one thing to claim to be collaborative, but another to have a blueprint for partnership. Ask who specifically will be helping you implement your technology and help you map out your CX strategy to pick out the vendors who walk the walk, not just talk the talk.

5. How Often Will Those Resources Be Available to Us? At What Rates?

Strategy sessions and check-ins are vital to a healthy partnership with your CX vendor. Though they’re vital, many vendors charge extra for the bare minimum amount of sessions. It’s best to clarify that these partnership best practices are included in your contract, rather than an add-on that will cost you more than a pretty penny.

6. Will We Be Charged for Survey Responses? Why?

Some major vendors in the CX industry do not charge you as you’d expect. They don’t charge you based on the number of surveys you send or other elements, but by the number of survey responses you get. If you’re thinking this seems backwards you’d be right, especially seeing as the number of survey responses you’ll get is difficult to estimate going into a contract.

7. What Happens if We Over or Underestimate Our Responses? 

When you sign a contract with a vendor who charges based on the number of survey responses, there is a high probability that you will overestimate and therefore pay more money for services you don’t need. However, these companies do not offer any refunds; in fact they charge steeply if you overestimate. Weed these vendors out to make sure you aren’t backed into a very expensive corner.

8. Are We Subject to Any Parent Company’s Policies and Contracts?

This question is especially relevant due to recent acquisitions across the CX landscape. Now more than ever, it’s important to know if you’re partnering with just the technology vendor or if you’re signing something that makes you beholden to a parent company’s interests and policies. Ask this question to clarify if your vendor is working for you or for their parent company.

9. Can We Review the 24-month Product Roadmap?

Crafting a roadmap for your initiatives is necessary to not only get the quick wins you need, but to set long-term goals. However, not even CX professionals can see the future. There will be unexpected events that may necessitate adjustments to your roadmap, yet some vendors don’t allow tweaks to the plan. Clarify this with your vendor to make sure your program is future-proofed.

10. Which Customers Can We Speak to Verify Your Responses?

Strong partners create strong advocates. It’s as simple as that. Ask prospective vendors if you can speak to current customers and the best of them will refer you to an advocate that will be more than happy to tell you about their experience.

How Customer Experience Management Started

At its simplest, customer experience management is a broad term that refers to evaluating and managing a customer’s every interaction with a brand. Though many companies have taken strides to provide great customer experiences for many years now, the idea of customer experience management as its own science or discipline really didn’t come about until the early 2000s. 

That’s about when advancements in technology allowed customer experience to go from being an abstract goal to something more quantifiable. Suddenly, companies everywhere could use the internet to track site visits and other metrics, opening up a whole new dimension to the idea of caring for customers. If these elements were quantifiable, that meant they could be managed. And if they could be managed, then perhaps they could be meaningfully improved to create a bolder, more human, and more invested relationship with every customer!

Though today’s conversation focuses on customer experience management, it’s important to remember that this technology and science doesn’t ‘just’ apply to customers. Many brands also use tune experience management tools to their employee experiences. The idea with this approach is to create a better workplace culture, reduce employee churn, and create the same kinds of fundamental relationships with workers that brands aspire to build with customers.

Customer Experience Management’s Early Days

Now that they were armed with the technology needed to evaluate a lot of customer experiences in little time, companies turned their attention to the next frontier of feedback collection: digital surveys. Surveys had, of course, been around for a long time, but mailing them out or publicly soliciting customers to take them on the spot was expensive and produced inconsistent results. 

Suddenly, though, these companies had access to newly developed survey deployment technologies and, before too long, tools that allowed them to build their own questionnaires. Both approaches, combined with email, suddenly made sending massive numbers of surveys directly to customers much simpler and much more cost-effective. Surveys thus became a cornerstone of customer experience management, a role they still have to this day!

Customer Experience Management’s Continued Evolution

With these new survey tools, methods, and partnerships in hand, brands rolled up their sleeves and got creative in the pursuit of feedback. Whether it was promising a free soda upon survey completion or a discount the next time customers came in, countless organizations spent the 2000s attempting to gather as much feedback as possible. 

At this point, the terms “customer experience” and “customer experience management” weren’t as ubiquitous as they are now. Rather, a lot of organizations and the vendors that provided survey tools used phrases like “brand protection” to describe why it was important to adopt an approach like this. Over time, though, the term “customer experience” became a mainstay of this discipline, and terms like “customer experience management” soon followed. Because of the employee experience approach we mentioned earlier, it’s common nowadays for this science to be referred to simply as experience management (XM).

