Building a B2B website is a rather lengthy and continuous task that involves frequent changes in the design and content to optimize it for the ever-evolving market and audience of the digital space. While most B2B businesses heavily focus on taping the online market through their varied digital efforts, the importance attributed to the B2B eCommerce website for its capacity to convert users is often nominal. This leads to the website becoming a disengaging platform that leaves the users with an unsatisfactory browsing experience.
Gartner’s research found that 77% of B2B buyers feel that making a purchase is very complicated or difficult, calling it “time-consuming” and even “painful.”
Understandably, a neat and efficient website is not easy to build and requires addressing several small and big factors to iron out the inefficiencies that come in the way of seamless customer experience.
A Powerful B2B eCommerce Platform — 5 Key Factors
80% of B2B buying decisions are based on a buyer’s direct or indirect customer experience, and only 20% on the price or the actual offering. Here’s a look at 5 of the most important techniques to improve your B2B eCommerce website to make it more customer-centric.
CHATBOTS
It may not seem possible to directly influence or qualify a visitor while they are on the website and browsing, irrespective of the buying journey or juncture (from awareness and consideration to intent and decision) they are at. However, chatbots can be effectively implied here to push the visitor through the sales funnel — from their current stage to the next. This can, in turn, accelerate the sales cycle and indicate a prospective lead. Chatbots can be leveraged for a series of activities, including giving out information on products and services and understanding the specific needs of the user.
An excellent example is that of LeadPages, the company known for landing pages creation. It targets users depending on the page that they are on. Its chatbots display an impressive open rate of 30% and a 21% click-through rate to the product comparison page.
NAVIGATION
After landing on a homepage, 86% of users want to see information about products and services, 62% are interested in contact information, and 52% are looking for the “about us” section.
The above figures determine what B2B users expect from websites with respect to easy access to information and navigation. To ensure that the experience is seamless for the user, it is important to allow them greater control and access to the website. Often, unnecessary pop-ups, videos that continuously play, and carousals that highly distract, take away the consistency of the experience. On the other hand, retaining the uniformity of all the elements that a user is likely to interact with, and using design control elements such as breadcrumbs, page headers, progress bars, and clear menu options can help the visitor feel at home.
CONTACT FORMS/CALL TO ACTION
A study by Hubspot depicts how a mere change in the color of the Call to Action (CTA) button on Performable’s homepage led to a boost in conversions by almost 21%.
Changes that might seem inconsequential can, in fact, have a huge impact on user perception and their eventual decision — the CTA button color for instance as stated above. Hence it is highly recommended that businesses constantly A/B test their banners to infer what works best for their B2B platform.
There is so much data-informed experimentation possible to enhance and better the CTA banner and help the user move a step closer in getting to know the product and or the company better. From supporting the text with clearly designed graphics to a crisp microcopy along with a highly clickable call to action text, these banners can be repeatedly altered and tested to eventually qualify visitors into leads.
MOBILE OPTIMIZATION
All the information and details on the website need to create an equal impact on all devices, whether it is the desktop, tablet, or mobile. But it is also important to note that every number around user behavior points towards the rise in mobile browsing time. Hence adopting the mobile-first approach and ensuring that there is no discrepancy in the user experience can lead to garnering sizable conversions from mobile. Experience Design plays an important role here, especially since it is all about optimizing the layout, ensuring ideal spacing, and offering a good visual experience that is suited to the screen size.
BCG’s research has found that 80% of B2B buyers use mobile at work, and more than 60% report that mobile played a significant role in a recent purchase. Moreover, some 70% of B2B buyers increased mobile usage significantly over the past two to three years, and 60% expect to continue to increase their mobile usage.
OMNICHANNEL
In their 2020 report, PWC found that the number of companies investing in the omnichannel experience has jumped from 20% to more than 80%.
An interesting way to leverage omnichannel is by studying the assimilated data that tracks the customer’s behavior when they interact with your business to come up with relevant optimizations that improve their experience. For instance, a lot of users might end up buying offline but begin their research online on the website and other channels, hence it’s important to ensure that they are all connected and offer a smooth experience.
Conclusion
With rapid digitization and technological advancements, the B2B eCommerce website has officially become the flagship store of any business. And hence, designing and communicating right should be cornerstones of building a great website. The details covered in this article stress upon elements that contribute to an ideal site by largely making it convenient and easier for the customers to access the website and its information. This subsequently leads to better traffic and higher conversion rates.
Additionally, an efficient and strong website establishes credibility, prompts its users to trust the brand and eventually converts them into loyal customers. For every business that puts its buyers first, it should not be a difficult task to accomplish a website that becomes the first choice of the buyers too!
Top comments (1)
it should be said that one of these ways is to improve the design. See this post gapsystudio.com/blog/b2b-website-d... about current design trends for b2b websites. Look out for the trend of content-driven design and interactive elements.