2. 👋🏻
I’m Kirby.
Product Experience Designer
B2B Enthusiast
MSTS Team Removing Pain from Invoicing
Lover of Post-Its, Workshops, and Tight Agendas
GETTINGSTARTED
1 Minute
3. Let’s get acquainted.
2 Minutes
Open
packet!
Create a table tent with
your name and
company.
Introduce
yourself.
GETTINGSTARTED
4. How do you sell: Direct?
Via a distributor? Both?
Raised Hand Poll
GETTINGSTARTED
5. Five problems in B2B commerce.
Top 5 B2B eCommerce Challenges - Virto Commerce
Challenges for B2B eCommerce & How To Address Them - Clarity Ventures
Connecting
Awareness
and Product
SEO,
In-bound
marketing, CRM,
Distribution
relationships,
Product assortment
and filtering,
Integrated specs
and content
Digital
Platform
Flexibility
Large quantity
transactions, Cart
abandonment, Bulk
deal pricing,
Negotiated pricing &
quotation system,
Order approval
processes and
integrations
Internal
System
Cohesiveness
Inventory
integration, Multiple
vendor catalogs,
ERP system
connected
eCommerce,
Business process
management,
Shipping solutions,
Different
fulfillment areas
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Account
management,
Invoicing processes,
Customer service,
Purchase order
management,
Payment processing
Maintaining
B2B
Loyalty
Incentives, data
insights, customer
intimacy touches,
intentional
experience creation
6. Maintaining
B2B
Loyalty
Incentives, Data
insights, Customer
intimacy touches,
Intentional
experience creation
Five problems in B2B commerce.
Connecting
Awareness
and Product
SEO,
In-bound
marketing, CRM,
Distribution
relationships,
Product assortment
and filtering,
Integrated specs
and content
Digital
Platform
Flexibility
Large quantity
transactions, Cart
abandonment, Bulk
deal pricing,
Negotiated pricing &
quotation system,
Order approval
processes and
integrations
Internal
System
Cohesiveness
Inventory
integration, Multiple
vendor catalogs,
ERP system
connected
eCommerce,
Business process
management,
Shipping solutions,
Different
fulfillment areas
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Account
management,
Invoicing processes,
Customer service,
Purchase order
management,
Payment processing
7. Maintaining
B2B Loyalty
Let’s go deeper.
Unique B2B
Purchase Expectations
The process of setting up
account details, payment
methods, and delivery details
after deciding to buy to
completing the transfer of
payment.
Offerings to generate
loyalty for repeat purchases
and brand/platform
preference.
8. When we leave today
Inventory the current experience
Start the map for your team to make the ideal experience
11. Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
The process of setting up account details, payment
methods, and delivery details after deciding to buy to
completing the transfer of payment.
12. No-self service
Multi-step processes
Working across multiple teams
Delays in purchasing
No access to credit/terms
No PO/AP processes at checkout
“Pay the way I want”
Invoice delivery and format
Invoice correctness
Customer Experience
Incorrect information
Tax complexities
Corporate/global structures
Custom invoice preferences
Collecting payments
Processing payments
Lack of capital
Known
Pain
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Internal Pains
13. No-self service
Multi-step setup
Working across multiple teams
Delays in purchasing
No access to credit/terms
No PO/AP processes at checkout
“Pay the way and when I want”
Invoice delivery and format
Invoice correctness
Customer Experience
Incorrect information
Tax complexities
Corporate/global structures
Custom invoice preferences
Collecting payments
Processing payments
Lack of capital
Known
Pain
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Internal Pains
14. Get New Customers Onboarded
MAPPINGTHEPAINS
The onboarding failure ratio
for web-apps is 40-60%, for
mobile apps it is 70-80%.2
Only 37% of B2B firms deliver a
highly tailored onboarding process
based on the understanding of
specific customer needs.1
1Divante on Convincing Clients
2 North Highland Consulting
15. No-self service
Multi-step processes
Working across multiple teams
Delays in setup/notification
No access to credit/terms
No PO/AP processes at checkout
“Pay the way and when I want”
Invoice delivery and format
Invoice correctness
Customer Experience
Correct information
Tax complexities
Corporate/global structures
Custom invoice preferences
Collecting payments
Processing payments
Lack of capital
Known
Pain
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Internal Pains
17. No-self service
Multi-step processes
Working across multiple teams
Delays in setup/notification
No access to credit/terms
No PO/AP processes at checkout
“Pay the way and when I want”
Invoice delivery and format
Invoice correctness
Customer Experience
Correct information
Tax complexities
Corporate/global structures
Custom invoice preferences
Collecting payments
Processing payments
Lack of capital
Known
Pain
Unique B2B
Purchase
Expectations
Internal Pains
The average Days Sales Outstanding
(DSO) is now 66 days, measured
globally — 10 percent higher than in
2008.3
“delaying payments to suppliers is a
tactic by companies to use their vendor
as an “invisible bank” for free
financing.”
- Euler Hermes Chief Economist Ludovic Subran
3PYMTS.com on Late Payments
18. More Pain
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
Q: What additional challenges
have you seen in the B2B
purchase experience?
19. Maintaining
B2B Loyalty
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
Offerings to generate loyalty for repeat purchases
and brand/platform preference.
20. No incentives
No personalization
Process feels like friction
No transparency
Customer Experience
Cost of incentives
Scaling to personalization
Misalignment on terms
Low switching costs
Murky sales data
Known
Pain
Building
Loyalty
Internal Pains
4B2X Partners on Driving Loyalty
21. More Pain
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
Q: What challenges do you
have in building B2B loyalty?