The Rise of Big Data Within Customer Experience Management

Once organizations got their feet wet building surveys, analyzing data, and figuring out how to incentivize customers and employees to respond, they had to take the next step in the customer experience management journey: making sense of feedback. No small task, especially when the field was in its infancy, but both brands and experience vendors were determined to make sense of all the feedback they were receiving.

This was about the point that the term “big data” entered the experience conversation, and it became a bylaw of experience programs throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s. Having a ton of data was suddenly all the rage, and organizations spent a great deal of time and money gathering mountains of it in pursuit of better customer experience management. Frankly, there was no tech or business problem that a lot of brands thought they couldn’t solve just by throwing data at it.

However, this is the part of the story where the customer experience management revolution ended up stalling out for a lot of brands. They’d gathered lots of data, yes, but what a lot of these brands and the vendors that partnered with them didn’t quite grasp at the time is that big data alone cannot solve your business and customer experience problems. Nonetheless, big data remained the north star of many experience programs, which, frankly, is why a large number of them failed.

Customer Experience Management Hits a Plateau

After it became apparent that simply gathering data and feedback from surveys didn’t bridge the gap to actually fixing problems, the next step for customer experience management vendors and their clients was figuring out how to, well, fix problems. These brands had business challenges, and they had big data. What did building a connection between the two end up looking like?

The truth is that, whether back in the day or right now, a lot of organizations still haven’t quite figured that out. You might say that brands should simply take a look at their data and infer solutions from there, but for many companies, their big data is literally too big to make that idea feasible. There’s simply too much noise and no easy way to find signals in it. Or at least… that was the case until relatively recently.

Going Beyond Customer Experience Management 

Until the last few years, one of the biggest bywords of customer experience management was basically to gather as much data as possible and hope that brands could use it to adequately react to customer and employee complaints after the fact. This philosophy played out in the form of customer experience teams who kept their data siloed or vendors who offered entirely reaction-based and DIY solutions without much customizability or human expertise.

At InMoment, however, we believe that the experience management story should be an Experience Improvement (XI) revolution. As you’ve seen by now, while data and metrics are certainly very important, just having a large pile of them doesn’t actually translate to solutions for business challenges, customer relationships, employee retention, or countless other experience factors. Successful customer experience management demands much more.

From Customer Experience Management to Experience Improvement

There are a few factors to bear in mind for making a difference with your customer experience management. The first is to remember that truly great experience management doesn’t start with gathering data; it starts with figuring out which tangible business goals you need your program to accomplish. We call this designing with the end in mind, and it’s a strategy that will make your data so much more manageable than older approaches aimed at gathering as much of it as possible.

This strategy will also result in much more relevant customer sentiment, which is key to understanding what they love (and don’t love) about their experiences with your brand. You can then apply this heightened understanding toward meaningful transformations within your business and its associated customer journeys, realizing that success in the form of those goals we mentioned earlier (retention, acquisition, saving costs, etc.).

That idea of being selective with your data, as well as proactively sharing the data you do gather, feeds directly into the very best elements that effective customer experience management and Experience Improvement have to offer. More accurate personas, better defined marketing segments, better touchpoint evaluation, and knowing what your customers want before they themselves do are but a few perks to this approach.

InMoment as a CX Partner 

InMoment has best-in-class NLP capabilities and has the highest user ratings of all Voice of the Customer companies according to Gartner Peer Insights. Schedule a demo today to see what we can do for your business! 

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InMoment’s platform and personnel have been recognized by Forrester as “major players in the text mining and analytics market.” With a platform proficient in text mining as a way to pull insights from customer feedback, and a team determined to add value and improve business performance, InMoment is leading the charge in the text mining and analytics industry.

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B2B (business-to-business) transactions often involve ongoing relationships and partnerships. Effective customer experience management helps build and maintain strong, long-term relationships by meeting the needs and expectations of your business customers consistently.

What is B2B Customer Experience?

B2B customer experience can refer to the interactions and overall relationship between a business and its business customers. It may also refer to a digital benchmark: your customers’ interactions on your website, mobile app, or software dashboard. The B2B CX may also refer to a company’s ability to respond to customer questions and cases. 

Given these various interpretations, we can define the B2B customer experience as the cumulative impact of all interactions and experiences between your business and your business customers, at every touch point across the entire customer journey. 

Why is B2B CX Important?

