COLLABORATIVE FOR CUBES SHOWS HOW B2B COMPANIES CAN INCREASE SALES.
Customer-facing businesses are constantly looking to make customers happy. Consumers are well aware of this because they’re bombarded with advertisements and other marketing efforts claiming how companies strive to satisfy them.
There is one issue less well known to the average consumer — but readily apparent to CEOs who must operate at the 100,000 feet level: for business-to-business (B2B) companies, increasing sales is just as important as satisfying customers.
B2B customers are different than the targets of business-to-customer (B2C) organizations. B2C consumers buy in smaller amounts and more often, make purchases at the individual level, and may be emotional in their buying behavior. B2B customers, on the other hand, are more rational, driven by value and price, engage several people in the purchase and consumption decision, and have long decision and consumption cycles.
Because B2B buyers are perceived to be driven more by price and value as a product and service attribute, their vendors often find themselves in the “value trap.” But as shown in a recent Collaborative for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy (Collaborative for CUBES™) analysis, the value trap can be avoided by focusing on customer satisfaction over other more prominent sales metrics.
