MAIN INSIGHT 58
Cameron Parsons
HEAD OF DIGITAL SALES
& MARKETING
How has the global pandemic impacted enterprise B2B sales?
The global pandemic forced businesses who offer enterprise B2B solutions to move as much of their sales process as possible into a digital format. With face-to-face meetings completely off the cards, they were forced to innovate and often had to make do with what was available to them. Now that we continue to emerge from the pandemic, much of that digital sales process still remains but the typical enterprise buyer's journey is more balanced between digital and physical interactions. The upside of this is that buyers have a choice of ways in which they can engage with selling businesses, and the selling businesses have gained additional touchpoints with their buyers. The downside is that with face-to-face interactions reduced, it becomes harder for selling businesses to demonstrate the value of their offering - especially if they are in complex, regulated industries like insurance or financial services. This can result in companies being dragged into a race to the bottom if they are not careful. But for those businesses that can offer a consistent and joined-up experience across all of their touchpoints, both physical and digital, there is a good chance of success.
What can B2B marketers learn from their B2C peers?
The very best brands invoke emotion with their marketing. Apple is a prime example of this. You won’t see them talking about how many megapixels their latest phone offering has, but they will show you that the phone takes stunning photos of your family to help capture memories which last a lifetime. That’s a powerful difference. Brands that can speak to their customers on a human level, rather than a functional level, build deeper connections with a large amount of brand loyalty. This is a technique that financial services are now starting to open their eyes to, particularly within challenger brands. When you speak to somebody on the street about financial service offerings, be it home insurance policies or purchase cards, the majority of the time they will not be able to tell you the difference in offering across different financial institutions. But if you look at the rise of challenger banks, Monzo being a great example, their customers talk passionately about them even though they might not know how they compare to other banks. The core offering is the same, but new innovations like the coral card and app-based banking create that powerful brand loyalty. In turn, this brand loyalty can then drive successful new customer referrals - so it’s easy to see why businesses in all industries are keen to build it!
Brands that can speak to their customers on a human level, rather than a functional level, build deeper connections with a large amount of brand loyalty.
Businesses that want to create an exceptional customer experience need to align digital marketing and product delivery with the expectations of their customers.
How can businesses deliver exceptional customer service?
Businesses that want to create an exceptional customer experience need to align digital marketing and product delivery with the expectations of their customers. This can be achieved by centralising customer data and ensuring that it can be accessed in real time across all sources. For a customer, this means that they could be completing a form online and if they hit a point where they have questions, be able to pick up the phone and speak to a human being. That human representative of the business needs to be able to see exactly what information the customer has submitted so far. This saves the customer from having to repeat the information over the phone, which is a huge source of frustration across all industries. Alongside the prevention of customer frustration, this centralised, instant access data allows customer service representatives to better serve their customers. To delivery the best customer experience possible, ensure that your customer service representatives have each personally been through the same processes as your customers so that they have the vital context required to deliver empathy in their interactions.
Uinsure empowers advisers to provide an experience that removes the complexity of comparing and accessing insurance today. It offers a seamless, straight through digital experience for insuring Home, BTL/Landlords, Non-Standard, New Build, Commercial and Tenant properties. The proprietary cloud-based technology has removed complex and lengthy questions from its journey using big data and third-party integrations to pre-fill information.
