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Many small companies focus on delivering great B2B customer service, but they often overlook the bigger picture: customer experience. While these terms are closely related, they’re not the same—and in today’s competitive business-to-business landscape, you must master both to make a real impact.
Great customer experience (CX) is about more than just handling issues and complaints when they come in. It’s about building strong relationships, fostering customer loyalty, and driving long-term growth. With a great CX strategy, you’re actually working proactively toward a smooth, mutually-beneficial relationship. Then, when issues and complaints do come in—as they always will—you’ll be in a much better position to resolve them quickly and positively.
In this article, we’ll take a close look at the differences and overlaps of B2B customer service and customer experience. That way, you’ll be more prepared to create or refine a comprehensive CX strategy for your business.
As they say, knowledge is power. So now that we’ve set the stage, let’s take a look at both of these key concepts in more detail—and the value they hold for your business.
Most average consumers are familiar with customer service. They’re the folks you call when the new kitchen tool you ordered comes out of the box with a busted plug—or you can’t figure out how to make it work at all. For B2B customer service, this involves the direct support a business provides to its clients, just on a bigger scale than one blender. It includes answering inquiries, resolving complaints, and offering assistance. Sometimes, customer service representatives will even offer upgrades, add-ons, or other changes in service that might better meet the client’s needs.
In any case, B2B customer service is mainly reactive in nature—meaning it typically happens in response to a customer’s request.
On the other hand, B2B customer experience is the bigger picture, of which customer service is just one part. Customer experience is the collection of interactions that businesses have with potential and current clients. It encompasses every communication touchpoint, from first impressions and value propositions to payment processing and the delivery of products and services. And yes, part of that is customer service.
As opposed to the pillar that is customer service, customer experience is proactive in nature. It also focuses on the overall impression and sentiment of your clients. What is their perception of your brand? Do they believe it has value for their business? How do they feel about the service they receive? Managing B2B customer experience means curating these aspects to optimize profitability and customer satisfaction.
Think of it this way: customer service is one leg of the table, and customer experience is the entire piece of furniture. Without customer service, the table would collapse. But without the other aspects of the customer experience, there wouldn’t be much of a table at all—perhaps just a few pieces of wood lying on the ground. In other words, not very useful or productive.
Furthermore, in B2B, prospects expect even higher levels of customer service than average consumers because their purchases are often larger, more complex, and long-term. A single frustrating interaction can make a business reconsider their entire relationship with your company. But when businesses combine top-notch B2B customer service with a seamless customer experience, they create powerful advantages:
Stronger Customer Loyalty
When clients feel valued and supported at every stage, from the first touchpoint on, they’re more likely to stay with you than switch to competitors. After all, they’ll expect nothing less than everything they want and need for their business. And if they don’t get it from you, they know there’s likely someone else out there who will.
Higher Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
Businesses that prioritize CX often see higher repeat business and larger deals from satisfied customers. That’s because businesses prioritize relationships—so if they’re getting one service from you and enjoy the relationship, they’ll choose to get add-ons from you instead of bothering with looking somewhere else.
Competitive Differentiation
In crowded B2B markets, a great customer experience can be a key differentiator that sets your company apart. After all, client support often happens during moments of crisis. If they believe you’ll handle their issues efficiently, effectively, and effortlessly, they’ll know they can trust you no matter what comes.
If you’re looking to streamline and support your B2B customer service and customer experience, you’re in the right place. In this section, we’ll take a closer look at five best practices that can help you get your CX and customer service working together like a well-oiled B2B machine.
There are many occasions when being proactive about your customer experience can actually minimize the need for B2B customer service. For example, if you take the time to educate new customers on how your products and services work, chances are they won’t need to rely on customer service to answer repetitive questions.
When you think about the customer journey as a whole—and consider what information and resources clients will benefit from early on—you can actually streamline the whole process. Additionally, this will lessen the burden on customer service, so you can get back to delivering on your B2B promises. That way, when the inevitable legitimate crisis occurs, you can build on the relationship you’ve already established and tackle the issue together.
Many B2B customer service issues are focused on the actual buying process itself. Once a business has committed to your value proposition, don’t delay the transaction any more than you have to. Otherwise, you could lose a sale.
To optimize this process, ensure your website, ordering system, and communication channels are as user-friendly as you can make them. Then, regularly evaluate the process so that you can find more ways to reduce friction and make improvements. You can do the same for creating contracts, handling pricing, and managing onboarding procedures.
Similarly, empower your employees to go beyond simply fixing issues as they arise. B2B customer service and customer experience work best when the whole team is focused on supporting clients. Therefore, encourage them to build strong, strategic relationships with their clients and leverage that to provide proactive solutions.
Furthermore, invest in ongoing training for both customer service representatives and sales teams. This will help everyone buy into the philosophy of continual improvement, boost team cohesion and morale, and put it into action.
One of the most valuable sources of business data comes from customer feedback—and unfortunately, many companies downplay its importance. Of course, this is understandable, as negative feedback can seem overly critical, counterproductive, or even worthless. However, there is plenty of relevant, strategic information out there that only your clients can provide. Therefore, closing the feedback loop can be a great way to boost both B2B customer service and overall customer experience.
How do you do this? First, be open and take customer feedback at face value… with a grain of salt. Actively respond to comments in a positive manner that reflects your brand—even those negative, troll-worthy comments. Finally, take what you can from the interaction and implement changes based on customer needs, adapting your customer experience as necessary.
Additionally, it’s good to regularly request feedback, especially from satisfied clients. If anything, positive comments can be repurposed into glowing testimonials to feature on your website. In the best cases, clients will suggest missed opportunities that you can capitalize on, boosting your profitability across the board. With this strategy, you’re continuing in the proactive, customer-centric mindset, gathering great data, and improving business all at the same time.
Your business should also be in the practice of regularly evaluating operations for yourselves. Client feedback is invaluable, especially in terms of B2B customer service. But in the end, you know what your goals are for your business and your clients—and what you’re capable of. To that end, reviewing, reflecting, and improving upon your business model is a powerful method of supporting both your CX and your customer service.
You’ll likely benefit from external evaluation as well. Consider starting or supporting a CX evaluation program with a platform like CustomerOptix’s CX On Demand. With our network of expert evaluators, we can conduct targeted mystery shops anytime you need. Plus, it’s affordable, flexible, scalable—and fast. And you can count on quality, objective, and actionable data every time. Your operations are sure to see significant results on every front.
In today’s B2B world, customer service alone isn’t enough—and neither is solely outward-focused customer experience. Both must be combined to produce a big-picture CX strategy that will continually optimize your business operations. Small businesses that focus on both will create stronger client relationships, boost revenue, and gain a significant edge over competitors.
By shifting from a reactive, service-focused mindset to a proactive, experience-driven approach, your business can turn every customer touchpoint into an opportunity to impress, convert, and retain loyal clients.
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