The B2B customer experience is a crucial aspect of building and maintaining successful and long-lasting relationships in the business world. Organizations that strategically allocate their resources to strengthen their customer experience focus stand to gain an edge over the competition.

• Great customer experiences foster loyalty. B2B customers are more likely to continue doing business with a company that consistently delivers value, meets their expectations, and provides excellent service. Loyal customers are also more likely to recommend the business to others.
• Great customer experiences help your brand achieve differentiation. In competitive B2B markets, where products and services may be similar, customer experience becomes a key differentiator. A great customer experience can set your company apart from competitors and help you win and retain clients. 
• Great customer experiences bolster your Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). When customers are satisfied and engaged, they are more likely to make repeat purchases, upgrade services, enter into partnerships with your company, and explore additional offerings over time.
• Great customer experiences improve brand reputation. If you consistently deliver positive experiences, your brand is more likely to be seen as reliable, trustworthy, and customer-centric. This positive reputation can attract new customers and partners.

Ultimately, a positive B2B customer experience contributes to customer satisfaction, loyalty, and the potential for long-term partnerships and repeat business. It goes beyond individual transactions and focuses on building a strong foundation for ongoing collaboration.

What are Some B2B Customer Experience Examples?

Here are some examples of how B2B companies are applying tactics designed to improve the customer experience:

• CRM platform HubSpot utilizes chatbots to connect with customers and encourage open communication. The chatbots automatically help users find responses to their questions and discover helpful content like help center articles, blogs, and resource pages.
• Social media marketing platform Hootsuite leverages InMoment to make the Net Promoter Score (NPS) methodology central to its operation. By utilizing the in-app customer feedback software tool, Hootsuite can prioritize CX improvements that will have the most business impact and have been able to triple its Net Promoter Score.
• Transport and business services brand FedEx launched a single external newsletter to streamline its communication with customers, instead of sending out multiple emails from various departments within the organization. This helped break down silos and made things simpler not only for FedEx’s customers but also for each of the company’s internal teams working together to deliver meaningful information and valuable content to customers. 
• Software company PandaDoc uses multiple surveys to monitor customer sentiment and improve product experience. The company also acts on insights from customer feedback in order to understand and improve the skills of its support agents, enabling them to become better at serving PandaDoc customers. 
• Every time a customer buys its cloud storage suite, tech company IBM assigns specialists to help with onboarding and setup. This gives customers a hassle-free experience at a critical stage of their purchase journey. Additionally, IBM specialists educate customers with tutorials, expert advice, recommendations, and best practices to foster long-lasting relationships. 
• High-tech industrial company GE operates customer experience centers to showcase the company’s capabilities. Customers can visit these centers to see GE’s manufacturing systems in action and discuss a personalized plan with the company’s CX representatives.

How Does the B2B Customer Experience Differ from B2C?

B2B CX strategies are often inspired by best practices in B2C customer experience management. However, there are key differences and nuances between the two due to the nature of the relationships, the complexity of transactions, and the unique needs of each type of customer. 

• Decision-making: B2B transactions are often characterized by a more complex decision-making process involving a group of decision-makers within the business, and the sales cycle may be longer. Relationship-building and addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders are crucial in B2B interactions.
• Customer relationships. In B2B transactions, business customers often seek long-term partnerships, and the relationship extends beyond individual transactions. Personalized service, understanding the client’s business, and collaboration are key elements.
• Customization and personalization. Unlike B2C products and services, B2B offerings usually present various options for customization and personalization in order to meet the particular needs of the business customer. 
• Support and service. B2C customer support often focuses on scalable solutions, such as online chat, email support, or call centers, to address the needs of a larger customer base. In B2B, customer support tends to be more hands-on and personalized, with dedicated account managers, CX representatives, and specialized support teams.

Similarities Between B2B and B2C Experiences

While your B2B and B2C customers might differ, your B2B client is a human who spends a lot of time on B2C sites such as Amazon. They’ve come to expect consumer-level digital experiences at work and play. Therefore, there has been more consumerization of B2B customer experiences. Here are 12 ways to “consumerize” B2B customer experience:

