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Top : Business To Business-B2B: Many businesses do not deal directly with consumers, but with other businesses. In this section you'll find articles and help with providing excellent customer service to other businesses - B2B
Business To Business (B2B) Customer Service Strategies and Tactics
There's no question that business to business (b2b) customer service has even more impact on an organization's health than even business to customer . The reasons are obvious. Businesses that serve other businesses tend to have fewer customers than do those that retail, or provide services to individuals, so the value of each customer is higher. Also, the value (actual money) for transactions between businesses can be in the millions, and are certainly higher than the value of transactions with individual customers.
So, it's important. Lose a business customer and you could lose hundreds of thousands in revenue. Apart from that, is serving business different than serving individuals? In some ways, yes. Businesses operate differently than individuals, have different priorities.
In this section, you'll find help with improving customer service you offer to other businesses.
Serving Other Businesses - B@B Customer Service
The Loyalty Opportunity for B2B Service and Support - by Matt DIxonUnlike the consumer world, B2B service organizations have the unique opportunity to drive positive loyalty through the service channel by teaching their customers something new during the service interaction itself. In other words, not just resolving the customer’s issue in as low-effort a manner as possible, but having done so, also offering unique insights about how to leverage your products and services in new ways—ways that will help make end-users’ jobs easier. (Added: 14-Sep-2011 Hits: 74 )
B2B Customer Loyalty Q and A - by na
We are looking to start a very basic customer loyalty program for a B2B firm. I say basic because we always get push-back from our customer service (end user) department. They are afraid that sales and marketing will "bug" the customers. Funny thing is - we have never really marketed to our customers base. Any suggestions you have would be great!""I would be looking for sample objectives AND marketing tactics we could use. This is new to us. (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 115 )
Importance of Customer Service in B2B - by Patricia Telesco
B2B means business to business. In other words, one company or organization sells its goods or services to other companies or organizations rather than to an end-user or consumer. When dealing with a large entity, it's sometimes hard to figure out what constitutes good customer relations. Nonetheless, when you don't provide effective customer service promptly, eventually that impacts your bottom line in terms of lost opportunities and clients. (Added: 6-Sep-2010 Hits: 471 )
10 Essential Social Media Tools for B2B Marketers - by Christina Warren
Like anything else, social media marketing is easier, more efficient and more effective if the marketer has the right set of tools. While hundreds (if not thousands) of tools and services exist for social media marketing, many are still primarily aimed at either consumers or B2C marketers. Fear not B2B marketers — there are still plenty of great tools out there than can best address the unique needs of the B2B space.""We’ve raided our own toolkits to come up with some of the best tools and services for B2B marketers that want to get the most out of social media (Added: 8-Jul-2010 Hits: 562 )
The #1 Way to Improve Customer Loyalty and Satisfaction - by Michael Brenner
have stated many times that the role of marketing is to help our companies gain and keep customers. This is a unifying principle for both marketing and sales teams and should act as the starting point for all of our discussions. Next the question becomes- how do we do it? And who does which piece?""In B2B marketing organizations, the single most important way to keep customers is to build satisfaction and loyalty. The best way to get new customers is through positive referrals from existing customers. So, how do we build customer satisfaction and loyalty? By cultivating satisfied and engaged employees. ""This is not my idea. It is not highly complex. It makes sense to anyone who hears it. Yet, how many of us measure it, take steps to improve it, and hold ourselves accountable for ensuring this feedback loop is active, constructive and ultimately effective? (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 146 )
Customer loyalty behavior in B2B vs. B2C scenarios - by Michael Lowenstein
What are the major differences between business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) models of consumer loyalty?"The focus must be on the value proposition, which is the combination of rational (functional) elements of performance and emotional (trust and relationship) elements of performance. (Added: 18-Sep-2011 Hits: 122 )
4 Ways to Build B2B Customer Loyalty and Generate Referrals - by Tom Pick
As B2B buyers become increasingly immune to traditional marketing and more reliant on word-of-mouth vendor referrals, sellers need to become more sophisticated in building customer loyalty through relationship marketing, and converting this loyalty into referral business. Here are four tactics to enhance loyalty and positive word-of-mouth advertising from your best customers. (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 102 )
Has Your Company Created a B2B Customer Service Nightmare? - by na
Good stuff on the notion of the "customer is always right" within the context of business to business customer service. (Added: 14-Sep-2011 Hits: 100 )
Put the Customer First in B2B - by na
