Customer experience, or CX, is a customer’s overall opinion and perception of a brand. In a B2B setting, a positive customer experience can boost loyalty and engagement and win new business.
In this article, you’ll learn about the B2B customer experience and why it’s crucial to sales and marketing. You’ll also discover best practices for creating a memorable experience for your business customer base.
What is B2B customer experience?
B2B customer experience is how business clients feel about working with your company. It’s the sum of all their interactions with your team, products and services.
Every touchpoint in the B2B customer journey affects the customer experience, including:
Marketing activities
B2B sales conversations
Ongoing support
Conversations about renewals
The goal is to deliver a consistent, valuable, seamless experience for business customers. In doing so, B2B organizations can strengthen trust and build long-lasting relationships.
Note: B2B means “business to business”. B2B companies sell to other companies, rather than individual consumers.
B2B customer experience differs from B2C customer experience in several important ways.
B2C – or “business to consumer” – refers to companies that sell to individuals. B2C relationships are often transactional and involve short decision cycles.
Here’s a breakdown of the main differences:
B2B customer experience | B2C customer experience |
Multiple stakeholders make the decision. | A single person makes the decision. |
Relationships are long-term partnerships. | Relationships are transactional. |
Interactions span months or years. | Interactions span minutes or days. |
Buyers care about business results and ROI. | Buyers care about personal benefits and convenience. |
Buyers want customized solutions and personalized experiences. | Buyers are happy with standardized products and services. |
Example of B2B customer experience:
A software provider selling accounting software delivers a good B2B customer experience by:
First contact – learning about a client’s specific accounting challenges
Sales meetings – showing how the software solves those problems
Setup – providing a dedicated point of contact for support during the first month
Training – creating simple guides for each department using the software
Ongoing support – checking in regularly to make sure the system works well and meets the customer’s needs
Approaching the customer experience in this way allows companies to solve business problems while building mutually beneficial relationships.
Why is customer experience important in B2B sales and marketing?
Here’s why investing time and attention in the customer experience is essential in B2B sales and marketing:
Drive revenue and referrals. Good B2B customer experiences boost sales and client referrals. For example, when B2B customers receive personalized onboarding, they’re more likely to recommend your company to industry peers. By investing in the B2B customer experience, each touchpoint could become a sales opportunity.
Gives companies a competitive advantage. “If you really want a booming business, you have to create raving fans”, says Ken Blanchard, a leadership expert and the author of Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service. B2B CX is a powerful source of differentiation that can turn satisfied customers into advocates, helping you win new business through customer stories and word-of-mouth endorsements.
Drives customer loyalty and retention. A well-executed B2B CX strategy should delight the customer and drive loyalty. Buyers remain engaged when a company anticipates their needs correctly and continually demonstrates value. For example, customers will likely remain loyal when you respond to product improvement requests and add new features that solve real problems.
Improves internal performance. A well-designed CX strategy supports both B2B marketing and B2B sales. With a shared understanding of B2B buyers’ needs, teams can improve their decision-making and work more collaboratively. For example, when teams align on CX initiatives, they can create a seamless and consistent experience to impress customers.
Now that you’ve learned why the B2B customer experience is crucial to sales and marketing, let’s examine how it works.
What does B2B customer experience management involve?
Customer experience in B2B is about improving every touchpoint. It starts with understanding customers’ needs, preferences and pain points.
A key undertaking in CX management is creating a customer journey map. The exercise helps companies visualize every stage of their buyer’s trajectory.
It begins with awareness – when customers discover your brand for the first time – and ends with advocacy, when they’ve become “raving fans”. Here’s an example of a simple customer journey map template:
When complete, the customer journey map identifies all the contact points between your target market and your brand.
CX managers maximize these interaction opportunities and measure the results. Optimizations might involve:
Reducing friction or addressing gaps in the journey
Improving the quality of customer interactions
Engaging with customers across additional touchpoints
CX management also involves aligning internal stakeholders and collaborating with other departments. Every business function should commit to delivering a positive overall customer experience.
Here’s what that might look like in a CRM software company like Pipedrive:
Marketing | Teams create content to address customer needs across the marketing funnel. |
Sales | Reps build trust through consultative selling – an approach focused on understanding and solving the buyer’s specific needs – and managing customer expectations. |
Product | Teams create a positive user experience, designing intuitive features that solve real customer problems. |
Customer success | Managers help customers reach their goals with the CRM, providing tailored support and guidance. |
Customer support | Support staff resolve issues efficiently, surfacing insights to inform product and process improvements. |
Operations/IT | Teams ensure integrations, performance and data security align with customers’ requirements. |
Leadership/executive team | Leaders set a customer-first vision, allocating resources to support the company’s long-term CX strategy. |
Customer experience vs. customer success vs. customer service management
CX management differs from both customer success management and customer service management:
Customer success management helps customers achieve their goals post-sale
Customer service management coordinates all the tasks involved in customer care
By contrast, CX focuses on the entire customer journey – from the buying process to the post-sales experience. It’s about ensuring all stages work together to create a seamless, positive impression of your business.
