The mind-blowing branding news, last week, was the study out of Great Britain that 80% of B2B customers base their buying decisions on customer experience (CX), not price. This has huge ramifications for almost all B2B businesses. Even if the result turns out to be an outlier and future studies confirm the mark to be closer to 50% or 60%, it still means major disruption for B2B businesses.
Why? Because most B2B businesses regard the CX as beginning, only, when the first contact is made with a prospect. Once that happens, the good firms attentively manage the customer’s journey, right through to the completion of the transaction. But, we know from previous studies, that the prospective customer is 70% through the buyer’s journey before even making contact with the B2B business. That means the lion’s share of the buyer’s journey is left up to the tender mercies of the company’s online presence. And we all know that the typical B2B website is old and way behind the times. The clearly inescapable conclusion is many, many highly qualified customers are dropping out of B2B funnels before ever making contact. Think of the lost sales!
