• by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer, November 24, 2015

According to new research from Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Accenture Interactive and SAP hybris, B2B buyer demands have changed the game for B2B sellers. Buyers expect a consistent and personalized experience in every stage of their purchasing journey.

Though business buyers are incorporating digital channels into their buying journey, they aren't the only channels a B2B buyer touches, so sellers must find ways to integrate data from all channels. Seller respondents say that 38% of their customers are using online channels exclusively, while another 32% use a combination of on- and offline channels.

Sellers aren't prepared to deliver a seamless omnichannel experience, and despite knowing exactly what buyers want, they have a hard time meeting their expectations across the customer journey, says the report. B2B sellers just aren't there yet, according to the research.

• Sellers rated the top barrier to their omnichannel strategy as “difficulty sharing customer data and analytics between channels, countries, or locations.” A top-five response with regards to overall rankings was a “lack of the right business measurements and incentives.” 
• B2B sellers find personalization to be an implementation challenge in every stage of the buyer journey. Disparate systems and processes complicate data aggregation and sharing efforts, says the report.

However, although many B2B sellers have made strides in developing discrete digital touchpoints, most struggle with weaving them all together with their existing channels to create a seamless omnichannel customer experience.

B2B Buying Habits

While almost all respondents have access to a company-mandated internal portal/company-dedicated buying website, they're using outside sources to research products and services that they purchase for work. Online consumer marketplaces (33%), search engines (26%), and business marketplaces (17%) are the most popular methods of doing so.

B2B buyers not only report higher total spend online but also higher percentages of work purchases made online and a larger average purchase size for online work purchases.

B2B buyers have high expectations for engagement across the customer journey, says the report. Today's B2B buyers are looking for the convenience and intimacy they've come to expect from a B2C experience. They're even willing to reward sellers who provide such experiences.

And, B2B sellers say they're investing disproportionately in meeting customer expectations across multiple channels. 74% of North American and European respondents chose “meeting customer expectations” as their top driver for investment in omnichannel initiatives. Closely trailing, 68% of sellers had providing a “consistent customer experience regardless of channel” as a priority. 

More than anything else, B2B buyers want to know the price they're going to pay for something. They don't expect to jump through multiple hoops or wade through several conditions to learn their actual price for a product or service, says the report. The research shows that “price transparency” is even more important to buyers than knowing if a supplier has the lowest price.

B2B sellers must take control of their omnichannel experience, concludes the report. Sellers are on the right track by trying to implement omnichannel touchpoints, but must amp up the integration of technology platforms with people and processes to support a real-time operating environment.

Creating personalized omnichannel engagement requires:

• Technology that supports today's complex customer journey. Customers enjoy their freedom to take any path to purchase they so choose; the idea of a funnel where customers go into the top and come out the bottom no longer exists.
• Mapping customer journeys to understand typical customers' interests and behaviors.
• Determining what capabilities your company needs to serve your customer on his journey.
• Comparing these capabilities to your systems of engagement to see where there are gaps that can be filled by existing systems or new investments.

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