User experience (UX) design has been increasingly thrust into the spotlight over the last five years. Marketers across both B2B and B2C are seeing a sharp uptake in interest around UX after businesses started to realise its importance – and crucially, how it can impact the bottom line.
Thanks to this, UX designers are not only in demand (lucky me!), but also in prime position to lead the discussion on how UX can be best utilised, including how approaches differ between B2B and B2C. Understanding its differences will help you tailor a better approach when dealing with products in these two complex and different industries.
WHAT IS UX DESIGN?
Put simply, UX design is the strategy created to understand users’ interactions with services, technologies, and products. It’s how we comprehend what people value, how they think when they decide to buy a product or a service, and how they act when purchasing something. Ultimately, it’s about putting people front and centre of your design strategy to achieve a better conversion rate. Businesses that do this successfully are willing to invest time and energy into reaching their customers, understanding their needs, and putting them at the centre of their design by consistently reshaping features and capabilities. Great UX design means you don’t overlook, underestimate, or overestimate any of the important interactions your customers need, helping you to stand out among competitors. It also benefits other businesses areas, such as customer services, sales, marketing, and product, thanks to a continuous and optimised understanding of customers.
WHAT’S THE BEST APPROACH TO ‘GOOD’ UX?
We start by observing both conscious and unconscious behaviours to help us develop the right product framework. We conduct interviews and rigorous testing where necessary to generate insights to support our initial views. Then, we use this research to tailor a specific strategy to help us build and define personas, sitemaps, user flows, navigation systems, and wireframes. Next, we build custom solutions based on real responses that will generate prototypes and interfaces. Creating a website based on customers insights saves development costs, cements customer loyalty, increases conversion rate, and generates a higher return on investment. Most B2Cs now understand that good UX equals happy users – and in turn, bigger profit margins. But many B2Bers haven’t quite caught on yet.
HOW DOES B2B DIFFER?
Unsurprisingly, B2B is a different kettle of fish. The decision-making process is not as straightforward as B2C thanks to more complex browsing patterns. This means that UX priorities are different. For example, streamlining the navigation journey so that customers can quickly find what they’re looking for is more important than improving browse functionalities. Delivering a positive experience and improving product integration across channels will create an efficient and effortless customer journey. By targeting user interactions with the right content, UX can play a key role in developing the best practice experiences for B2B, helping businesses retain valuable customers.
UX Design is critical for B2B companies because it helps to create products and services that are tailored to the specific needs and desires of their customers. In B2B industries, where the products and services are often complex and require significant investments, UX design plays an even more crucial role in helping companies to differentiate themselves and attract and retain customers.
It can also help B2B companies to increase sales and revenue. By creating a seamless user experience that makes it easy for customers to find what they need and complete their purchases, companies can increase conversion rates and drive revenue growth. Additionally, by focusing on the user experience, companies can identify areas where they can improve their products and services, leading to increased sales and revenue in the long term. For products and services that are easy to use and require minimal training, companies can reduce the time and resources required to onboard new customers. By identifying areas where the user experience can be streamlined or automated, companies can reduce the number of customer service requests and improve overall efficiency.
ASK AND YOU SHALL RECEIVE
Finally, it’s important to know that strategy is changing fast in the B2B landscape. Sales funnels are being replaced by data-driven systems and user journeys. So, there’s no better way to understand what moves your customer than to ask them directly through the right combination of user research techniques, problem definition statements, ideation, and development. UX design has become essential to how companies communicate their message. Any UX designer worth their salt will tell you that the end goal is enabling these businesses to make confident business decisions.
UX design is critical for B2B companies that want to stand out in a crowded market and provide high-quality products and services that meet the specific needs and desires of their customers. By investing in UX design, B2B companies can improve customer satisfaction, increase sales and revenue, and reduce costs and improve efficiency, making it a worthwhile investment for any business and B2B companies can benefit from developing their tailored and unique UX Research to help their future iterations.