A large part of Online Dialogue's clients are Business-to-Consumer (B2C), but increasingly we are approached by clients within the B2B (Business-to-Business) segment. Both segments require a different approach. So what is the difference between B2B and B2C within optimization when it comes to User Experience? 

Target

Within B2B it is mainly about providers who have specialized within a sector with a specific offer or service. For example, software for accounting or time registration of your employees, sending packages from your webshop, supplying packaging materials, supplying drinks to the hospitality industry, or supplying chips to the automotive industry. Whereas the journey within B2C is often focused on direct sales (e-commerce), within B2B it is common that it is focused on lead generation: getting in touch with your potential customer. 

We are all experts by experience when it comes to consumer needs and experiences; after all, we all order something from time to time. However, we see a different approach when it comes to B2B. For example, every sector and industry has associated challenges, needs and solutions. These may include specific product characteristics - requirements, labels, delivery times, distribution or technical solutions. When it comes to optimization, it is good to know where you are positioned within the market, where you excel compared to the competition and what market needs are still unmet. 

Journey

Within B2C, when we talk about a customer, this is both the person who purchases the product and the person who uses it. In B2B, we are dealing with a different approach: the different steps such as orientation, purchase and final use are often fulfilled by different people. Thus, in B2B, someone who is orienting, someone who is seeking information, someone who makes the purchase and someone who uses the product or service may all be different people, with different functions. So the way of approaching them will also have to be different. A manager will need to be quickly convinced with the product benefits. A buyer will want more certainty about the purchase process, payment terms, and the end user will want to know more about support or warranty. Make sure you ask within each step of your customer journey for which role/function it is most relevant and match your functionalities, content and offerings to this. Make sure that for each decision maker something to be gained.

Acquisition vs retention 

Purchasing a product or service within B2B is less straightforward than for a consumer: for example, as a business customer, you have to deal with PO and VAT numbers, a billing address is required, and the order must eventually be booked. You can imagine that if you've gone through these steps somewhere before, you'd rather choose the same party for a repeat purchase. The separation between acquisition (gaining new customers) and retention (returning customers) is many times greater than in the consumer market. As a consumer, you probably won't care where you buy your item so price, for example, will be more decisive. 

Prices and VAT

While we're on the subject of pricing ... even B2B is different from B2C.

As consumers, we all get one and the same price per product, only sometimes we pay a little less if we have a discount coupon or purchase more products. In B2B, it is possible that there are price agreements at the customer, category, or product level, so you have other types of discounts such as quantity / tiered discounts, 

Different parties may pay different prices for the same product. Because of this, advertising with prices is not always possible and prices are often only visible once you have an account and are logged in. 

Packaging units

Another difference between B2B and B2C within e-commerce is volume. The quantities within B2B are usually larger in B2C and different ordering units (piece, dozen, gram), packaging units (box, pallet) and order thresholds (tiers) are used more often. 

B2C vs B2B

The target audience, prices, packaging units, different users and roles makes the information architecture, interaction design, visual design between B2B and B2C totally different. For example, within B2B it is very common to make information available in the form of a white paper in exchange for your email address (lead generation). In addition, after logging into your customer environment, you often have convenient functionalities to place repeat orders. 

CRO for B2B

If you want to start optimizing for B2B, you now know what the differences are, and what to consider in the customer journey. Although the amounts and number of product lines (number of different products per order) is much higher in B2B, the number of orders and traffic is often a lot lower. This makes demonstrating an improvement within an experiment a bit trickier but by using between conversions or other metrics this is also possible.  

Want to learn more about CRO for your business and how we approach it at Online Dialogue? Then please contact with us.