Monumental shifts have occurred in what customers expect from their buyer journey, which is calling for organizations to think differently and to design buyer experiences that create long-term retention and loyalty.
Many companies are using leading marketing automation software to gather customer insights, implement marketing campaigns, and hone results with buyer experience automation.
Where Does the Buyer Experience Begin and End?
Buyer experience spans the entire process from engaging a potential buyer to convincing them to make a purchase. The more seamless this buyer experience process seems to the buyer, the higher likelihood of conversion.
It is important to keep in mind that the buyer experience doesn’t always end up in a sale. This is why it is important to create a buyer experience journey map. The buyer experience journey map highlights customer touchpoints and how different groups of customer demographics interact with different touchpoints. Customer actions correspond to the different stages of the sales funnel.
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What is a Buyer Experience Design?
As products and services are subjected to increasing entry into the level playing field we call commodity, differentiation is made in designing innovative buyer experiences. In the Buyer Experience Innovation framework, the design of buyer experiences is one of its most important elements.
There are three central aspects of Buyer Experience Design that provide the necessary roadmap:
Confluence of Buyer Insights, Buyer Persona Development, and Buyer Experience Journey
This is the bedrock of understanding that offers insight into whom your buyers are, the buying journey they take within their own organizations as well as yours and competitors, and the sequential views that are critical to understanding the current buyer experience.
Buyer Interaction Modeling
For every stage in the buyer's journey, interactions that correlate to a buyer's journey lead to successful buyer experience design. Interaction modeling not only embodies the touchpoints encountered, such as websites, channels, selling teams, and call centers but involves modeling end-to-end processes that are designed to create adaptable buyer experience journeys for buyers who pull the levers on different paths to take. Interaction modeling allows for the ability to shape buyer interactions with the different buyer personas, channels, and industries.
Buyer Experience Ecosystem
This aspect of Buyer Experience Design seeks to provide integrated thinking on four experience planes:
Relationship
The design of relational capability directly correlates with the different relationship avenues that exist such as existing buyers, prospective buyers, and renewal buyers.
Engagement
The design of direct, indirect, digital, and social engagement not only enhances the buyer experience but helps buyers to move along the value chain and create loyalty
Brand
Integrated thinking on how to incorporate brand experience along the buyer experience journey and the buyer experience interaction model that is inclusive of strategies related to thought leadership, content marketing, public relations, sales messaging, and packaging
Technology
Identifying enabling technology that enhances the overall buyer experience and can be inclusive of digital as well as social mediums for buyers, technologies related to sales enablement, marketing automation software, demand generation, customer relationship management (CRM), and interactive media technologies
Why is it Important to Focus on the Buyer Experience?
With an effective buyer experience after considering the elements of buyer experience design, you will be able to enjoy a higher rate of lead conversion.
Customized Buyer Experiences
With countless platforms to reach customers these days, it is important to always stand out. With all of the knowledge, you can gather from the buyer experience design, you can provide customized buyer experience journeys to potential customers to increase the likelihood of purchase. Buyers always love to feel understood and providing them with a customized buyer experience may be the first step toward forming a positive buyer relationship.
Understanding the Complexity of the Buyer Journey
With numerous customer touchpoints such as chatbots, email, mobile apps, social media marketing platforms, websites, etc. hence, why it is important to understand your customer and customize the buyer experience accordingly. It is important that the buyer experience remain seamless throughout all of this.
Emotion Driven Buying
Since most of buying decisions are made subconsciously, it is important to have an effective buyer experience. Feelings, intuition, and trust are the key to appealing to customer emotions. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to buyer personas and learn about their interests to appeal in every stage of the buyer experience.
How to Improve Buyer Experience?
Be Trustworthy
You can assure a positive buyer experience when a buyer encounters a credible and focused solution for their needs. Trust is one of the most important steps in the buyer experience hence, it is important that your content and sales agents instill a sense of trust in your buyers at all times about your business.
Respond to Leads Quickly
Following up with inquiries in a day or less can influence a buyer into making an effective decision while the message still resonates. With lead scoring via CRM, you are able to prioritize and follow up on quality leads quickly.
Show Value for Money
A positive buyer experience always instills in the customer that your business will be the solution to their problem, thus your product being great value for money. However, this value is to be seen until the buyer completes the purchase. Hence, it is important to convey the potential value for money when purchasing your product throughout the buyer experience to influence the buyer’s decision.
Benefits of a Positive Buyer Experience
A great buyer experience is key to converting a potential client. With improved buyer experience, you will be able to notice
- More website traffic
- More leads
- Higher conversion rates
- Bigger deals than average
- Shorter sales cycles
- Lower customer churn rate
- More referrals from existing customers
Creating a positive buyer experience can go a long way toward improving sales for your business. With the steps and recommendations mentioned above, you can assure increased sales and positive reviews and referrals when the customers have a positive buyer experience.
To learn more about how to improve your buyer experience, refer to our Marketing Automation software comparisons and consult with our Marketing Automation Buyer’s Guide for more information to narrow down the best buyer experience solution for your business.