5 best practices for creating a memorable customer experience in B2B
Here are five useful strategies for planning, executing and refining an effective B2B CX strategy for your company.
1. Gain a deep understanding of your customers
In B2B settings, customers are often teams of stakeholders. Each has different customer expectations and pain points they want met.
Truly understanding your clients’ individual needs means going beyond basic demographics. You need to collect detailed customer feedback, diving into the specifics:
Identify requirements for success. Ask, “What does a successful day using our software look like in your team?” The answer for a B2B project management software company might be: “Team members work through tasks quickly and efficiently using the software’s templates and automations. As a result, they have more time to focus on high-value strategic work”.
Pinpoint customer challenges. Ask, “What’s the most frustrating part of using our platform right now?” The answer might touch on automations failing to perform as expected or the software failing to integrate with the company’s preferred accounting software.
Determine what drives buyers’ purchase decisions. Ask, “When evaluating the available solutions, what were your must-haves for a project management software partner?” Answers might reference sales pricing, functionality or the software’s support for customization.
Consider running customer surveys or requesting feedback over email. You could also analyze customer sentiment to learn how other businesses feel about your brand.
Then, use a feedback tracker to collect, record and analyze the insights you gain. For example, a small e-commerce business might use Pipedrive as its feedback tracker in this way:
After recording and analyzing the feedback, share the insight with the rest of the company so that teams can align their CX efforts.
Companies often share customer insights in town halls, team meetings and internal webinars.
Developing an understanding of your customers shouldn’t be a one-off exercise. Gather feedback regularly to understand their evolving needs. Then, apply what you learn to optimize the customer experience.
2. Provide proactive, real-time support
Customers expect companies to identify potential problems early and address them proactively. Companies should provide solutions before issues affect customers.
A truly customer-centric approach combines human support with time-saving automation. For instance, live chat tools and AI assistants help customers resolve common questions. Automated knowledge bases allow customers to self-serve without sending messages or waiting in queues.
Support tools reduce friction and allow customers to get help on their terms anytime.
Of course, human intervention is vital to creating a supportive customer experience. Responsive and well-informed support teams make all the difference when complex issues arise.
Providing practical support isn’t just about addressing problems. Proactive outreach is just as valuable to the customer experience and may involve:
Notifying customers of product updates
Offering personalized advice or training in
Checking in with customers after onboarding
Additional touchpoints create moments of connection, strengthening customer relationships over time.
3. Streamline the buying journey with a CRM
CRM systems streamline the buying journey for both sides of the buyer-seller relationship.
CRM self-service features save customers time and remove friction from the sales process. For example, new leads can conveniently schedule appointments with a company representative via an email link.
CRMs also allow sales prospects to quickly access helpful resources, such as product demos and interactive calculators, directly from a sales rep’s email.
For salespeople, a sales CRM like Pipedrive automates repetitive tasks, such as:
Sending follow-up emails
Moving deals through the sales pipeline
Assigning leads to sales reps
These automations keep processes moving forward accurately. As a result, prospects feel valued and sales teams can focus on the quality of their interactions.
Supporting customer segmentation in CRMs can also benefit the customer experience. Email and market segmentation functionality allows teams to categorize buyers based on criteria like their:
Industry
Company size
Stage in the buying process
When B2B providers group prospects this way, they can create email lists to send targeted communications. Sales reps can also speak directly to customers’ needs in their sales outreach.
Prospects feel understood when they receive relevant messages, which puts the buyer-seller relationship off to a good start.
Start generating quality leads with your B2B Prospecting ebook
4. Focus on building long-term relationships
Unlike transactional B2C relationships, B2B partnerships are long-term and high-value. A strong B2B CX program prioritizes trust, communication and consistency.
Every touchpoint from the sales process onward shapes how customers perceive your brand. So, it’s vital to continue delivering value throughout the customer lifecycle:
During the sales process |
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While onboarding |
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After onboarding |
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A mix of digital experiences and human interaction can help maintain customer engagement. Popular tactics might include:
Live webinars for industry leaders to share insights and answer questions
Recorded product demos where a company manager showcases a new feature
In-person events, allowing customers to network and learn together
Companies become their B2B customers’ trusted partners by delivering value for as long as the business relationship lasts.
5. Deliver a consistent omnichannel experience
An omnichannel experience means providing a seamless, high-quality service across all channels. For B2B companies, these channels typically include:
The company website
Email
Phone
Live chat
Social media
Meetings (both in-person and digital)
Webinars and events
An omnichannel experience creates the same impression of the company through every interaction. Each channel should reflect the same tone, quality of service and shared understanding of the customer’s needs.
