Research suggests that 80% of customers on B2B commerce platforms expect to receive a buying experience that’s on par with that offered to their B2C counterparts1 – placing a great deal of pressure on businesses to up their game.
However, 75% of B2B customers feel that their expectations for personalized shopping experiences are not being met.2 The reason? Conventional personalization platforms can’t adapt to the unique nature of B2B commerce.
B2B ecommerce personalization comes down to helping buyers get what they need faster. That starts in the search box, typically the primary point of interaction for online shoppers with a company’s website. This is especially true for B2B customers who are driven by intent and know just what they need. Unsurprisingly, 92% of B2B purchases begin with search.3
Here are five signs it may be high time for you to switch up the B2B search experience for your buyers and tips on how to proceed.
1. You risk disengagement by offering shoppers an access-unaware discovery experience
Within a business ecosystem, your client may have multiple shopper groups, each with a designated buyer who purchases for the group. These groups may have specific viewing permissions for categories and products, sometimes with overlaps.
Take, for instance, a purchasing manager knee-deep in orders and invoices – they’d naturally require full access permissions to get the job done. Conversely, an associate might only need a peek at the price list to do their thing.
Pro Tip: Get something that considers distinct product visibility rules across multiple shopper groups and for individual shoppers within a client organization. That way, people can see what’s relevant for them in the context of what their responsibilities are. It will ensure shoppers do not experience decision fatigue and optimize time spent on the buying platform.
2. Contracted buyers cannot access negotiated prices for products on your marketplace
B2B sellers often have different prices they’ve negotiated with other buyers. For example, if a buyer purchases large quantities, you want to give them bulk-ordering discounts. This record is typically managed by product permissions and entitlements in ERP and CRM systems — that house data outside the B2B ecommerce platform.
That’s tough for search engines to handle — so buyers often only see pricing on a product detail page or, worse, that confounded “Call for Pricing”. When buyers see regular pricing or contract terms that do not apply to their organization, it’s a very jarring experience. You can expect escalation emails to fly!
Pro Tip: Your site’s search and discovery solution will be the first to reflect fidelity. Implement a search solution that interprets and applies contract terms in real time, ensuring users see accurate pricing based on their specific agreements. Doing this will enhance trust and satisfaction among users and improve efficiency in contract management.
3. Shoppers bounce off after using your site search, unable to find what they were looking for
High exit rates from your search results page are an alarming sign, and you’d be shocked at how many B2B ecommerce platforms face this daily. Legacy search experiences are limited to keyword matching between user input and product catalog. It is based on the wildly incorrect assumption that users are typing precisely what you have named your products – right down to their model number!
Pro Tip: You require an advanced search technology that empowers business shoppers to explore items not solely by name but also by parameters such as SKU, category, partial name, etc. A robust search engine transcends mere keyword matching; it facilitates B2B shoppers in locating desired items with an intuitive and efficient browsing functionality, such as filtering, sorting, and faceted navigation.
4. Your merchandising rules are manual and do not balance user preferences with business objectives
B2B companies require control over catalog presentation to users, choosing quickly which offerings to promote and which products to highlight. However, with vast catalogs and multiple sub-divisions typical of B2B commerce, this can soon become a mammoth task blighted by a unidirectional approach that doesn’t optimize user behavior. Additionally, large B2B organizations with multiple sub-divisions must be able to roll out merchandising guidelines at the sub-level.
Pro Tip: Get a search solution that balances auto-optimization driven by machine learning and business/brand objectives by setting the desired weights and rules. While offering users ML-generated product recommendations, dynamically re-ranking search results to ensure the most popular products appear at the top, or suggesting AI-generated synonyms based on user searches, an intelligent search solution will also contextualize recommendations to fit your brand and unique business goals. This includes features such as ‘best paired with’ or ‘frequently bought together‘ to drive cross-selling, increase order value, and ‘related products’ to maximize conversions and catalog exposure.
5. Your product pages don’t show the most recent stock information
Picture this. A shopper wants to order a batch of 50 laptops for their office, and after searching, comparing, selecting, and ordering – they get to know the required numbers aren’t available. This happens when variable attributes such as stock levels, like custom pricing, live in an external location that does not communicate with your ecommerce front-end experience directly. It must be out of sight if it’s ‘out of stock’, right?! Inadequate real-time pricing and availability data integration into your catalog leads to discrepancies between displayed information and actual stock levels and frustrates customers.
Pro Tip: Get something that can store and fetch inventory data (& shopper tier pricing or any attribute that may not be indexed in the catalog) from an external system and surface that as part of the search request. That will ensure shopper satisfaction and reduce load on your support team.
Conclusion
The B2C market often dominates CX discussions, but today’s businesses demand an experience to match the elevated levels afforded to consumers. Expectations are evolving, and you’d be wise to meet them. Why not start with personalized site search – the most effective personalization method for B2B commerce worldwide?4
If you recognize any of these issues (even a single one), you must consider upgrading from your current site search solution to a modern-day integrated, personalized search platform.
Check out B2B Find, Algonomy’s versatile search solution that combines sought-after B2C features with the chops to handle the complexity of B2B commerce platforms, and curates experiences based on the shopper’s contracted products, pricing, and individual preferences.
