The B2B ecommerce space has been evolving rapidly over the last few years and B2B brands have certainly woken up to this reality. A recent study conducted by Forrester Research showed that 67% of North American B2B firms believe that ecommerce is fundamentally changing B2B commerce. Forrester also predicts the U.S. B2B e-commerce market to reach $1.13 trillion by 2020.

This change has put B2B sellers in the hot seat. B2B buying experiences are now garnering attention as 80% of B2B buyers are already expecting the same buying experience as B2C customers. Hence, it is extremely important for B2B commerce companies to quickly jump on to the bandwagon and connect to their end customers—to survive, to transform buying experiences and gain a competitive edge.

CHALLENGES FACED BY B2B E-COMMERCE

Lack of Visibility into User Behavior on B2B Websites

A majority of B2B commerce companies have websites and ecommerce storefronts that attract users to research and plan their next purchase. However, converting this traffic to meaningful insights is an area that’s unexplored and out of sight for many. Vendors don’t have the required visibility into website data such as who visited their site, the specific kind of behavior visitors engaged in or the different products they considered.

Most B2B Purchases still happen Offline

Despite the presence of attractive websites, most B2B purchases still happen offline – through warehouses and distributors. As a result, there’s no reliable way for the business to know what end customers think about the products they purchased. Having first-hand on-the-ground data and purchase insights from customers is key to ensuring a bigger mind and wallet share of the customers.

HOW ANALYTICS CAN FACILITATE THE VISIBILITY REQUIRED TO MAKE INFORMED DECISIONS

The role of Analytics cannot be understated when it comes to deriving insights and driving desired action by helping businesses provide personalized messaging and recommendations to their users. It can help sellers pick up on buyer attitudes rather quickly enabling them to tailor marketing strategies to fit buyer preferences. Analytics can also drive new product ideas with accurate data about past failures and pinpointing specific areas of improvement. This results in a better understanding of market dynamics and smarter decisions which are based on insights captured from on-the-ground data. The right insights could help optimize the warranty periods for different products. For instance, a B2B seller may realize through sufficient analysis of data that it makes more sense to offer a longer warranty to drive increased loyalty from customers.

SIX WAYS FOR B2B BUSINESSES TO BETTER ENGAGE WITH THEIR CUSTOMERS

While the digital landscape provides a plethora of ways to connect with customers effectively, we are going to focus on the top six ways of building a winning relationship for B2B e-commerce companies.

1. Sentiment Analysis

A CEB study that analyzed the power of personal emotions on B2B purchases highlighted that 71% of buyers who see a personal value in a B2B purchase will end up buying the product or service. Sentiment analysis helps gauge emotional response by measuring audience attitude, opinion and emotion about a brand or a product.

Customer sentiments can be tracked effectively by: collating customer sentiment data via social listening, consciously listening to conversations between customers and prospects on social media platforms, tracking keywords and hashtags, conducting surveys and polls, et al.

2. Clickstream Analytics

Clickstream Analytics—via traffic and ecommerce analytics—is the process of gathering, studying and reporting aggregate data about web page visits and the order in which visitors view the pages. The route taken by the visitor is called the clickstream. Ecommerce analysis, on the other hand, leverages clickstream data to understand the success of the site as a channel-to-market. It analyzes what pages the site visitor stays on, what the shopper adds or deletes from their shopping cart and what items are finally purchased.

3. User Segmentation

Organizations should be able to group their customers via user segmentation based on their profiles, including geographic location, order volume, catalog selection, reorder frequency and quantity of products ordered. It allows B2B companies to deliver personalized experiences for groups or individuals by creating models that identify patterns and provide actionable insights.

4. Chatbots

Chatbots have been assisting businesses in delivering customer service to a great extent. Personalized and contextual responses via these chat interfaces not only offer customer delight, but also deliver cost savings by avoiding the involvement of human agents. Right from lead qualification to collating data, to closing a deal, to problem-solving, chatbots can create engaging and unique experiences while saving time and money.

5. Mobility

It is widely estimated that mobile devices influence over 40% of revenue in leading B2B organizations. Brands that are quick to embrace mobile see increased revenues through the channel in comparison to those who wait to catch up as they can:

1. Collect better data about the customer, product and brands.
2. Influence purchases through contextual information like “where to buy” with location awareness, product specific troubleshooting guides and notifications for replenishment of consumables.
3. Deriving better insights and building customer loyalty.

6. Loyalty and Engagement

To build a successful loyalty program in the B2B world, companies need to be able to motivate end customers to enroll in these programs by providing value:

1. Make Enrollment simple and linked to the purchase.
2. Provide attractive benefits or rewards like extended warranties, purchase points, merchandise, gifts and discounts.
3. Create continuous engagement by leveraging this channel to provide information on product installation, “How To” Videos and Gamified contests.

Ultimately, retaining customers and consistently driving up their customer lifetime value (CLV) is challenging whether you are selling directly to consumers or businesses. Using the technology levers outlined above can provide you with an improved understanding of how customers engage with your brand. This intelligence can help drive highly engage

ing and personalized experiences that lead to sustainable customer retention and loyalty.

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