B2B customer service will have to improve if companies are going to move their supply chain operations online.( This looks like an older article) (Added: 6-Sep-2010 Hits: 395 )
Increasing customer loyalty in the B2B segment - by na
The Corporate Executive Board's Marketing Leadership Council and Marketing Leadership Roundtable has released a new study that has evaluated more than seventy B2B companies that conduct formal loyalty measurement programs in the B2B and eCommerce segment."""Its chief findings are that because the cost of switching suppliers is usually higher and more complex in a B2B environment, it is attitudes rather than behavior that best identify loyal customers.""Alex Tserelov, practice manager for the Marketing Leadership Council says "there's currently a heavy focus on the drivers of B2C (Business-to-Consumer) customer loyalty, but B2B marketers are more frequently being called upon to lead loyalty-building efforts as well." (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 60 )
Running a large, B2B customer service operation: Interview with Phil Stewart of Virgin Media Business - by Phil Stewart
We asked Phil Stewart, customer service director at Virgin Media Business, about meeting increasing customer demands, customer service professionalism, retaining staff and off-shoring. (Added: 14-Sep-2011 Hits: 97 )
Conversation Agent: Who is in the B2B Customer Service Elite? - by na
BusinessWeek just published an in depth special report on customer service. It announces the 50 top companies that know how to keep employees happy, invest in technology that helps customers, and have a service mentality from the top down.""The editors will let you reorder the top ten companies in a poll here. Your vote will be followed by a reorder of the ranking comparing BusinessWeek's with that of readers. Here's the ranking after I 'voted.' (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 117 )
Customer Service in B2B - 15 Ideas That Work - by Regis Hadiaris
My goal with this customer service article is to do nothing less than provide the blueprint for business-to-business (B2B) companies to change the world. Why? Because customer service is the single biggest issue in American business-to-business relationships today. If you are an organization selling services or products to another organization, the customer service lessons below are directly applicable to you. These lessons are true regardless of the size of your organization, or the size of your customer.""Read more: http://dotconnectorblog.com/customer-service/#ixzz0t6gGM9ip (Added: 8-Jul-2010 Hits: 565 )
Four steps to strengthening B2B customer connections - by Rob Leavitt
IBM's hot-off-the-press 2010 CEO Study confirms again what solutions marketers already know: getting closer to customers is a strategic priority. An overwhelming 88% of large enterprise CEOs told IBM that getting closer to customers is a top business strategy for the next five years, placing it at the top of the list. An even higher number of the best performing CEOs, 95%, stressed the point. ""Is this really news? Isn't this just Marketing 101?""Well, sort of. The idea is basic, but making it happen, especially in large organizations, is not so easy. (Added: 8-Jul-2010 Hits: 603 )
Importance of Customer Service in B2B - by Patricia Telesco
B2B means business to business. In other words, one company or organization sells its goods or services to other companies or organizations rather than to an end-user or consumer. When dealing with a large entity, it's sometimes hard to figure out what constitutes good customer relations. Nonetheless, when you don't provide effective customer service promptly, eventually that impacts your bottom line in terms of lost opportunities and clients. (Added: 30-Mar-2011 Hits: 156 )
B2B Firms Failing at Customer Service(Research) - by Michael Pastore
Companies in the B2B market are missing basic customer service capabilities that can drastically improve online customer relationships and build trust, according to research by Jupiter Media Metrix."The research found that only 41 percent of B2B companies respond to customer email inquiries within six hours -- and of those that do, only half offer an accurate resolution. Data from Jupiter Customer Service WebTrack Survey show that only 2 percent of B2B companies have Web sites that feature an easy-to-search knowledge base for customers to use on their own. (Added: 8-Jul-2010 Hits: 510 )
B2B Marketing: Forrester on Becoming a Customer Obsessed Company - by Bob Apollo
Leading research firm Forrester recently published a new report on "Competing in the Age of the Customer". Although the majority of the examples they cite are from B2B, their conclusions have profound consequences for any B2B focused organisation. Here's why...""Let's start by defining what Forrester mean by "The Age of the Customer" - the fourth and most recent shift in the forces that drive competitive advantage. They draw comparisons to the three previous ages, which they identify as The Age of Manufacturing, the Age of Distribution, and the Age of Information. (Added: 18-Sep-2011 Hits: 82 )
| Social Media B2B - by Jeffrey L. Cohen
Many B2B companies understand the idea of the sales funnel and track their leads using a CRM system like Salesforce.com or a module integrated into their ERP system, but they are not using the same organized process to handle customer service. According to a May 2009 study, only 40% of companies stated that their employees have the tools to handle customer service. With the explosion of the use of social media for customer service in 2009, the landscape for B2B customer service has become more complicated, and needs structure that can account for a variety of incoming inquiries (Added: 8-Jul-2010 Hits: 911 )
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