The sales and marketing processes that are used when dealing with B2B clients are different from the ones used when dealing with B2C clients. B2B and B2C businesses do not use the same channels. They also create certain personas and expect different customer behaviours.

In addition, B2B customers have unique resolution journeys and requirements, something that makes B2B customer service a very important aspect for B2B businesses. But what are B2B businesses and how are they different from their B2C counterparts?

B2B businesses can be defined as businesses that sell their products or services to other businesses. B2C businesses sell to the masses or rather individual customers.

Here are a few tips for offering better B2B customer service:

Implement an omni-channel customer support system

Different B2B clients come with different problems that need to be solved. Sometimes, a client might call you with poor application performance issues. The same client might call at a later date looking for ways to customise the product you sold them to meet certain requirements.

This requires collaboration between different teams and experts in your company and the client’s company. For effective B2B customer support, you have to make sure that you have implemented an efficient collaboration and communication system.

For example, your contact centre should be able to sync its data with the CRM used in your business. This would make it easy for all other teams, such as customer support, sales, and marketing, to access information about a client without any problems.

Understand your customers well

Relationships drive customer service in B2B businesses. To offer better B2B customer service, you have to make sure that you have developed a strong relationship with all the clients that you are dealing with. However, you should ensure that the solutions you offer are personalised to match their specific requirements.

While B2C businesses deal with individual customers, B2B businesses work with experts and professionals from the same or different industries. This means that the clients understand what they need. In addition, they also have customers to deal with.

You, therefore, need to make sure that you are implementing customer service techniques that are centred on the needs of your clients. The solutions you provide need to be long-term, contextual, and personalised to match each of their specific requirements.

Be available by phone during standard working hours

What would you feel calling a business that has sold a product to you, but you cannot get connected? Chances are that you would resolve never to buy from the same business again. Customer retention is one of the most important things to successful businesses.

Similarly, B2B businesses need to make sure that they are available on phone during standard working hours for them to offer better customer service. It does not matter whether you are working from the office or not.

Fortunately, you can use a virtual business phone number app to get a phone number that can remain active no matter where you are. This way, you can address any issues coming from your B2B clients even when working from home.

Create self-service channels

It is important to note that B2B client issues are often demanding. You might find yourself spending a lot of time taking care of a single issue. However, did you know that these clients are businesses that have experts working for them?

Well, these experts can help solve some of the issues faced by their businesses. With just a little help from your side, you might find yourself with a few issues to take care of from your side. You can provide this help through self-service channels.

For instance, if you are selling point-of-sale systems, you can create a page on your website with frequently asked questions (FAQ), knowledge-based articles, video tutorials, how-to guides, and product documentation. They can access this page and use the available information to solve any issues they might face with the point-of-sale systems without involving you.

Automate customer service

Relationships drive customer support in B2B businesses. This means that customer support teams are supposed to dedicate a lot of time to making sure that these relationships are created.

However, some repetitive and time-consuming tasks might end up consuming a lot of time and resources. This is something that every B2B business should avoid as much as they can.

Fortunately, automation can play a key role in helping these businesses offer better B2B customer service. They can create rules that automate repetitive tasks such as status updates and ticket assignments.

Following the tips discussed above, you will be able to improve and offer better B2B customer service.