B2C vs B2B Customer Experience Management

Why B2B Customer Experience Management Needs Its Own Playbook

B2C and B2B customer experience management (CXM) have always shared some similarities. The lines have blurred even more in recent years. Some commentators want B2B pros to “forget everything you thought you knew about B2B and B2C marketing” as the worlds converge.

Although we agree that B2B CXM is evolving, our view is more in line with McKinsey: “Decision makers are rewarding companies that deliver on a great omnichannel experience backed by personalised marketing, and punishing those that don’t”.

We’ve seen more organisations offering B2C-inspired experiences like:

• Simplifying purchase journeys and decisions.
• Offering loyalty-based discounts.
• Moving more services and interactions online.
• Easier, more automated contract management.
• More focus on great customer service.

In most cases, B2B CXM borrowing from the B2C playbook seems like a good move. B2B customers are willing to spend more than ever before through eCommerce channels, and better targeting and personalisation can boost annual contract values by almost 90%.

But copying tactics without context misses a crucial part of the bigger picture. That’s the fact that if you’re designing B2B customer experiences, you’re solving a different problem to your B2C counterparts.

Looking at Customer Relationships Through a Different Lens

Personalisation, consistency, and seamless interactions still matter in B2B customer experience management. Just like they do in B2C. The difference is why they’re important.

In B2C, these things nudge an individual towards a purchase or conversion. In B2B, although the ultimate goal is a sale, the tactics build a relationship with a buyer group.

B2B customer experience management is more strategic. If you borrow B2C tactics, they should contribute to strengthening relationships with your buyer groups. In other words, while it’s good to draw inspiration from B2C, how you implement the ideas will be uniquely B2B.

The difference between B2B and B2C customer relationships lies in their needs. B2B customers need long-term solutions to business problems, while B2C customers require quick solutions for more immediate needs.

LinkedIn B2B Institute

The B2B Buyer Persona

It helps to think of B2B buyers as “accounts” rather than individuals. This is the basis of account-based marketing, a B2B customer experience management approach that positions offers for the target business and tailors experiences for key individuals within it.

These individuals are collectively known as the buying group or decision-making unit (DMU).

TrustRadius found that most DMUs have 3-5 members. Size and seniority both increase in enterprise organisations. Your job isn’t to convince one person that your product or service is worth buying. It’s to generate a collective consensus that your business is a good investment.

This is where buying group orchestration becomes a key differentiator in your skillset as a B2B CX pro. Whether you’re in sales, marketing, operations, or the C-Suite, buying group orchestration is how you leverage individual relationships to gain account-level buy-in.

What is Buying Group Orchestration?

Buying power in B2B is diffused. That’s the nature of buying groups and account-based marketing. Yet every stakeholder contributes to the final purchase decision. They need to feel seen and supported if you want them to advocate for your brand.

The overall experience needs to align with your target account’s goals. That means:

• Understanding decision-making groups in your target organisations.
• Identifying the individuals (or roles) who make up those groups.
• Mapping account journeys, usually by combining individual flows.
• Personalising experiences for each buying group or DMU.
• Aligning those experiences to resonate with the bigger picture.
• Delivering value to every stakeholder and the organisation.

You’re serving the entire account as well as the individual contact. Or we should say that you’re serving the account by serving the contact.

What B2B Customer Experience Management Looks Like In Practice

Personalising the Account-Based Experience

Effective customer experience management in B2B means using insights from all stakeholders to coordinate a unified, account-centric engagement strategy.

• Aggregating insights from all buyer groups.
• Listening for shared priorities and pain points.
• Addressing conflicting priorities.
• Delivering content that’s relevant for where the account is in its journey.

It’s a shift from fragmented touchpoints to unified, account-level thinking.

