eCommerce & Digital Customer Experience in B2B

The time for B2B eCom & DCX is now. No question about it.

B2B Customers Expect a High Quality Digital Experience

Not acting convincingly will hurt your NPS and your B2B business. On the flip side, building a business case for a quality B2B eCom & DCX is no black magic. There is plenty of data available from the likes of Gartner on how you can expect your B2B customers to react to eCom & DCX investments.

The entire B2B eCom& DCX space is evolving rapidly with new ideas and perspectives emerging. Many borrowed from B2C, some developed for B2B. High ambition benchmarks in B2B sales can primarily be found in Asia (China) and secondarily in the US. Not surprisingly, many innovations are connected to novel uses of AI.

The current share of digital purchasing varies greatly depending on the B2B business context, also at which phase of the customer lifecycle digital purchasing occurs and is most relevant. Globally we are seeing a continuous trend towards higher value buying through digital in B2B.

B2B is a Dance Between Channels

B2B buying can be significantly more multidimensional compared to B2C. Often there are numerous use cases and various complexities in the B2B purchasing process. Furthermore, not everything happens on your own eCommerce platform. Punch-outs, EDIs, other API solutions, emails with PDFs and RPA are a fact.

Customer segmentation, visualizing customer journeys, and segment-specific management models are essential to de-complicate things. When it comes to more complex offerings, concepting work plays a crucial role in transitioning to digital sales channels. The concepts don’t have to be perfect. Providing a starting point for the complex sales process in a digital channel can be enough.

AI is Changing the Rules of the Game

AI has the potential to deliver a systemic change, not just incremental improvements. Applying AI, generative as well as the more traditional algorithmic machine learning, has a massive potential in improving both, complex sales and complex customer service. e.g:

• Kone - Boosting human potential with AI
• ABB - Increased sales productivity with AI
• BCG - GenAI and the New Customer Service Operating Model

Proactively guiding and incentivizing customers toward digital channels is recommended. Also, keeping a close eye on digital channel errors and interruptions in the digital customer journey for any reason, along with conducting repeated root cause analyses, is important as it helps in quickly and iteratively improving the buying experience.

From Silos to Seamless Experiences

The line between eCom and digital service is blurred. Digitally mature companies mix product, service and eCom experiences smoothly embracing the customer journey. A unified approach to eCom/DCX is smart for efficient and holistic gathering of customer data and insights, enabling enhanced and personal customer experience. Technically, I would encourage looking at composable architectures and technologies convincingly supporting composable approaches.

It feels good to see B2B companies appointing Digital Customer Experience advocates up to their management teams, often with backgrounds in B2C. This positive trend will undoubtedly further accelerate eCom & DCX in B2B.

Talking about leadership, change management plays a vital role. B2B sales and customer service teams can view digital and especially AI solutions as threats to job security. Addressing this and actively managing change is critical.

Often in B2B contexts, investments in digital are modest compared to parallel investments into R&D, production facilities, etc. Looking at the upside, what are you waiting for?