How We Focus on B2B Support

Without our customers, our business wouldn’t exist. That’s the simple truth and is why, as a B2B solutions provider, we have prioritised a three-pronged approach to supporting our customers. Namely, we make sure that we’re able to identify when and if support is needed, secondly that we have the right people in place to implement our working solutions, and thirdly, that we have both proactive or reactive support at the ready when necessary.

There’s more to it than this, though, and having been in business for over 17 years, servicing approximately a third of the JSE Top 40 companies (directly and indirectly), we’ve learnt a thing or two. Added to that we have over 200 years of collective experience at an executive level, all of which we have used to inform a comprehensive customer support strategy that continually positions us to actively help our customers. 

If you’re wondering how to provide incredible B2B customer support, then let us show you how. 

Today, we’re going to focus on a successful customer support approach that empowers this strategy in the B2B space. We also want to explore why customers are starting to consider support offered by services providers on the same level as price.

What is B2B Customer Support?

In the briefest terms possible, and at the risk of being overly reductive, B2B (business-to-business) customer support is the act of providing accurate, timely, and empathetic solutions to companies when they are in need, rather than helping consumers.

In our experience, B2B customer support teams bear an additional burden. They’re not just tasked with providing the right solutions, but must be able to assist their customers in a timely manner. Given that your company’s product or service is often what your customer relies on for their business’ health, the pressure can be intense.

That’s why it’s so important to optimise your support strategy, making it more robust and capable of operating under pressured conditions.

5 of Our B2B Customer Support Best Practices

If your business supports other businesses, then you know full well just how challenging it can be to provide effective, empathetic customer support. Your customers are businesses that need to get stuff done (quickly) and they rely on efficient and competent customer service. It’s less about the “fun” and “pretty” approach to customer service that you’ll find in B2C (business-to-consumer) companies and more about resolving their challenges and issues as accurately and speedily as possible.

Our own customer support approach is informed by these 5 best practices.

1. Accuracy over speed

While we have spoken about the pressure to provide support as quickly as possible, we must stress that speed isn’t the aim of how we support our customers. Instead, we focus on getting the right answer to them in as timely a manner as possible but never at the cost of the solution being intentional and bespoke to the issue at hand. For this reason, we focus on getting the answer right rather than getting the answer right now. 

In fact, our goal is to provide accurate solutions that solve our customers’ challenges in a single interaction. At times, this can take longer but there’s far less back-and-forth delaying the final resolution and is significantly more meaningful as an overall customer experience. 

2. Data-informed decisions

It’s critical to understand how your customers are using your products or services and the best way we know how to do that is by using our data to create a customer journey map. This has helped us to identify bottlenecks, modify our internal strategies to make things better for our customers, and resolve issues proactively – sometimes before a customer has even reached out! 

In short, your data will give you a more holistic understanding of how to better support your customers.

3. Actively consider your customer insights

Take the time to dig into and understand what your customers are saying. Not only will they feel heard, but you could also create more feature-rich customer responses and services to meet their various needs. In some businesses, customers want to feel like partners, so involving them in the process is essential to your B2B customer service structure.

4. Employ empathy

We’ve previously discussed the crucial role that hosted voice (VoIP) for business plays in customer support in the retail sector, because it’s proven that even though automation and self-service are climbing in appreciation, people really want a human connection. Turns out, even in the B2B space, people want to experience empathy and understanding. The Huge Connect help desk handles approximately 50 000 calls per year, so we can certainly testify to the fact that while automated services are efficient, it isn’t as delightful an experience as a phone call with a human being who can offer caring, accurate phone support. 

Even if you do opt for automation, which can be invaluable, we suggest giving your customers a way to quickly reach your support representatives if they need to.

5. Prioritise meaningful customer service internally

Our B2B customer support strategy starts and ends with our team who work tirelessly to ensure that our customers’ issues and challenges are resolved. More than that, though, the whole of our staff complement at Huge Connect is positioned to support our customers, with over 50% of the company built specifically around operational support.

We strive to be well-informed of our customers’ needs and pain points and are qualified to contribute exceptional product and industry knowledge. In this way, from the top down, we are all geared towards developing and offering intentional and beneficial solutions. This means that our entire company is prepared to impact the company in a meaningful way.

Why Customer Support is Just as Important as Price

It might surprise you to learn that B2B customers need more attention and are less inclined to be satisfied by support provided through automation or self-service than consumers in the B2C space. 

The reality is that people tend to only stay loyal to a service provider if they have a very good reason to and how you support them is a big tick in the reasons to stay loyal column. That’s why we would argue that the support offered by service providers is not only just as important a value proposition as price, it’s perhaps the most valuable tool in your arsenal. 

In short, customer support is a key brand differentiator. So, if you can provide a good customer experience and the relationship and strength of this relationship builds a mountain for your competitors to have to climb over, you are well on your way to establishing a rock solid foundation for your business’ existence and ongoing success.

Geared to Support You

We are extremely proud of the dedicated individuals working in our various teams, including our expert customer service department who are experts in the field and will go to great lengths to offer streamlined, bespoke solutions.

Connect with us today and let us support your business as only we can.