In a recent survey by Ascend2, it was discovered that 60% of marketers consider personalising the customer experience to be their top data-driven marketing objective. Basically, the majority of B2B marketers are using the data they capture to help create a more personalised experience for their customers, but why? Well, first let’s cover off exactly what is meant by customer experience…

Customer experience is defined as your customers’ perceptions – both conscious and subconscious – of their relationship with your brand resulting from all their interactions with your brand during the customer life cycle – SAS.com

Now, this means that regardless of the communication channel they use, their location in the sales funnel, or the salesperson they speak to, buyers want there to be a personal touch and an ongoing relationship with a business.

Is it really important?

According to Oracle, 81% of buyers surveyed are willing to pay more for superior customer experience with nearly half (44%) willing to pay a premium of more than 5%[i]. So yes, yes it is important.

Capturing buyer data

Capturing data in today’s modern world is not particularly difficult, and in a B2B marketing environment it’s even easier thanks to marketing automation. Tools such as Hubspot and Marketo will capture a variety of information on prospects, leads, and customers using a range of measuring tools. For example it can provide data on webpages they viewed, social media posts they engaged with, content they downloaded and a myriad of others. More importantly, all of this valuable information will be stored on the software on an individual level and is available for all members of your sales funnel. So the questions is, now that all of this data is available, how can it be used to personalise the customer experience?

Personalisation

Not only does marketing automation take the legwork out of capturing buyer data, it also enables marketers to use existing information to inform future messaging (automatically). For example, when a lead downloads a piece of content, the software will recognise this and send a pre-written follow-up email which can ask the lead what they thought of it. By recognising a lead’s engagement with your organisation and referencing this in your communications, it can help to build a rapport and a relationship upon which a sale can be made.

Good customer experience equals sales

Having received personalised communications throughout the buying journey, the final benefit to this activity is the improved sales conversation. Simply by allowing the sales person to review the lead’s captured data including the content they’ve read, the websites they visited, and the communications they received, the salesperson is now able to discuss the real intricate details of the lead’s pain points and the best solution for them. Not only does the salesperson generate a sale, but the buyer also receives a high-quality customer experience.

 

To see what else marketing automation can do for your business and the customer experience of your buyers…