Should B2B E-commerce Bet on Product Experience?

Summarize this article

Product eXperience Management (PXM) helps customers get to know a brand’s products better and picture themselves using them. This is made possible largely through product information management (PIM) software. Should PIM, and more broadly PXM, become standard in B2B online commerce?

B2B, a wealth of opportunities

Online commerce, booming among businesses in every sector, still has significant growth potential. B2B business models are reinventing themselves and opening new paths, especially in product information and personalization. More than ever, B2B digital marketing puts the customer at the center of sales processes: managing the customer experience as a whole has become an essential task and a major challenge for companies. And at the heart of this B2B market are key levers to activate: customer experience and product experience, which have become inseparable.

Customer experience and product experience: what sets them apart?

What is customer experience?

Customer experience (CX) refers to all the interactions a company, brand or service provider has with its customers. Customers form their perceptions and opinions across every touchpoint available to them, so each step of the customer journey must deliver a positive experience, from product discovery to the purchase itself and on to exchanges with customer service or after-sales support.

Customer experience management starts even before a product is purchased or a service is used: consumers are strongly influenced by the way a company interacts with them. Meeting customer needs in depth and individually, reacting quickly to a problem and solving it, anticipating requests and offering the right deals are what set a successful customer experience apart.

What is product experience?

Product experience is one component of customer experience. More specifically, it refers to the relationship between the products an online retailer offers and consumers, from discovering an item to using it, whatever the channel (physical or digital commerce).

Product experience is now an essential lever for growing your business and meeting customer expectations more closely. With personalization and omnichannel on the rise, delivering a refined, personalized product experience is one of the most important aspects of B2B e-commerce.

From product experience to PXM

Product experience naturally calls for managing that experience, which is what PXM is about. Product eXperience Management is the process of giving users the right product information, on the right channel and at the right time, to increase sales, product awareness and customer loyalty. It also aims to reduce returns, dissatisfaction and information requests to customer service. In a world shaped by process digitalization at every level, it is important to understand what sets B2B apart from B2C.

What do B2B buyers expect, and what sets them apart?

For several years now, the e-commerce world has gone through regular upheavals, with each innovation improving and transforming it. Adapting to the modern B2B buyer is essential for greater operational efficiency, a better conversion rate and fewer returns: that is the role of a PIM tool. It helps companies meet the challenges of modern marketing, which are:

• Digital acceleration: in the digital age, buyer behavior has become more volatile and unpredictable. Faced with countless options, buyers expect consistent interactions from brands, and this expectation matters even more in B2B, where average order values are higher and sales cycles longer.
• Personalization: it stems from the growth of digital tools. Institutional buyers have more and more options and are increasingly well informed about a brand’s products and those of its competitors. Their decisions are more considered and better researched, so the quality of product information must come first.
• Omnichannel: sellers must offer a unique value proposition and a smoother product experience, whatever the sales channel (physical, digital or hybrid).
• Process automation: customer experience management software is multiplying. Companies therefore need to choose the right tool for their industry and customer base, so they can address every aspect of the interaction with customers or prospects precisely.

As product data sources multiply and grow more complex, meeting these expectations is getting harder. Even so, using a digital platform specialized in PXM, such as the one Synolia offers, which can be part of a B2B e-commerce replatforming project, makes it possible to meet these challenges successfully.

How does B2B product experience differ from B2C?

B2C online commerce focuses on selling products for personal use to individual customers. B2B customers, on the other hand, represent an organization: they may be executives, managers or employees of the buying companies. A B2B PIM strategy therefore needs to account for a few differences:

• The decision-making stages are longer and more complex. Because B2B buyers are generally less impulsive and more discerning than B2C buyers, they do more research before buying. This raises the bar for product information.
• Complex B2B purchasing processes can involve several people at different levels of the hierarchy, so the product must speak both to decision makers and to the teams who will ultimately use it.
• Business-to-business sales often involve delivering goods or equipment in large quantities, whereas B2C sales are mostly retail. The average order value is therefore higher in B2B than in B2C.
• Customer acquisition cost is higher in B2B than in B2C, which is why precise targeting and a fully personalized product experience matter so much.

Despite these nuances, it is worth noting that for companies selling in both B2B and B2C, a PIM is all the more valuable because it lets them centralize information for the 2 types of business at the same time.

PXM or B2B PIM?

The two go hand in hand: adopting a PIM solution is the key to a PXM strategy, in B2C and B2B alike. A PIM aggregates all the key product information and remains an essential part of product experience management strategies, which focus on interaction. Organizations use PIM to structure, describe and showcase their products and services. PXM, for its part, is the process through which companies shape the various interactions consumers have with their products, all in a multichannel context.

Why B2B e-commerce should bet on PXM

PXM makes it possible to manage overall B2B distribution strategies. With such a tool, B2B online sellers become more competitive and address their customers in a more personalized way. That is why it is important to understand the “why” and the “how” of PIM, to get the most out of it.

What is the added value of B2B PIM software?

To meet the specific challenges of B2B, adding a PIM tool to your PXM strategy is essential to seize every opportunity the web offers. Good product information management lets you:

• Make better use of product data: with the insights the PIM provides, you can expand or improve your product offering (product page, print catalog, brand positioning, presentation on a marketplace, etc.)
• Ensure consistency in the messages the company wants to convey
• Control the customer experience across sales channels
• Increase sales

To do so, comprehensive, easy-to-use software makes it possible to provide all the product information customers need.

What role does PIM play at the heart of PXM?

Using a PIM tool to automate the tedious, repetitive tasks tied to product content lets teams focus on making information contextual and relevant before it is distributed across all channels. Within a PXM ecosystem, the PIM centralizes product data in a single interface, which can include other interconnected software (for customer service management or marketing automation, for example, as in Synolia’s Digital eXperience Platform). These tools make it possible to harness product data intelligence to streamline the PXM strategy even further.

Implementing a PIM therefore means:

• Centralizing and structuring all product information in a single repository
• Keeping the database up to date to give every team access to high-quality product information sources
• Collecting all the data from in-house software (CRM, images, documents…) and linking it to product data
• Easily designing catalogs and product sheets in PDF format
• Refining every online product offering (e-commerce sites, marketplaces…)
• Tracking performance in real time
• Streamlining supplier relationships and promoting the brand image of the company

Product information quality and a contextualized offering are must-have ingredients for seizing new e-commerce opportunities in the B2B ecosystem. By adopting a B2B PIM, companies put product offering management at the heart of their growth strategies and sell more effectively.

In summary

Product experience management, or PXM, is now essential to building a brand identity and growing a company’s online business: it ensures an optimal emotional connection with customers. To be complete, product information must be tailored precisely to many criteria, such as region, language, cultural norms, sales channel and much more.

With the right set of tools, companies can now implement a B2B PIM solution as part of their PXM strategy to boost sales, build brand loyalty and increase their e-commerce revenue.

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