B2B Customer Journey Mapping: Definition, Stages, Tips and Strategies

The B2B customer journey reflects all the elements decision-makers run into when interacting with a business. Understanding the journey and why it matters can help company leaders deepen client relationships, improve sales processes, and inspire loyalty. Take a look at this guide to learn the basics of the customer journey, strategies you can employ, and what it looks like when the B2B customer journey runs smoothly.

What is a customer journey map?

A customer journey map is a visual depiction of what happens when a prospect interacts with your brand. It takes into account customer needs, frustrations, and goals. The purpose of this exercise is to help you develop a firm understanding of the customer experience.

Taking the time to go through this exercise can help you refine your approaches to marketing, sales, and customer service, so you can hit the mark with each and every interaction. The map can also help bring your departments together for a common cause. Marketing, sales, and customer support teams can brainstorm and come up with solutions that bolster the customer experience. By doing this, they all work toward a common goal.

It’s important to mention that the customer journey map shouldn’t be static. Instead, it should be a tool you update regularly to help staff track and adapt to changing customer needs, behaviors, and preferences. Doing market research like this can help business leaders make better decisions that help them ultimately keep more B2B customers.

What does a common customer journey map look like?

From here you can make changes to products or services that will better serve customers. A customer journey map typically represents:

• Stages of the journey (awareness, consideration, decision, etc.)
• Customer actions and behaviors
• Touchpoints across channels (website, sales team, customer service)
• Customer sentiments during each phase
• Frustrations or challenges that may impact the journey

What is B2B customer journey mapping?

B2B customer journey mapping helps business leaders flesh out the landscape in which a business customer exists, ranging from awareness to purchase. The goal is to provide them with important insights that help them shape customer decision-making, convert them, and keep them coming back.

The customer journey tends to be longer and involves more interactions and stakeholders in the B2B environment. There are often more layers of approval required to make a purchase. With that in mind, B2B customer journey mapping requires a different approach than in the C2B context.

Target Market

In B2B sales, the typical buyer will represent organizations, departments, or institutions looking to solve a specific problem. In B2C, the consumer will be an individual in the market for the product or service.

Decision Makers and End Users

B2B sales have more red tape to break through. Many stakeholders will have a say in the buying process. However, the final decision will likely fall on just one person.

Sales Cycle

The B2B sales cycle is much longer, as prospects will go through the entire progress, from awareness to implementation. In contrast, consumers might make a purchase without weeks or months of deliberation.

Buying Motivation

Business leaders have to look at purchases through the lens of ROI, cost-effectiveness, and business outcomes. Comparatively, consumers tend to be more motivated by convenience and personal taste.

Marketing Channels

B2B brands find success reaching decision makers through means like content marketing, webinars, trade shows, and direct sales. That’s in contrast to consumer brands, which can best connect with consumers through social media, traditional advertising, and community relations.

To understand the distinctions in a real-world context consider a B2B customer journey map for a software company:

Awareness

It comes to the attention of a manager that software might help the team complete tasks faster.

Consideration

The manager asks a junior employee to look into potential solutions and vendors.

Decision

Several decision-makers come to a consensus on what might be the best fit.

Implementation

The company makes the purchase and installs the software.

Evaluation

The person in charge will follow up to see how users feel about the solution. The responses can produce analytics that guide decision makers as they determine next steps.

On the consumer side, the customer journey is far simpler. They might become aware of a product, read reviews, and then decide to buy.

This educational exercise can help your marketing and sales teams get more leads and convert them into sales over time.

How To Create a B2B Customer Journey Map

A B2B customer journey map reflects hard work and time to understand the connection between customer needs and business goals. Curate your B2B customer journey map by following these steps:

Identify User Personas

Start with a list of detailed buyer personas you plan to engage. Pay attention to their roles, responsibilities, motivations, and how they inform decisions.

Research Customer Touchpoints

Map out all the potential customer touchpoints. Examples include time spent on your website, social media channels, sales emails, webinars, and other contexts.

Analyze Customer Stages

Segment the customer journey into distinct stages: Awareness, Consideration, Decision, and Post-Purchase. Consider what customers and buyers might expect and experience during each one. Be mindful of the pain points and how they can impact their decisions.

Document Customer Emotions

Explore your brand through the lens of the customer. Consider what they might be thinking and feeling at each stage. Getting inside the customer’s head via surveys and other B2C mechanisms can help you develop communications and services that resonate.

Identify Pain Points

Analyze customer sentiment. Knowing their challenges and when they occur in the journey can help you improve your overall strategy.

Map and Visualize

Create a visual representation of everything you’ve learned. For instance, diagrams, charts, and other visuals can sum up findings better than words can sometimes.

Gather Feedback

Present your draft to internal teams and prospects. Asking for input from stakeholders can be a source of insights you wouldn’t encounter otherwise.

Iterate and Optimize

Customer journey mapping should be an ongoing effort. Make a point to review and adjust your map as new information comes to light.

These steps can help guide you in creating a B2B customer journey map that bridges the gap between business processes and customer expectations. You might also want to consider how to best bring technology into the process. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, marketing automation platforms, and analytics software can help you tackle old problems with new insights. Using these in your customer journey mapping process can help you track customer interactions and make meaningful changes that positively impact interactions, the customer experience, customer satisfaction, and the bottom line.

3 B2B Customer Journey Map Examples

Investing in customer journey mapping can help your company reach the next level of success. You can follow in the footsteps of others who’ve used this method and produced impressive results.

Salesforce

Salesforce relies on customer journey mapping to help bring clarity and effectiveness to the client onboarding process and all of the interactions. The hallmarks of their efforts include defined touchpoints and communication strategies. They have mastered the art and science of keeping the customer engaged from awareness to being a loyal account.

HubSpot

HubSpot uses customer journey mapping to help them ratchet up their marketing prowess to better serve their customers at each stage. These insights have helped them refine their content and outreach efforts, which has led to better sales figures.

IBM

IBM is a case study of the importance of customer education in the B2B space. Personalized demos are a key part of their strategy. By demonstrating they can meet and exceed specific client requirements and address pain points, customers are more likely to trust them and stick around.

Customer journey mapping can put your brand on the path of improved touchpoints, increased B2B customer engagement, higher satisfaction, and stronger loyalty.

Try B2B Customer Journey Mapping With Podium

Podium’s AI Employee can be an asset in your B2B customer journey mapping process. It’s a tool that can produce valuable insights into customer interactions and behaviors.

Here’s how you can use Podium’s features to get results:

Message Data Analysis

Podium is a giant when it comes to logging customer messaging data, including text, email, and social media interactions. You can turn these insights into actionable steps to help customers with their frustrations and find new ways to approach old problems.

Sentiment Analysis

Business longevity lies in understanding customer satisfaction and how to make changes that improve the customer experience. You won’t necessarily know what your customers are thinking unless you tune in, and Podium makes it easy to do so.

Customer Segmentation

It’s easy to segment your customer base into different groups that can help you provide a more personalized experience that inspires loyalty.

Feedback Collection

Customer feedback is golden. Podium makes it easy to get customer feedback via surveys, reviews, and other means. Use this data to adjust for the greatest impact on your customer retention scores.

Integration with Other Tools

Another way Podium adds value is by integrating with other solutions like CRM systems, marketing automation platforms, and other business intelligence tools. Merge data from multiple sources to get a clear view of your customers’ journeys.

Improving the customer experience starts with Podium. Watch a demo and see the features in action.