Business Solutions, Services and Technology from Samsung

Although not suitable for every type of B2B company, lead-generation websites create detailed buyers’ guides on a wide range of business goods and services. If you register with one of these e-procurement sites, your company will immediately be visible to buyers and specifiers within some of the world’s largest companies. For example, a B2C clothing e-commerce website would have a broad audience of potential buyers. B2B businesses have unique challenges, including cash flow management, and must continually innovate and maintain customer loyalty. Obviously, this list of differences isn't exhaustive, there are several other differences between the two brands of sales — and if you want some additional context, check out our post on B2C sales. You can get firmographic data from a company’s website, public records, online directories, or by asking the company directly.

B2B providers need to better understand their customers at the company level. For a B2B customer, you may have different people calling about similar problems leading to duplicate support efforts by customer support agents. It means that many different people could call for support on varying issues and levels and are still grouped within the same customer. While this can also be the case in the B2B, multiple individuals often use a product inside a B2B company. B2C customer service primarily involves a single customer who has purchased a product or service and contacts a company's support agent to address any issues they may be experiencing. The company loses perhaps tens to a few hundred dollars (depending on the product).

Tools like a shared inbox or helpdesk software (more on tools in a bit) can unify these communications. 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience according to PWC research4. If you’re providing a crucial service (say, payment processing or cloud hosting), your support helps protect your client’s revenue and operations. You’re not just troubleshooting a product for one person, you’re helping a client company achieve its goals. Business-to-business (B2B) customer service refers to all the support interactions between a Division of B2B customers company and its business clients, from the sales journey onward. When you’re serving businesses, the stakes are high—a single unresolved issue can ripple through a whole company.

The persistent challenges of high input costs and the scarcity of construction materials have consistently posed major obstacles for infrastructure development firms like ours. As industrial electric component manufacturers, we grappled with raw material price volatility and lead time challenges. Innovations with industry first SME B2B SaaS offering from Ved AI, BidAssist, SMEAssist and more Enabling buyers and supplier ecosystem to supply the best raw materials across the globe

Simple, efficient, yet affordable!

First, you need to invest as much into creating an optimal user experience as B2C brands do. Some of those elements carry over into B2B, but you’re managing the relationship with an entire company, not just one buyer. In B2B ecommerce, it’s common for brands to have fewer than a couple of hundred customers but still generate millions—sometimes billions—of dollars in revenue.

So, B2C sales reps often need to compete with word-of-mouth, habits, cravings, and advertising to get a consumer to switch brands. For instance, YouTube is a key resource for B2B buyers, with around 65% relying on it for purchase insights. For instance, I once participated in an online demo for a leading U.S. space agency, where over 15 people were on the call. B2C sales roles sell for direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands. This could include employee discounts, internal training platforms, or company communication portals. While B2B companies must prioritize customer support just as B2C companies do, the dynamics of servicing B2B buyers require a tailored approach to meet customer needs at a more strategic level.

Make B2B segmentation work at scale (with more personality)

Online B2B e-commerce networks can enhance your visibility online and enable your business to tap into global markets. Businesses that invest in adaptability now will be better positioned to respond to future challenges, differentiate in their markets, and grow more sustainably. B2B e-commerce continues to evolve as expectations shift and technology advances—from static catalogs and transactions to dynamic, intelligence-driven collaboration. The examples below highlight common challenges businesses face—and how platform-based commerce strategies can help solve them. From improving procurement efficiency to supporting global growth, the right platform empowers businesses to operate faster, collaborate more effectively, and scale with confidence. The tactics below help businesses attract the right buyers, guide them through complex decision cycles, and convert interest into long-term relationships.

Using Partners to Approach Customers

More retail brands are adopting hybrid models to expand their reach, own the customer relationship, and operate more efficiently. About half of US online shoppers used some form of store pickup late last year, with about a third of them choosing buy online, pick up in-store (BOPIS) specifically. As buyers become more comfortable with large, self-serve online purchases, sellers must scale their knowledge bases and customer portals accordingly.

• From improving procurement efficiency to supporting global growth, the right platform empowers businesses to operate faster, collaborate more effectively, and scale with confidence.
• In our research, we’ve found customers are at least 2.9 times as likely to trust a brand after a good experience than a bad one.
• Therefore, it is clear that providing good customer service is the key to you maintaining your customer base and stopping them from looking elsewhere.

A B2B manufacturer might segment customers based on the specific outcome they want, not their size. Usermaven, for example, can help identify these groups by monitoring feature adoption and understanding how often users engage with key parts of the product. This model helps teams support customers based on where they are in their journey, not just who they are.

In today’s demanding market, where people expect better attention and quick answers, excellent CS is what sets businesses apart, especially with high-value contracts and the pressing need to cater to multiple stakeholders. Their budgets, pricing strategies, expectations in terms of work turnaround, and the types of clientele they engage with differ significantly. When businesses face multiple challenges, swift and effective B2B customer service can make all the difference in retaining a client. Superior customer care is a pivotal element in these interactions, as it can shape the perception, trust, and loyalty between businesses. The actual product a business offers, its functionality, its reliability, and its alignment with expectations, undeniably form a substantial part of the CX.

I always recommend having a customer success plan for at least the first 90 days of a new B2B client – map out key milestones, check-in calls, and resources to share. B2B customers love proactive care because it shows you’re a partner, not just a vendor. Metrics like first-response time and resolution time still matter here (no one likes waiting), but resolution quality is king. As HBR report noted, B2B buyers often prefer vendors who offer performance guarantees (82%3 would switch if guarantees aren’t offered), because their own customers rely on it. For example, if you’re a B2B e-commerce platform and you quickly fix a bug for a client’s website, that client avoids downtime for shoppers. When you deliver great service to a business client, you’re indirectly helping their customers too.

Learn how our customer experience management software can streamline your B2B customer service. Understanding the strategic impact or problems and reflecting that understanding to the customer is critical for maintaining the relationship with the stakeholders Make sure you’re empowering your support agents with automated insights and clear actions to give them direction on how they should handle customer issues and requests. Your B2B customer service team needs to have useful insights and customer feedback delivered to them to help improve the quality of customer service they provide. For example, the simpler the query, the more preference there is for self-service solutions – but for complicated questions, B2B customers prefer speaking to a human customer service representative.

PipelineDeals realized the value of team communication and collaboration during its early days of growth. The magic lies in the uncompromising quality of customer service it offers. A great way to come up with ideas for your B2B customer experience management is to learn from companies that already offer excellent B2B client services. Someone who’s already had a satisfactory B2B customer experience with you is more likely to buy from you again.