1. Freemium or trial access. Appcues found 90% of users want to try a product for free. Can you design a lite but still valuable-to-the-user version of your product? If so, this can be a great lead-generation channel. Give marketing adequate development resources and let them run it. 
2. Fully digital. There’s no need for interaction with a live person to access and use the product. Users expect the app to understand their goals and take them step-by-step through the process to meet their goals. 
3. Intuitive setup and use. No user wants to have to read an essay on how to get started; it should be one step clicks without confusion. There’s no need to look for what they need, no need to be trained by an admin — it’s right there.
4. Quick time to value. The user wants to do their job faster, easier, and better — make that happen quickly before they find another option.
5. Easy connections to existing tech. While you’re focused on the individual end-user, don’t forget your app needs to fit into the organization’s workflow, speeding time to value and allowing your power user to advocate for your app. Also, realize that while one user may need everything your app does, others just need to know the results. Make sure your app links to the app others work in the most. If others need the data from your app to work in Slack, then offer a single-click integration to send the data from your app to Slack.
6. Simple vs. feature-laden. Keep the interface as decluttered as possible, so it’s easy for users to find what they need. Visual clarity poses a challenge for feature-laden platforms, so design with a bias toward simplicity. And remember, there will be light users who don’t want to have to figure out, once again, how to run a report. You still need all the features for those power-user admins, but you must also prioritize the light user’s experience. 
7. Mobile. The more people who adopt your app, the more mobile users you’ll have. While you don’t have to design to be mobile-first, you can offer a simplified version of your desktop platform, keeping all the features someone on the go will need when they’re away from their office. 
8. Easy to share. People work on teams for the most part and shared apps help complete shared work. Make it easy for your power user to evangelize and share your product within the organization with a one-click invitation. 
9. Real-time issue resolution. Digital is fast, and users expect to solve any problems encountered in real time. Offer help right in the product through a chat function. No one minds AI if it resolves their issue — they just want it handled now. 
10. Easy to review. Purchase decisions today reflect the power of the end-user. Decisions are made based on word of mouth and 3rd party review sites, so make it easy for your promoters to evangelize for you. Use in-app surveys to identify your happiest customers and then automate the review to link to AppStore or G2 once the survey is completed.
11. Seamless upgrade to paid. The freemium or trial offer will demonstrate value. When more functionality is required, make it an easy click to the premium product version. 
12. Customer feedback. Build improvement and growth into your product by asking for feedback right in the platform and mobile app. Your buyers and end-users expect you to be optimizing your product, so make it easy for end-users to give feedback in the moment through simple NPS, CSAT, and CES micro-surveys. 

How Has the B2B Customer Experience Evolved? 

The evolution of B2B customer experience has been influenced by various factors, including advancements in technology, changes in buyer behavior, and shifts in business practices. Here are some stats that reflect some of the ways CX has changed for B2B brands today.

• B2B companies that offer a customized eCommerce experience tend to outsell their competitors by 30%.
• Mobile ordering in the B2B sector has surged by 250% since the COVID-19 pandemic, highlighting a notable transformation in digital practices within the realm of professional procurement and purchasing.
• 100% of B2B customers want self-service options for at least some parts of the buying process.
• Buyers increasingly look to B2B companies as thought leaders and strategic partners, with 84% of B2B executives saying it is very important to lean into their new positions as trusted thought leaders.
• 52% of B2B buyers say the buying cycle for new purchases has gotten longer, proving that the B2B customer experience journey is more non-linear than ever. 

B2B CX continues to change as companies adapt to new technologies and expectations. Successful B2B companies recognize the importance of staying agile, customer-centric, and responsive to emerging trends in order to maintain a competitive edge in the marketplace.

How to Improve the B2B Customer Experience: Best Practices

Improving the B2B customer experience involves a combination of strategic planning, effective communication, and a customer-centric approach. Here are some best practices to improve B2B CX.

Create an Integrated CX Approach

In the B2B world, customers use a wide variety of channels to interact with your brand. However, the data most companies collect stays in those channels, and it is analyzed independently of the broader experience. 

To improve customer experience, your organization must adopt an integrated CX approach so that you can unlock valuable insights from all sources of customer data, then take action and drive measurable outcomes for your customers. This means collecting and connecting CX data from every touchpoint and channel for a complete view of the B2B customer journey, then navigating and interpreting that data to understand where to focus for the highest impact for your customer and for your business.

Collect Customer Feedback

Invest time in understanding the unique needs and pain points of your B2B customers. Conduct surveys, interviews, and regular feedback sessions to gather insights into their challenges and expectations.

Using information from unsolicited feedback, companies can gain valuable insights into how to improve their brand, products, services, and overall customer experience. B2B companies that are able to monitor and manage customer feedback also often have a more complete understanding of their customers, and can easily measure customer satisfaction and loyalty. 

