MAIN INSIGHT 28
Jon Nicholson
SALES DIRECTOR
From a marketing and sales perspective, have B2B buyer attitudes changed in the post-pandemic recovery period?
From my perspective, B2B buyer attitudes have changed, in the sense that they’ve become much more service-driven. The demand for service, beyond the sale, has become much more prevalent. Also, customers are demanding more proactivity and deeper knowledge from the sellers that go beyond product knowledge, particularly for sizable deals or accounts. Sellers are expected to understand the climate and the environment we're in, beyond the headlines in the news.
Perhaps given the post-covid climate, where many did not know answers to a number of factors for some time, now people are increasingly expecting and looking to their suppliers, service providers, and sellers for answers to unknown questions; therefore a definitive change in the buyer atmosphere can be expected, for sure.
With the digital buyer journey becoming the norm, what role does human engagement play in customer acquisition?
B2B marketers must be able to demonstrate and deploy empathy, and in predominantly digital work this is quite challenging. Your tone of voice can be lost, misunderstood, and so on, but equally, it's quite effective to reach more people very quickly. Therefore, we’re sort of trading off empathy for that reach. So, humans have to bring that empathy back into the equation and this is something AI can't do. It’s about that true and deep understanding, the deeper level of questioning that allows the seller to understand the buyer's real challenges. And in my opinion, only human beings can do that.
So I think this question calls for a differentiation between a digital channel as in a ‘digital marketing channel’ and a digital channel such as the one we're communicating over now.
We've known for a long time, from research from Gartner and others, that people either as consumers or as businesses are further along the buying journey before they engage with sellers nowadays. We can question the stat of whether it’s 70% along the journey through which particular funnel, but I think the broad principle is we do a lot of desktop-type research, this way our opinions are formed somewhat before a human being gets involved. Acknowledging that and the shift, the reduced time that people have, and the various channels of communication, I think that digital marketing within that digital mindset means we’ve got to be where the customer is. To be able to present really pertinent information in an easily digestible way.
I think that digital marketing within that digital mindset means we’ve got to be where the customer is. To be able to present really pertinent information in an easily digestible way.
I'm quite convinced that without human engagement we're losing retention, opportunities and so on. We have to encourage customers, in that sense and show them that human interaction is good for both of us.
In your opinion, what are some obstacles and challenges when it comes to improving human engagement?
The obvious one is time and resource allocation. The other is customer views. We have a lot of customers who are not ready to go back to human engagement, or they don't think they are ready to go back. It's not for us to tell customers how they should behave in this context, but I'm quite convinced that without human engagement we're losing retention, opportunities and so on. We have to encourage customers, in that sense and show them that human interaction is good for both of us. Not just because we want it, but because it's a way in which we can understand their challenges and impart knowledge on them; something we might not be able to do by using only digital channels.
At Royal Mail they connect companies, customers and communities across the UK, delivering a ‘one-price-goes-anywhere’ universal postal service to over 29 million addresses. As one of the UK's leading companies, they are focused on being recognised as the best delivery company in the UK and across Europe.