Consistent and Cohesive Experiences

Inconsistency is annoying for B2C customers. In B2B, it’s a deal-breaker. When different departments hear different things or get different treatment, confidence crumbles. It’s tricky to maintain consistency with so many influencers and a longer journey, so focus on:

• Unifying sales, marketing, and service data: Everyone who interacts with buyers should be on the same page. CDPs or similar customer databases are a good start.
• Connecting the dots between tools: Whether it’s a CDP or CRM, it should connect with marketing, sales, and service engagement tools for a holistic view.
• Enabling self-service tools to give buyer groups autonomy: Tools like product configurators, competitor comparisons, and product trials can work. Just don’t lose the personal touch.

Make sure you’re keeping an eye on individual journeys as well as account-level progress. If you can follow up at the right time, connect individuals in the account who might not be talking, or provide value-adding insights that anticipate account needs, you’re doing well

Did you know: B2B mobile app ordering increased 250% from 2020 to 2022, and 70% of decision-makers are willing to place $50k+ orders through self-service or online channels (McKinsey).

Foster a Culture of Collaboration In Your Organisation

According to the Qualtrics XM Institute, 88% of B2B organisations have “significant” CX efforts in play, but only 22% are driven by a centralised group. Another 26% are coordinated but not centralised, which leaves 52% lacking meaningful coordination.

Great B2B experiences don’t happen in silos. We’ve touched on some of the tech considerations already. Still, we always urge clients to prioritise cultural and process alignment over tech investments.

No platform can overcome structural gaps. Integrated tech stacks can help with ABM programs. AI can automate some of the early insight-gathering or analytical tasks. But tech only works if there’s a genuine effort in areas like:

• Aligning client outcomes and business growth goals.
• Rewiring processes and workflows to be collaborative and customer-centric.
• Sharing data and making it available across departments.

Alignment between sales and marketing is a must, for starters. Operating models need to be agile and efficient. And your teams? They should be empowered and trained to own CXM activities.

The ultimate goal is a customer-centric culture that breaks down silos and lets cross-functional teams shine.

“Don’t get hung up on customer experience platforms. You can buy tech later if you discover that your current systems truly aren’t scalable. In our experience, though, a lot of CXM tech goes unused or underused because there’s a breakdown somewhere else, usually in how teams are organised, motivated, and resourced to deliver customer value.”

Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead

Measuring What Matters in B2B CXM

Eight in 10 B2B practitioners track Net Promoter Score (NPS). Increasingly, they’re combining it with metrics like relationship health (80%), interaction feedback (64%), and holistic journey feedback (54%).

Taken together, these metrics reflect the market’s appraisal of your B2B customer experience management strategy. They can help you answer questions like:

• How healthy is this account?
• Which stakeholders are engaged?
• Are we moving closer to a collective decision?

Clear answers to these questions drive continuous improvement. To get them, you need frameworks that reflect account health, stakeholder sentiment, and real business outcomes like ROI and customer lifetime value.

“Attribution in a multi-stakeholder journey and decision-influencer tracking within intricate buying groups are pretty advanced. What it really comes down to is buyer intent. Both at the individual and buyer group level, you’re looking for signals that help guide your strategy.”

Richard Austin, B2B Practice Lead

Getting From Here to There: Building Capabilities in B2B Customer Experience Management

Today’s leading B2B practitioners embrace a multi-layered, account-focused, and highly strategic approach. Building these capabilities means understanding your current maturity across all the elements we’ve discussed.

Remember that it’s a matrix, not a linear process. Your organisation might be a leader in one aspect and a laggard in another. That’s ok. The key is to prioritise projects and strategies based on what’s most valuable for your clients and your business, always keeping what’s realistic in mind.

Start with quick wins lifted from B2C playbooks if that makes sense for your business and buyers. For example, simplifying purchase journeys, improving personalisation, or moving services to online self-service portals can simultaneously ease friction while modernising the B2B buying experience.

Establish benchmarks and track progress so you know what’s working. Rebuild organisational processes, invest in customer data, and audit your current understanding of buyer groups.

Just make sure you’re doing it with a view to building B2B customer experience management strategies that stand alone and scale.

When you stop trying to retrofit and start designing around the complexity, everything gets better: stronger relationships, clearer strategies, smarter decisions, and bigger wins.