For years, marketers claimed that personalization was the “future of customer experience”. Well, that future is here….and it’s not pretty. Drift’s 2020 State of Conversational Marketing report found that 53% of buyers are frustrated by the number of irrelevant ads and emails they get from B2B companies. And they’re not the only ones feeling the pain. Companies are missing out too. According to McKinsey, personalization can deliver eight to 10 times the return on marketing investment and grow revenue and retention by up to 10-30%. In this context, this article will give you a hint of 4 crucial b2b sales management tips to double your ROI.
Everyone Owns Customer Success
Drift and CustomerGauge reached out to 100+ B2B companies to assess the state of buyer and customer experience. We asked them, “Who owns customer success?”. But this is also why it’s so hard to be customer-centric.
If customer experience is a problem for another team, then you’ll never be able to put the customer at the center of everything you do. The way you’re going to create a happy, repeat customer – or a customer advocate – is by ultimately fulfilling the promise you made in the beginning during the sales process. And that takes everyone. The answer? Everyone. That’s the secret to the most successful companies today.
Start with a Personalized Website
Any of these sound familiar?
- Lack of insight into the journey and experience
- Website and other channels fail to convert
- Difficulty forecasting pipeline
You know what solves all three of these challenges? Personalizing your website. Whether you’re using email, social media, advertisements, or events to attract new customers, they have one thing in common: they send prospects to your website. 60-80% of the buying experience happens without a salesperson ever talking to someone. Your website is your storefront. And it’s time to transform websites from being marketing-centric to customer-centric for a higher return on marketing investment.
Make your website a conversation. It’s not just about changing the layout or branding, but creating a real-time experience for each customer who walks through your digital front door. That means:
- Engage: Meet them where they are. Using firmographic information and IP data, identify who arrives at your website and what they might be interested in.
- Understand: Deliver them to the right person at the right time to understand what problems they have and how to solve them.
- Recommend: Help them find the best solution for them.
Nail the Sales-to-Support Handoff
The most important part of the customer experience isn’t actually the buying process. It’s the onboarding process. You’ll just spend your time refilling a leaky bucket if you can’t get it right. But when we asked B2B leaders in the State of B2B Buyer and Customer Experience report, 57% of respondents said their onboarding was only “somewhat effective.”
You’re never going to have a customer more excited than that moment right there. The first month to three months of a customer’s lifecycle is the most important. You’re building momentum, value, and engagement. Expectations are high, and if you don’t meet them, you’ve already lost them.
You’ve spent all this time helping them down the funnel, being responsive, making promises. Without a good onboarding program, you’re basically saying, “See you later. Good luck!”. You need to respond to what they need. To increase your marketing ROI you need new, retained, and upsold business. And you won’t get the last two unless you fix your leak.
Invest in Referral Programs
Your best sales associates? They’re actually your customers. Yet 54% of businesses don’t have a referral marketing program. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. But if the prizes are good enough, you’ll be pleasantly surprised how motivating this can be for the customers. And it’s important to your bottom line: Companies that link referrals to NPS and customer experience have a higher referral sales volume – nearly double.
Remember, 84% of sales start with a referral. The customers that come to you from word-of-mouth need less convincing upfront, and they’re more likely to stick with you long-term.
Conclusion
Above are the 4 crucial b2b sales management tips to double your ROI. If you have any questions regarding this topic, contact us and we will help you firgure them out.
