B2B Customer Loyalty

The business relationship with customers in B2B is more complex than that of the consumer relationship with a brand, and it has the ability to be much stronger and more powerful. While both B2B and B2C may use loyalty programmes, they both need to be crafted differently. Business customers expects a lot more from their suppliers. They expect a deeper understanding of their requirements, their challenges and a value-add relationship that helps them to solve those issues. Get all this right and you have a customer for life.

In every form of customer marketing, it costs more to attract new customers than it does to retain an existing one, and this is where loyalty programmes can prove their value. A customer loyalty programmes can improve not only the customer relationship but can also drive revenues, growth and market share.

Our LoyaltyStream software is proven to provide up to 21% increase in sales revenue, 43% brand stretch and a 31% increase in market share across a wide range of market sectors and business types. We love the challenge of working in B2B, the complexities of personalising the right message to the right customer at the right time and the challenge of finding the right reward to motivate business customers.  

B2B Loyalty Tips and Insights

How to build customer loyalty in B2B

The B2B customer relationship with  is much more complex than in the B2C market but it has the ability to be much stronger and more powerful.

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Securing Market Share at the top of the Loyalty Ladder
Building B2B loyalty whilst selling through the channel

In today’s fast moving global marketplace customer retention and loyalty is key; particularly in the B2B market.

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How many people does it take to run a loyalty programme 

With most of us time poor and under resourced, you need to be sure you have enough people to deliver a loyalty programme effectively.

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How businesses are using loyalty to drive brand stretch

Loyalty promotions are one simple way to drive brand stretch, but to activate an effective campaign that also empowers your sales team requires a visualisation of the gaps in product purchasing.

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Securing Market Share at the top of the Loyalty Ladder
Securing market share at the top of the loyalty ladder

The loyalty ladder allows you to define the different stages of your customer relationship. The loyalty ladder focuses on how you progress your customers relationship with the business.

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Customers are looking for more from rewards 

With so much choice available, finding the rewards that are really going to grab your audiences attention can be hard. Read our tips on how to switch up your reward programme.

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How gamification helped The Bathroom Showroom boost sales by 21%

Increased engagement resulted in 39% extra page views and had a knock-on effect throughout the business. Members who had re-engaged were responsible for a 21% uplift in qualifying sales revenue.

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Customer retention. Is it also the solution for customer acquisition

One solution to customer acquisition lies close to home – among your existing customers. Its simple: one of the best ways to acquire customers is to ask your loyal existing customers to refer them.

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Using behavioural economics to drive loyalty with both customers and employees

Behavioural economics is the fascinating study of human behaviour to explain how/why consumers are motivated to buy products and/or engage with a company.

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B2B Customer Loyalty FAQ's?

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.

The Proof is in the Delivery

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Seeing is believing and with RewardStream it really is very simple to run a reward campaign for your employees or customers. We'd love to schedule a live demo with you with one of our product experts at a time convenient to you. Please submit your email address below and we will be in touch shortly to set up a live demo. 

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Loyalty Insights

Loyalty: Back to Basics

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It isn't easy getting loyalty right first time. Our Back to Basics Whitepaper will give you a great starting point and some insights as to how other people are using loyalty to succeed in their business.

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Loyalty Insights

View more loyalty articles covering all your favourite topics from B2B customer loyalty, to B2C loyalty, rewards, recognition, customer growth, customer retention, customer acquisition and employee loyalty to name but a few.


LoyaltyStream Key Features

  • 21 loyalty campaign types to suit every business
  • Options to deploy gamification campaigns such as Spin-To-Win and Prize Draws as well as Badges
  • Ability to track and reward all behaviours from transactions to actions
  • In-depth visual analytics and insights on Campaigns, Members, actions and transactions
  • Customisable CRM and segmentation options to suit your Member profile
  • Scalable modular SaaS platform that can grow with your business

 

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contact@streamloyalty.com

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