B2B Customer Loyalty

The B2B customer is still a consumer in their personal life so a lot of the same engagement techniques and approaches can be used. There is often a strong relationship in place between customers and account managers and keeping the personal experience within a digital environment is key to continuous engagement. Because of this we encourage companies to consider running an employee loyalty programme alongside the one for their customers. This has the added benefit that employees understand how the programme works, can communicate the benefits to customers and are part of the customer loyalty conversation from the start.

We really enjoy the challenges of working in the B2B space. Businesses and their relationships with customers are often much more complex. There is usually a multi-tier account relationship, and sometimes the budget holder may not be the person interacting with the business day to day. There are often issues with data and getting a single view of the customer especially where companies have grown through acquisition. Often we find we are taking our clients on a digital transformation journey rather than just a customer loyalty journey.

Creating a loyalty programme in a B2B business is more complex than in B2C as the relationship you have with your customer is often much more personal. The audience needs to be considered from more angles as the relationship is likely to be one to many rather than one to one which is what we see more regularly in B2C. In a B2B loyalty programme you need to be even more focussed and personalised on the needs of each member. If you only have one person from each business as a loyalty programme member, should that be the person who pays the invoices, the person who decided which suppliers they use or the person who completes the transactions. The rewards each person will be motivated by will be different as well so you need to really understand the audience and personalise every aspect of the programme to engage them. The mechanics by which you reward each member can be the same but each might have different outcomes.

Absolutely, loyalty programmes can have a huge impact in B2B. remember that your B2B customer is a consumer when they leave the office so they are already used to transacting with companies that offer them loyalty. The complexities are greater in the audience relationship and personalisation requirements but the rewards can be huge. In a recent programme, we delivered a 23% increase in revenues, 80% increase in referrals and 43% increase in brand stretch. Imagine what that could do to your business trajectory.

Any good loyalty programme should be a win for the customer as well as the business. A customer might switch their behaviours for a short time to get a specific reward but if the programme doesn't fulfill their needs long term, then the behaviour change won't stick. Ultimately your businesses service or product has to match the customers needs and then the experience they have with the brand has to match their values. If you can create an experience that the customer is happy to refer and talk about you have created something they feel part of. They have an emotional connection, and it is that emotional connection that a loyalty programme is designed to create.

We are firm believers that loyalty starts within, and you cant preach loyalty to your customers, if you aren't practicing it with your staff. To that end we would always recommend using your loyalty platform to run a programme designed for your staff. Using a similar programme on the same platform means your staff will be better able to communicate to your customers and are more likely to live and breathe your brand. In B2B the relationship the customer has with the sales teams is even more important than it is in B2C so it is vital to get this part right.