Common sources of customer feedback include:

• Customer feedback surveys 
• Comment cards 
• Emails and phone calls 
• Focus group discussions and roundtables
• Online reviews and ratings
• Social media comments
• Customer interviews and business reviews
• User experience and usability tests

The most successful companies listen to and act on feedback in order to understand their customers better and deliver improved customer experiences. The challenge is to move beyond simply collecting data. A number of successful B2B brands today deploy Voice of the Customer programs to ensure they are really hearing their customers and extracting rich, meaningful insights from their feedback.

Map the B2B Customer Journey

A customer journey map is a visualization of each step your customers take — from the moment they encounter your brand to when they make a purchase and how they react afterward. Using a customer journey map can help your company continuously identify and anticipate the needs, motivations, and actions of your customers. 

Through customer journey mapping, your organization can construct customers’ decision-making scenarios — and better understand the factors that influence purchase decisions and move sales cycles forward. This then aids your efforts to deliver improved customer experiences, drive more sales, acquire and retain more customers, and improve your business processes.

Offer More Personalized Experiences

In a world where consumers are bombarded by hundreds or even thousands of marketing and sales messages every day, personalization holds the key to standing out and cutting through the noise. 

There’s a wide range of personalization tactics, both online and offline, that you can apply to improve the B2B buyer’s customer experience — from customer-specific content and personalized packaging to responsive website design and insight into customers’ order histories. 

By increasing personalization in interactions, touchpoints, and engagements, you give customers a sense of identity and can more easily attract their attention that way. 

Personalization also serves as a sign of respect for customers’ loyalty and business. It signals that your business is interested in strengthening the relationship by providing relevant suggestions, better service, and more informed support. This is why IBM assigns specialists to help its cloud storage suite customers get set up: not only does it help customers maximize the value of IBM’s products and services; it also drives personalized experiences that resonate with individual organizations. 

Ensure Timely Response, Delivery, and Resolution

Great customer service is a major component of great CX. This means ensuring timely response, delivery, and resolution of issues; it means attending to customer needs and solving their specific problems. It’s important to provide responsive customer service through various channels, including email, phone, and live chat. Also, be sure you work closely with customers to address challenges, gather their input, and implement solutions that align with their business objectives.

Maintaining open and proactive communication throughout the customer journey is also a critical aspect of B2B CX management. Keep customers informed about product updates, new features, and relevant industry trends. Clearly communicate pricing, terms, and conditions. Through proactive communication and transparency, you can inspire brand trust and establish a solid foundation for long-term relationships.

Provide Self-Service Options

With research showing that B2B customers want self-service options for parts of the buying process, it’s essential for your organization to explore and invest in self-service technologies. 

Just as a person shopping online has a wide range of products and services to choose from, your B2B buyers should also be able to access content, support, scheduling, and purchasing independently, without direct assistance from a representative. 

Examples of self-service tools that B2B businesses can use include:

• Customer portals for account management, order history, and invoice tracking
• E-commerce platforms for product catalog, online ordering, secure payment processing
• Knowledge bases and customer support portals for ​​troubleshooting guides, FAQs, ticket submission, case tracking, and self-help resources
• Feedback and survey tools for sharing input on customers’ experiences and gathering insights for improvement
• Collaboration tools for document sharing, project management, and communication channels
• Chatbots for responses to common queries, product recommendations, and product and service guides

Offering self-service tools and options can directly impact customer satisfaction, as well as contribute to operational efficiency, allowing your team to focus on more strategic aspects of your relationship with clients. 

Digitize the B2B Journey

B2B buyers demand tools that simplify and streamline the entire buying process — from research and planning, through engagement, to the post-sales phase. This makes it critical to invest in technology that will better engage consumers and make every part of the customer journey pain-free.

You can implement user-friendly online platforms, intuitive interfaces, and streamlined procedures for ordering, invoicing, and payment. Another good example is utilizing digital “track and trace” systems so that clients can see the status of their orders and actions in real time. As you digitize the B2B journey, ensure robust data security measures to instill trust in your B2B customers and help them build confidence in your partnership.

Achieve B2B Customer Experience Excellence with InMoment

Managing the B2B customer experience is not just about individual transactions but about building and sustaining successful, long-term relationships with your customers. With InMoment, you can integrate customer signals across all relevant channels, gain deeper insights into the B2B buyer’s journeys and experiences, and take informed action with the world’s most recommended CX platform.