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The Business to Consumer (B2C) sector understands the power of the maxim “Customer Service is the new Marketing”. Now the Business to Business (B2B) sector has begun to grasp this concept as well. The challenge for the B2B sector is that business people’s expectations of good service success is being set by the big consumer brands. These days they’re conditioned to expect the exact same service from their business suppliers, regardless of size of circumstance.

I’m sure, like me, you’ve had experiences where, after trying and failing to find the ‘how to’ product information you need on a supplier’s website, you call the customer help line. You’re told someone will call you back with an answer but the call falls between the cracks. Back to square one!

It isn’t an unusual experience and five or ten years ago would seem quite normal, albeit equally frustrating. There are so many things wrong with this type of process, not least the lack of proper case management.

Technology is fixing these problems very easily in the consumer sector and the B2B world needs to adopt these solutions. Because put simply, the days when this kind of experience is acceptable are very nearly over.

A Customer Service Revolution

One thing that stands out for me in relation to past experiences is that we couldn’t help ourselves or choose how we engage with the company. For most enquiries the phone is the last resort. We’d rather be tweeted the answer, or better yet easily find it ourselves. And, we don’t want to have to be at our desk to do that, we want to do it from anywhere.

Customer service today must be omni-channel. It must be seamless from channel to channel. And it MUST be mobile.

In our 2015 “State of Service” report, we found that 36 per cent of the highest performing service providers surveyed were already providing mobile customer service. A further 24 per cent had plans to do so in the next two years.

Additionally, our survey found that over the next 12–18 months, inbound service requests will increase more than 20% across mobile app, mobile chat, and social networks.

Is your business ready for that?

Help customers to help themselves

The phrase “digital transformation” can be intimidating, and even paralyses many organisations into inaction as they grapple with the enormity of totally changing their business. However, I witness best practice, omni-channel customer service delivered very quickly and successfully by the companies willing to take the plunge all the time. It is actually quite easy to do. We often help customers have a fully operational service platform up and running in a matter of weeks!

Businesses today can’t afford downtime. This need to speed is exactly why we created Lightning - a cloud based systems building environment that is lightning fast. Using cloud technology, and building on our Lightning development platform, we can stand-up a demo for an online, mobile-friendly self-service community in a matter of a few hours. Believe me when I say it doesn’t have to be Ben Hur! We encourage customer to attend one of our Service Experience Academies so they can set it up for themselves rather than take our word for it!

This mobile-ready self-service platform uses simple technologies such as on-site co-browsing, mobile live chat and intuitive, search driven Knowledge libraries to give customers a rapid way to help themselves in a way that suits them, not you. Effective technologies like these help your team to be responsive and dynamic as well as being helpful.

Win-Win!

There are two fantastic outcomes I see when companies begin to adopt this kind of technology, besides having much happier customers:

  1. Customers who are happy with the service they receive are much more likely to buy again, and ultimately become strong brand advocates - something marketing dollars just can’t buy.
  2. Organisations that deploy this technology begin to gather phenomenal data on customers’ needs and common problems, meaning they can be more predictive and pro-active about meeting and solving them.

So as the customer service paradigm shifts drastically as the consumer sector re-sets the standards; B2B brands can’t afford to be left behind. But the wins are there too for both you and your customers...and it’s probably easier than you think!

To understand more about how the highest performing brands succeed on customer service, download this free report: The State of Service 2015.