Customer Touchpoints that Still Shape B2B Perceptions

Across B2B markets, from commodities to enterprise software, the trends toward self-service and automation continue to accelerate. Customers of every generation are demanding it, and for B2B providers, it enhances margins, creating a positive feedback loop that benefits everyone.

However, B2B providers should not lose sight of the fact that while customer-provider contact may have decreased, touchpoints outside of the solution or product still have a meaningful impact on customer perceptions and satisfaction.

Touchpoints that Matter

Every segment and solution has its unique characteristics and customer-vendor dynamics. However, in our work across a broad range of B2B segments, we have seen that the following four touchpoints are often key drivers of brand perceptions and customer satisfaction. That said, while these specific touchpoints may not be critical to your customers, they likely illustrate analogous ones outside your product that influence how your customers view you.

Onboarding & Implementation

The onboarding and implementation process is the first experience customers have with new solution providers. It can be a tense time for decision-makers who are both excited and nervous. New solutions have high visibility in the organization, and decision-makers know that the outcome will reflect on them and their credibility—positively or negatively. For end-users, the onboarding process is what creates their first impression of the solution, and first impressions can last a long time.

A clunky, disjointed, and lengthy implementation experience can have lasting negative impacts on brand perceptions and customer satisfaction. Additionally, if customers are responsible for key aspects of their configuration and integration, they can make mistakes that may create problems down the road. When those problems arise, customers tend to blame the vendor, not the choices they themselves made during implementation. See our post When Product-Market Fit Assumes Too Much Sophistication for a deeper dive on this phenomenon.

Clear / Fair Invoicing

Despite agreements, contracts, and extensive discussions about cost, invoicing can be a frustration for customers. Customers want clear invoices that show them what they are paying for.

When they can’t tell exactly how a provider is charging them—or for what—it leads to frustration. Frustration is typically more about the invoice’s lack of clarity than the total amount. When the invoice is unclear, customers may have a nagging suspicion that they are paying more than they should.

Customer Support

Customer support tends to be a binary touchpoint. Customers don’t think much about it until they need it, and then when they do, they care a lot about it.

Although they may not necessarily like it, most customers accept the realities of customer support in today’s world. They know they will start with self-service options, such as a knowledge base, user community, or chatbot, before interacting with the first level of support, and then, as needed, escalate to higher support teams. While they understand the business reasons behind this process, they want the speed of escalation to match the urgency and magnitude of their issue. Customers also need to feel confident that if they have the patience to go through all the steps in the customer support chain, their problem will be solved.

Ongoing Relationship

Customers want ongoing relationships with their partners that provide mission-critical products or solutions. They want to feel that their vendors genuinely care about their business. When vendors send too many marketing emails or only reach out to upsell or renew, it creates the opposite impression. It makes them feel like a revenue stream.

Customers appreciate when vendors take the time to understand how they are using the solution and recommend ways to get the most out of it. They also like knowing what is in the pipeline. Most of all, they want to feel heard.

Why These Touchpoints

While these touchpoints are on the periphery and do not directly impact day-to-day operations, they can be emotionally charged and have an outsized influence on brand perceptions and customer satisfaction. We know these touchpoints are important because they come up again and again across segments and solutions. When customers perceive little functional difference between competitors, these touchpoints can serve as a competitive differentiator.

How to Identify the Touchpoints That Matter to Your Customers

It’s worth taking the time to review all of the touchpoints you have with customers, identify the ones that matter most, and determine how you are performing on them. We recommend starting with open-ended interviews that explore customers’ overall experience—not just the solution’s performance. Even when customers have complaints about a solution, you may find that the issues creating the problem are not the solution, but rather a corresponding touchpoint. You can then incorporate these factors into your customer satisfaction or brand surveys. If you conduct an NPS survey, touchpoint issues often emerge in open-ended follow-up responses—e.g., “I gave them a 7 because the solution works great when it works, but it’s hard to get problems resolved.” Once you know what the customers’ key touchpoints are, you can make sure you give them the attention they deserve.

Isurus helps clients use qualitative and quantitative research to understand customer needs, journeys, and satisfaction. If you would like to learn more about how Isurus can help you understand the touchpoints your customers care about, reach out on our contact page.