Ways to give B2B businesses a more customer-centric approach

The notion “the customer is always right” or “the customer is king” must have been heard by us all. Usually, we hear all these phrases in the context of the foodservice industry, retail shops, or B2C business, but shouldn’t this be the motto for every type of business?

True is the fact, an effective marketing or sales strategy must assimilate a deep-rooted knowledge and understanding of customers.

It would be near to impossible for any business to entertain the requirements of their customers unless they understand them. Keep in mind, formulating a customer-centric approach will be beneficial your business in more ways than one.

Despite the availability of all the evidence pointing in favour of customer-centric policies, B2B marketers still appear to fail in devising a lasting connection with their customers.

It was concluded with the Gallup survey that almost 70% of the B2B customers were totally disengaged with their vendors. With the competition navigating all up high in every direction, it has morphed into less of choice and more of a necessity to adapt customer-centric marketing strategy!

In the light of events happen in the last decade, we witnessed a shift of B2B marketing strategies from conventional tactics to the approaches applicable in the digital-savvy world.

Along with the acceptance of contemporary techniques, the old methodologies are also dying, and so is the concept of attracting a customer for B2B sales and neglecting it after the deal closure.

B2B businesses in correspondence with the B2C marketing is formulating a way for all the phenomenon that all the products and services should revolve around the customers to lure them into continuing business with your platform.

Also Read:

Lack of personal connection with vendors – hurting the business?

The reasons behind the lack of connection between B2B buyers and vendors can be a product of impersonality that arises from the nature of the business since the inception of B2B marketplaces, it was presumed unnecessary to connect with customers in the manner as B2C marketers.

But all these resulted in formulating an air of impersonality, curtailing the possibility to form a true connection.

As per studies conducted by Forbes, it is enhancing customer experience that was found to be the number one trend that needed to be developed within the realm of B2B marketers.

To collect all the useful data is crucial to transform the ongoing marketing approach and building a meaningful relationship with clients.

In particular, B2B business needs to learn and observe the patterns and structure based on what the purchase decisions are made. How to engage in B2B companies? What drives their purchase decisions? When do they purchase? Who control the strings for the final decision?

It does sound like a hell lot of an effort to put in, to understand the customer behaviour as well as continuously delight them, but it no reason not to opt for it.

Results are granted to those who put in great work.

Just as it is crucial to for B2B marketers to show their needs and requirements can be met the following services and products, it is vital to stimulate their connections with customers using relationship-building approaches that are widely employed in B2C structures, like communication and sales framework.

Using connective approaches will fortify that not only their vendors understand the business objective, but the vendor has invested time and effort in personalizing the services or products to tailor them to accommodate the purchasing actions of that precise business.

These traits, coming from any B2B marketplace, exhibit thoughtfulness and compatibility.

Furthermore, it implies that the vendor has put effort into materialising the mechanisms and decision making actions of their clients. This can serve to be the start of a meaningful vendor-customer relationship.

Still not convinced? Let’s come out form the indirect advantageousness and put it in terms of direct benefiting acts.

If a B2B is successful in charming and captivating their customers, there are thicker chances that not only they will stick with that vendor for a more extended period of time and make more purchases in future, but they will also become their campaigners.

These campaigners will advantage your business with word-of-mouth marketing, which is still in this digitally savvy generation considered to be the best and most effective marketing technique, driving a lot more traffic to the business with already convinced and willing customers. Now, this does sound a return to all the invested efforts!

What it takes to devise a good customer-centric marketing strategy

B2C customer-centric strategy differs immensely with what is enquired from B2B. B2B businesses have a vast audience that works and act on logic-based facts.

B2B marketing has the challenge to understand and implement a diverse strategy with diverse business to satisfy them, making the experience remarkable for each one of them.

The complicated part for any B2B Customer-Centric approach is knowing how to go about executing this type of strategy.

There are various things that could be altered in order to assimilate a meaningful plan, applicable for all business types, following are the few essential things that should be incorporated in every B2B Customer-Centric Marketing Strategy.

