How to improve each stage of the B2B buyer journey with customer research

A whopping 87% of B2B buyers say online content significantly impacts choosing products, according to a report from CMO Council. After all, technology products are often designed to solve complicated problems. During this early stage, buyers may not be sure what they’re looking for yet–uncovering content along the way can help them find out.

For example, a marketing leader at an enterprise company might be considering a shift to an account-based marketing (ABM) strategy but might need to learn how to research which tools and solutions are needed to implement and manage an ABM approach successfully. Reading about similar organizations is helpful in this scenario. If the organization leader stumbles on something that seems especially relevant, their interest is piqued. 

As you work to reach your customer personas during the awareness stage, you’ll need to understand their pain points and how they search for a solution. That way, you’ll be able to design a customer experience that cuts through the clutter.

Research strategies from the awareness stage

Customer experience starts with the first interaction with your brand, so it’s critical to understand your customer’s pain points and how a product solves them. This understanding will help you craft relevant messages that answer their questions. 

Getting customer feedback can help you gain this understanding in a few ways. Using The Human Insight Platform, your team can run a test with a sample of participants that aligns with your customer personas. In a moderated or unmoderated environment, you can present participants with a problem, such as needing a solution to manage their ABM strategy, and ask them to search for a solution. This will help you see if your solution comes to mind or if they’re thinking differently.

Letting your participants search online freely will provide an understanding of how they do their research. What terms are they searching for? Which do they need to search for? Which places do they visit and trust the most? And—more importantly—what insights can be gained on optimizing your company’s organic (SEO) and paid (SEM) search strategy? Testing behavior on desktops and mobile devices is essential to see if and how it differs.

B2B tech organizations can also utilize concept or campaign testing. What messages capture their attention as the customer searches for a solution? Which digital ads drive conversion?

Ultimately, the goal during the awareness phase of the buyer’s journey is to be discoverable and to serve up a message that incentivizes potential customers to engage with the company.

When B2B buyers research online, they’re not likely to spend too much time on any website. In fact, according to a report from Contentsquare, the average time spent on a page is only 54 seconds. This doesn’t give an organization much time to make a first impression, much less gather leads. 

But websites remain extremely important in the B2B buying process. Although holding a prospect’s attention is challenging, it’s easy to make an impression when providing a stellar experience that considers the buyer’s unique needs. 

Research strategies for the consideration stage

Testing the customer experience on B2B tech websites is more important than ever. What’s the customer’s first impression when they arrive on the site? Are there intriguing calls to action, like whitepapers, reports, or free trials on the homepage, that deliver enough value to propel a prospect to fill out a form? Are the forms designed to prevent drop-offs while capturing the correct lead information? 

Quantitative and qualitative research strategies can be helpful here—pinpointing not just where and when customers exit but why. These tests can be done in person or via remote customer testing tools that capture real-time feedback as they traverse your desktop or mobile site. 

Comparatively, the same research can be done on customer behavior on a competitor’s site, helping B2B organizations determine areas of opportunity to differentiate or learn from best-in-class organizations within the same category.

Many of today’s organizations offer a try-before-you-buy experience before asking buyers to sign a lengthy contract. This can take the form of a staged online demo, a sandbox environment, or a live trial depending on how expensive the technology is, how long the contract term will be, and the level of resources that must be committed to implementation and integration.

These experiences are always pre-sale and can ultimately make or break a deal. Online demos may be the first opportunity a brand gets to converse with a customer. Often, they drive the bulk of web-integrated form fills. 

Dialing in the demonstration or online trial experience can move prospects from consideration to decision. Getting customer feedback can help optimize this process.

Research strategies for the decision stage

Evaluating the performance of an online demo might be as simple as recording customer reactions to a video in a testing environment. Things get more complicated in the sandbox or live trial experience. 

While there are parameters regarding what a customer can and can’t do, this is the first indication of whether or not a prospect will see the value in and eventually use, enjoy, and gain benefit from a product.

Test multiple approaches to see which gets the prospect from A to B quickly. We recommend running a preference test where participants view two versions of a recorded demo and then explain their reactions to each one. 

Another approach is an interview-style test in which you ask customers open-ended questions to understand the product's perceived value before or after viewing a demo. The faster prospects can be moved past the learning curve and into achieving results, the sooner they’ll become customers.

Even the best tools can’t make it if customers aren’t using them. Churn is the bane of the B2B tech company. It costs up to 25x more to replace a customer than retain one, but only 30% of B2B tech organizations reach the magic 95% retention benchmark for success and growth. 

Where do things go wrong? Churn often happens because a solution is too hard to implement, integrate, and use. Sometimes, customer needs to change. No matter the case, you want to be proactive about combating churn.

Research strategies for the retention stage

Constantly test the ease of use of your solution as it relates to the problems your buyer wants to solve—on desktop and mobile—to identify quirks and other issues. Ask yourself:

• Does it integrate nicely with other hardware and software your customers have in place?
• Can it be launched rapidly and with minimal internal resources? 
• Once launched, is the experience moldable to each of its customers? 

For example, you can test and compare the organization's customer experience with the technical customer experience, mainly if the organization's customer is also the financial decision-maker. 

Remember that testing can be even more effective when initiated early in the campaign process so that key learnings can be integrated before launch. 

Implementing feedback loops via customer surveys, NPS scores, and quarterly interviews can give you the context to make critical improvements and increase customer lifetime value. Test the usability of your solution early and often throughout development.

Invest in frequent research to gain and keep a competitive advantage

Best-in-class B2B technology organizations invest in quantitative and qualitative testing at every buyer journey stage to ensure they deliver the right message and solution.

Customer experience begins when customers discover your organization and end with their last interaction. Customers today not only want a valuable product but a seamless experience.

Gartner states that 89% of organizations believe customer experience will be their primary basis for competition in the coming years. Thankfully, you can use research to compete.