Today’s B2B buyers are in control. Learn how customer-centric strategies and go-to-market motions are key to winning deals in a competitive landscape.
Every B2B deal has two sides: the seller and the buyer. In the past, sellers took the lead in driving B2B deals forward. Now, it’s the buyers who call the shots.
Modern B2B buyers have endless information at their fingertips, and many prefer to do their research before contacting a sales rep. Gartner’s research found that 75% of buyers prefer a rep-free experience. When a buyer does reach out, they expect to engage with a helpful seller who is ready and able to deliver tailored experiences and solutions that meet their unique needs and preferences.
But sellers often fall short. Mindtickle research found that a mere 34% of buyers believe their sales reps are genuinely helpful during the buying process.
Now, more than ever, revenue leaders must ensure their go-to-market strategies and motions put the customers’ needs and expectations front and center.
Also Read: Conquer Customer Chaos: Optimize Your Contact Center Workflow
Customer-centricity is key to business growth
Multiple vendors offer solutions to any given business challenge. Businesses must prioritize customers’ needs to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Previously, offering an excellent product guaranteed a business’s success. But that’s no longer the case. Increasingly, buyers base their purchase decisions on their experiences with a company. According to a report from Salesforce, 80% of customers feel a business’s experience is just as important as its products.
Businesses must focus on delivering connected, customer-centric experiences throughout the purchase journey—whether a prospect is researching independently or engaging with a sales rep. Those who center their strategies around the customers’ needs reap the rewards. Research cited by Harvard found that 84% of businesses that improved their customers’ experiences experienced revenue growth.
Of course, customer-centricity can’t stop once the deal closes. Customers aren’t as loyal as we’d like; even a negative experience can send them searching for a better option. Ongoing, customer-centric experiences are essential to increasing customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value.
The customer is the heart of any successful strategy
Customers must be at the center of everything a business does. While this may seem a no-brainer, the data tells a different story. If a third of buyers feel their sales reps are helpful, two-thirds feel unfulfilled – and unlikely to make a purchase. Businesses have a lot of work to do when meeting buyers’ expectations.
Also Read: How Predictive Analytics and GenAI Drive Hyper-Personalized CX
Businesses must center their go-to-market strategies around the customer journey and build go-to-market motions to support these strategies. They must thoughtfully consider questions like:
- How do our customers buy?
- Who are their personas?
- What problems are they trying to solve?
- What value do they see in our solution?
Customer-centric strategies and motions are foundational
In the past, many businesses focused on growing the top line. Their solution often involved hiring several sales reps and over-investing in them. They’d focus on growing the top line and worry about becoming efficient another day.
In the current marketplace, businesses are focused on growing their top line—but in a repeatable, predictable, and efficient way. Go-to-market strategies and motions are essential to business growth, and both must center on the customer. The GTM motion gives businesses the actions to execute their strategy in a way that drives efficient investment, makes it repeatable, and drives consistency.
Also Read: 8 Top Contact Center Metrics You Need to Track for Exceptional CX
Go-to-market strategy and go-to-market motion are two terms that are used frequently. While these two concepts are certainly related, they’re not similar.
A go-to-market strategy is a vision of the business’s future. For example, you may aim to penetrate a certain market segment or increase the growth of a certain product.
On the other hand, a go-to-market motion is the blueprint for how you’ll actually execute your strategy. The GTM motion takes your strategy and distills it down to:
- Who you’ll target
- What pricing, packaging, and ongoing support you’ll position
- How you’ll target them
- What messaging you’ll use
- What processes you’ll use
The customer segment is the heart of the GTM motion. You must understand your potential customers, including their needs, challenges, and how they want to buy. You must also understand the value they’ll see in your solution – not the value you see in it. This is foundational to delivering customer-centric experiences throughout the purchase journey.
Effective customer-centricity initiatives are ever-evolving
In the world of business, change is constant – and rapid. Customers’ expectations are always in flux, and businesses must be willing and able to adapt accordingly.
Perhaps you’ve built a strong, customer-centric GTM strategy and motion. However, it’s imperative to assess your initiatives and adjust as necessary continuously. In other words, you must work to ensure the strategy and motion you build today continue to reflect the needs and the journey of your customers.
For starters, be sure to track the impact of your initiatives. Tracking the right key performance indicators (KPIs) lets you see if your strategy is on track. With regular measurement, you can see around corners and determine where you may need to course correct or accelerate efforts.
Also Read: The Personalization Revolution: Compliance and Customer Delight in the Age of AI
It’s also important to continuously capture feedback from the people you’re trying to reach. Be sure you have a mechanism to hear and understand what prospects and customers say. That way, you can adapt accordingly to meet customers’ needs better. By consistently meeting (and even exceeding) your customers’ needs, you’ll be well-positioned to win and retain their business.