Expectation is everything

The primary ground for devising an excellent customer-centric strategy is definitely standing on aligned expectations. These expectations can be in between sales and services, salesperson and the prospect, sales, and marketing, or business and customer.

It is advised to communicate the timeline clearly, and the nature of services being promised to the customers to amplify the level of trust. It is the basic and most trusted way to develop confidence and align your services in accordance with customer’s expectations to fashion pleased customers.

Prospects are to be treated like customers

If you wish to transform your potential customers into your loyal customers, demonstration them what it would be like if they decide to become a part of your organisation.

Be sure to pay attention and concentrate on listening to their requirements for a tailored experience. Also, convincing customers to buy is one thing, never try to shove an offer down their throat, nothing drives a prospect customer away faster than this.

Provide support

Naturally, it is crucial to stay connected with the probable customers and customers for both B2B business and B2C business. Starting of B2B E-commerce marketplace witnessed the lack of connectivity.

But with advanced need surfaced to engage prospects, various B2B platforms like Alibaba.com, Amazon.com, etc. devised a 24/7 active support system to ensure customer satisfaction and provide them solutions whenever they need.

Almost every B2B business have fallen into these footsteps to ensure that the customers will experience no change in attention even after the deal is done. Even after the sales, be certain to be listening to their feedback and problems they are facing, the last thing that they need is to feel ignored after the purchase.

Customers should be catered like prospects

If you are efficient in solving and tailoring the service according to the requisites of prospects, then they can become your loyal customers, but for B2B job is not done just yet.

With a sound and modern-day applicable customer-centric strategy, B2B business will have to guarantee a continual connection with the customer to retain them and also work towards up-selling.

A great way to do this with the help of a dedicated key account manager who works devotedly with a particular client. This phenomenon is widely accepted, and all emerging B2B business like BeauteTrade.com, etc. are compelling with this requirement.

Put customers in the spotlight

Since we have already established the fact customer engagement is crucial, another way a B2B business can keep their clients engaged is by putting them on the highlight.

Numerous B2B businesses are involved in the act where a specific customer is selected, and then his problems or issues are then solved on priority. This directly gives to the impact the customers that they are valued and cherished.

Outcomes to expect from a customer-centric approach

The entire case of developing customer-centric approach will not only benefit in terms of obtaining more and more clients or in retaining them, but it will also help to make the employees more efficient than before.

With customer centricity, businesses are arming their people with the understanding of what they are working on. It helps in removing a lot of confusion back and forth. It also helps the company growth by ensuring that what you make or what services you provide are in accordance with the requirement of the industry.

Most importantly, a good customer engagement strategy will surely help you surpass your own revenue-generating goals.

As narrated through the Forrester report, customer-centric companies are more likely to leave behind their revenue goals when associated with less-obsessed peers. As an estimate, it could be said that almost 42 per cent of customer-centric business acclaimed to grew their revenue by 10 per cent or more.

In rake of building an expressive, long-lasting, and mutual rapport with clients, a salesperson must treat them with as much attention and carefulness as they would do for any individual customer.

Because under the lights of contemporary digitalization and high tide competition, the alternative model will surely demonstrate to be ultimately ineffective, and in that case, it would be the business who will end up taking the fall.

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The painful truth is that, as founder, the toughest segment of your user base to spend time with is those you will learn the most from

In one of their most popular posts covering the Philippines, Humans of New York profiled a 75-year-old taxi driver who found himself raising six grandchildren as his own kids after his daughter suddenly passed away from cancer.

“If I get too worn down, the children will take a ‘vacation’ at their auntie’s house. But that never lasts long. Because I miss them too much and want them back,” he said in his pithy 190-word capsule profile.

The piece was subsequently shared over 11,000 times, received 2,700 comments, and liked over 200,000 times, as of this writing. The story struck such a nerve with Filipino readers because it was one of contrasts. The Filipino public doesn’t usually sympathize, much less admire, taxi drivers, yet here was one with the mask pulled back and he was like one of us: He was hard-working, honest, and family oriented, perhaps even to a fault. How could you not like him?