Example: A prospective B2B customer starts a product inquiry via a live chat on the company website. The support team provides detailed information and logs the conversation in the CRM. Later, the sales team follows up with personalized email content. The email references the live chat interaction and offers the interested buyer a tailored sales demo.
For customers, this seamless handoff between channels creates consistency and builds trust, bolstering their favorable impression of the brand.
A robust customer experience strategy creates an aligned omnichannel experience. Teams gain a shared vision for the customer experience and a clear understanding of their role in shaping it.
Clear internal guidelines ensure a consistent omnichannel experience. Teams need to know how to engage with customers and what level of service to provide.
How to measure the success of B2B customer experience management
To evaluate the success of B2B customer experience management, focus on metrics that reflect three core business outcomes. Here are the most efficient ways to track them.
1. Better collaboration and the elimination of silos
Successful CX strategies promote collaboration between sales, marketing and other departments. To improve team input and engagement:
Track the frequency of cross-functional meetings and seek feedback on how effective they are
Send an internal survey to gauge the team’s perception of current CX alignment and areas for improvement
Monitor how frequently teams share customer insights (e.g., in your CRM or a dedicated Slack channel)
Next, assess the financial impact of your B2B CX strategy.
2. Improved sales and marketing performance
Effective CX management drives success in marketing and sales activity. Here’s how you can leverage the most valuable B2B reporting metrics:
Look at closed deals, average sales cycle length and conversion rates across channels
Monitor customer retention, churn rate and customer lifetime value to assess the impact of CX on long-term relationships
Use attribution reporting tools like Pipedrive to see which touchpoints frequently influence buying decisions
Note: Customer churn is the percentage of customers a company loses within a particular time frame. Customer lifetime value (CLV) represents a customer’s value to a company throughout the relationship.
3. Consistent value delivery for customers
Customer feedback is another vital indicator of CX success. Implement structured feedback for large groups of B2B customers using relevant benchmarks like:
Net Promoter Score (NPS) | In this one-question survey, customers rate their likelihood of recommending a company on a scale of 1–10. |
Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) | Over a series of questions, customers score their satisfaction in several areas on a scale of 1–5 or 1–10. |
Customer Effort Score (CES) | Customers rate how easily they resolved their issue from “Very easy” to “Very difficult”. |
Use customer service reports like the above to measure how well your company’s CX initiatives meet customer expectations.
How to use Pipedrive to deliver a great B2B customer experience
As a sales-focused CRM, Pipedrive helps companies build a positive and consistent B2B customer experience.
Here’s how the software supports CX efforts across the customer lifecycle.
Personalized customer interactions
Pipedrive enables account managers to personalize their interactions based on comprehensive customer data.
With Pipedrive’s contact management system, account managers can review past conversations.
Here’s an example:
Personalization is at the heart of any great customer experience. Customers want to feel that the communication they receive is just for them.
Reps can use deal data to personalize future touchpoints. For example, they can tailor their subsequent discussion to address customers’ earlier concerns.
Sales reps can send personalized cold and follow-up emails easily using Pipedrive’s Automations feature.
Here’s an example of an automated personalized email following up on a sales call:
In the example above, the sales rep speaks directly to the customer by:
Using their name
Referencing the product feature they discussed on the call
Answering a question the customer asked during the call
Referencing a suggestion the customer made about the product
The recipient will recognize that this email speaks explicitly to them, making them feel valued and encouraging them to progress to the next stage of the sales funnel.
Efficient deal management
Pipedrive’s deal management software allows companies to easily prioritize, track and close deals. Its sales automation software also allows companies to create deals automatically.
Sales reps can schedule calls with prospects easily with Pipedrive’s Scheduler tool. All they have to do is set their availability and share a booking link.
The prospect can then use the booking link to view the rep’s availability and select the most convenient time.
Note: The meeting scheduler feature is available on Advanced and higher Pipedrive plans.
All the above Pipedrive features help sales teams deliver smooth, efficient deal management services that set the tone for a successful, long-term relationship.
Automated onboarding
Campaigns, Pipedrive’s email management software, helps companies onboard new customers effectively.
Campaigns includes support for automated email drip campaigns and email sequences. The functionality allows companies to create a welcome email series to support customer onboarding.
Here’s how a company might set up a welcome email sequence in Campaigns:
With a well-crafted welcome sequence, the right customers receive the right message at the right time in their onboarding journey.
As the onboarding process begins, B2B buyers continue to have a consistent and positive experience.
Final thoughts
B2B companies that invest in CX become trusted partners for their customers. When a business delivers value at every touchpoint, long-term relationships thrive.
Consequently, the B2B customer experience can significantly impact sales and marketing. Strategic CX initiatives drive higher engagement and boost sales.
Pipedrive’s automations allow you to create memorable B2B experiences directly from your CRM. Sign up for a free 14-day trial to start shaping your B2B customer experience today.