Unfortunately, his story was so striking because there are also many other taxi drivers who are not like him, and as a team member of taxi-hailing platform, Micab, I have to spend time with these less inspirational characters. I’ll admit: This is tough. When I first founded Micab back in 2012 and people advised me that I would have to spend a lot of time with users — in my case both drivers and passengers, since we’re a platform. I thought it would be a piece of cake. It was just interacting with them and learning their pain points, after all. How hard could that possibly be? I could not have been more wrong.

Many taxi drivers are stubborn, difficult, inefficient, and exhibit a host of other unsavory traits, and the painful truth is that, as founder, the toughest segment of your user base to spend time with is those you will learn the most from.

What’s the use, after all, of preaching to the choir? You want to reach out to the people who don’t buy into what you’re doing and find out why. I’ve rode taxis 1,175 times last year, and the most valuable instances were ones where the driver still had a long way to go as a customer service professional. In every interaction with these drivers, I think to myself:

What will it take for more Filipinos to use these cabs? What needs to be addressed in their training, pricing, or systems?

Through my interactions, I learned that they are never born this way. No cab driver enters into the profession wanting to ask every passenger to add additional fare on top of the meter or contract a higher rate — they are always forced by circumstance to. If they do not ask for an extra fifty pesos, they may only break even on the trip, or even incur a loss; if they do not contract a flat rate from one location to another, they may not be able to buy groceries that week. By no means am I excusing away their behavior, I’m just explaining the root causes of what manifests to users as unsavory practices.

Because the fare structure for cabs has gone unchanged in eight years, traffic being what it is in the Philippines, and inflation rapidly increasing, they often return home to their families with no income to speak of, having barely passed the “boundary” that their operators have set(Editor’s note: in the Philippines, public utility drivers pay a daily rent to the operator, called the “boundary” — they take whatever is left as their profit) . They thus have to make ends meet, even if it means illegally trying to top up their fare.

This problem is the root of all bad taxi driving experiences. To think anything otherwise assumes an inherent maliciousness in a group of professionals that is just not there — like any other collection of blue-collar or white-collar Filipinos, they just want to survive. The key to helping them is in understanding this fact and building a sustainable business solution that can help them in the long-term. The operative word there is sustainable. As we saw in Uber’s operational exit of Southeast Asia through a deal with Grab, subsidizing fares, and in turn, incurring massive losses, is not sustainable.

Also read: The Grab-Uber deal is just the beginning for homegrown SEA startups

Because I’ve taken pains to spend time with difficult drivers and learned the root cause of their untoward behavior, I developed Micab with our team in such a way that it forces everyone of them to be their best. From the beginning, we have a best-in-class training program that culminates in a test and professional oath, brown bag seminars that upskill them with various skills, such as business English, and a feedback system on the app itself that produces a virtuous cycle: Good drivers rise to the top, and bad drivers must improve, or find themselves removed from the platform. Moreover, these systems are supported by a business model — B2B advertising on the taxi toppers that ride atop each Micab cab – that is a successful revenue generator, and thus sustainable.

On a regulatory level, Micab is one of the biggest private supporters of taxi companies, associations, and drivers, and our pet cause of the moment is the long awaited fare hike. We are consistently lobbying to federal policymakers, legislators, and regulators to increase the base fare for taxi drivers, so that they can focus on providing the best possible customer experience to Manila’s passengers. The increase has yet to be implemented, but our advocacy has rallied a growing body of support for the change and what it will bring: the advent of “Taxi 2.0” for our country’s commuters, evidenced in cabs – many of them Micab’s own – that are clean, modern, and driven by friendly, courteous, and kind drivers.

If we make all these changes to both cabs in particular and the industry as a whole, will you now patronize our cabs? Like every other founder in Asia, I will stop at nothing till that answer becomes a resounding yes!

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Thie article was first published on e27 on April 26, 2018.

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What is reward based crowdfunding and successful campaign tips on it

Crowdfunding is a novel form of alternative funding for a variety of ventures, allowing individuals to raise capital quickly by opening up to investments from the public.

Drawing inspiration from micro-financing and crowdsourcing, crowdfunding occupies its niche in the alternative investing space.

While the concept of crowdfunding seems to be evolving, it can be broadly defined as the entrepreneurial efforts of individuals or corporations to fund their ventures by drawing on relatively small contributions from a large number of people through internet platforms, bypassing the need for traditional financial institutions.

The advent of the internet has created platforms offering different types of crowdfunding, the most common of which is rewards-based crowdfunding.

What is rewards-based crowdfunding?

Rewards-based crowdfunding offers a product or service in return for monetary contributions to the project.

They usually take place over an online platform which charges a small fee for successful projects. These include major players like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

How does it work?

Backers are those who buy from startups on crowdfunding platforms. They can usually be categorised into two categories: those who appreciate the value of the cause and those who see value in rewards promised by the campaign.

The reward is commonly offered in three ways:

Also Read: 5 tips for successfully marketing your crowdfunding campaign

1.Pre-orders

This has quickly become one of the most attractive rewards in funding. In exchange for a small contribution, backers are rewarded with exclusive early access to the product.

This can be observed in the music and gaming industry.

Artist often provides an exclusive preview of albums, and video game developers provide beta access to backers, which can also serve as a conduit for feedback and evaluation. Also, startups offer to buy their future product at idea stage with a substantial discount, which is always appealing to those who look for innovative products.

2. Services

Used when the nature of the project is unsuitable for providing pre-orders. Services include developers writing code, campaigners offering backers a free meal or entrepreneurs offering a free trip to their headquarters

3. Recognition

Recognition is often used as a tokenistic measure of gratitude for relatively small contributions. As a show of appreciation, campaigns can offer to list backers’ names on their website, issue collaterals related to the campaigns (t-shirts and mugs) or even craft a thank-you note!

Why choose to fund this way? 

Rewards-based crowdfunding is an attractive option for funding entrepreneurial ventures to gain much-needed capital, especially in the infant stages of a start-up.

Reasons such as the immaturity of product or asymmetry of information in the investors’ space may prevent entrepreneurs from obtaining sufficient funds from angel investors and venture capitalists.

Also, rewards-based crowdfunding represents a rather simple and low-cost option for fundraising. Entrepreneurs can reach their funding goals without committing their capital or requiring financial and legal advice.

Unlike other forms of crowdfunding, they retain equity in the business and are not under obligation to finance borrowed capital.

Lastly, it also serves as a helpful gauge in estimating public interest and validating one’s idea.

Disruptive innovations or a sound product will naturally gain a large following on crowdfunding platforms. Conversely, a project that does not gain enough traction is an indicator that it lacks market value.

Hence, this is a great way to “fail fast”. Rewards-based crowdfunding has the additional benefit of creating a truly passionate army of advocates behind your business.

Research has shown that rewards-based platforms are more likely to attract individuals that fundamentally “like” or “enjoy” the project. They are intrinsical to support the cause, even if there are little monetary returns.

Tips for a successful campaign

Also Read: 3 ways to avoid being a victim of a crowdfunding scam

Social networking

Research has shown the importance of social networking in boosting the probability of success. Entrepreneurs can leverage online presence and public relations to garner more attention.

Constant updates

Projects with frequent updates can almost double the probability of successful fundraising. They show a constant desire to update and reinvent the product regularly.

These can include multiple sample testing, answering community questions and providing updates on optimisation and innovation.

Display signals of quality

The importance of multimedia cannot be underestimated. Having multimedia tools to pitch ideas to the public is a clear sign of preparedness.

Not including a video on Kickstarter decreases the chances of a successful campaign by 26 per cent. Interestingly, spelling errors also decrease the chances of a successful campaign by 13 per cent and are also seen as signal of quality.

The fact that backers respond to signal of quality suggests that their decision largely hinges on a rational assessment of the likelihood of the project succeeding.

Also Read: Five trends in crowdfunding to watch in 2019

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