22. Open
packet!
Where do you see the pain?
Get your
dot votes.
Vote on the
items that
mean the most
to you.
Let’s
reorganize!
28. DESIGNINGNEW
How do I make a 5-star experience?
More than 8 in 10 B2B buyers
want the same experience as when
they’re buying for themselves in
B2C.
- Salesforce Research
29. Part I
Unique B2B Purchase Expectations
DESIGNINGNEW
Automation & Instant | Integrated Setup | Tailored Experts
30. Design 5-Stars
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
AutomatedTailored
1.
2.
Idea Idea
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
|Automated
|Instant
|Integrated
|Tailored<example or idea>
32. Design 5-Stars
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
1.
2.
Idea IdeaIdea
Idea
XXX
XXX
XXX
XXX
|Integrated
|Outsourced
|Customizable
33. Maintaining B2B Loyalty Examples
Seamless Buying | Easy Insights | Transparent & Predictive
DESIGNINGNEW Part III
34. Design 5-Stars
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
Tailored
1.
2.
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Idea IdeaIdea
Idea
Idea
Idea
|Seamless
|Insightful
|Transparent
|Predictive
35. Map Your Experience
• Finalize your worksheet
2 MinutesMAPPING
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Tailored
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
Idea
37. When we leave today…
• Inventoried the current experience
• Started the map for your ideal experience
Extras!
• Copy of slides and worksheet emailed to you
• Internal communication tools sheet
42. DESIGNTHINKING
What is a 10-star experience?
https://medium.com/@reidhoffman/how-to-scale-a-
magical-experience-4-lessons-from-airbnbs-brian-
chesky-eca0a182f3e3
43. DESIGNTHINKING
“We basically took one part of our product and we extrapolated: what
would a 5-star experience be? Then we went crazy. A 5-star
experience is: You knock on the door, they open the door, they let you
in. Great. That’s not a big deal. You’re not going to tell every friend
about it. You might say, ‘I used Airbnb. It worked.’ So we thought,
‘What would a 7-star experience be?’”
44. DESIGNTHINKING
“What’s a 7-star experience? You knock on the door. The host
opens. Get in. ‘Welcome. Here’s my full kitchen. I know you like
surfing. There’s a surfboard waiting for you. I’ve booked lessons for
you. It’s going to be an amazing experience. By the way here’s my
car. You can use my car. And I also want to surprise you. There’s this
best restaurant in the city of San Francisco. I got you a table there.’
And you’re like, ‘Whoa. This is way beyond.’ So what would a 10-star
check in be?”
45. DESIGNTHINKING
“A 10-star check in would be The Beatles check in. In 1964. I’d get
off the plane and there’d be 5,000 high school kids cheering my name
with cars welcoming me to the country. I’d get to the front yard of your
house and there’d be a press conference for me.”
“The point of the the process is that maybe 9, 10, 11 are not feasible. But
if you go through the crazy exercise, there’s some sweet spot between
“They showed up and they opened the door” and “I went to space.”
That’s the sweet spot.
You have to almost design the extreme to come backwards.”
HELLO!
I am product experience designer. That means that I work with executives, designers, and software engineers to create solutions that will make their customers love them.
I have built solutions in education, aviation, pediatrics, and even museums.
Today, I work in B2B Fintech with MSTS. I have spent years with Fortune 500 and SMB companies looking at their transaction-to-invoice-to-getting-paid experience.--- and how to make it better. They are going to remove the pain from B2B invoices.
I also love workshops. As part of this process, we use workshops to get up off of laptops and cell phones to take time to THINK… push back, look, listen, think bigger.
Overall, this is a workshop. So let’s start by making a name plate and introduce yourself to one person next to you.
Write your name and please introduce yourself to a person at your table.
As we look at the landscape of the B2B buying process, I break it down into five areas.
1: the focus is more on marketing and getting your product catalog out there.
2: focus on your ecommerence system and bulk deal pricing, quoting and order approvals.
3: integrating of ERP systems, shipping and fulfilment
4: focused the B2B payment process
5. What can you do to get repeat buying – outside of discounting
Top 5 B2B eCommerce Challenges - Virto Commerce
https://virtocommerce.com/blog/top5-b2b-ecommerce-challenges
Challenges for B2B eCommerce & How To Address Them
https://www.clarity-ventures.com/articles/9-challenges-for-b2b-ecommerce-how-to-address-them
Inside of these fives stages, we are going to focus on the last two, because I feel they are the least discussed.
There are tools and tactics for raising awareness
There are booths on booths at this conference to pick an ecommerece platform to solve problems.
For connecting that platform to your internal systems, there is an army developers you might or consultants that will
But in these last two…. We are going to focus on how they can help build out your 5star experience and result in more loyalty.
When I talk about these, it is good to clarify what they mean.
In our two areas, we are doing to break down purchase expectations into the two stages of making a purchase((setup & Payment) and then round out with loyalty.
You should see a packet in front of you, and we have treasures inside of there.
Activity 1: Learn and Assess – 15 minutes,
- For our first activity, we are review the known problems and you offer up items from your own experiences – either in previous companies or your current.
I am going to review common pain points found in my work over the last three years... While we are going thru them, if you have any to add… ready your note and we will add it to our list.
Customer Decision Maker
Customer Accounts Payable
Internal Teams
For our first area, we are going to break into two parts of purchase expectations: getting your account setup and then transferring the actual cash.
For our first area, we are going to break into two parts of purchase expectations: getting your account setup and then transferring the actual cash.
Customer Experience:
No-self service
Multi-step processes
Working across multiple teams
Delays in setup/notification
No access to credit/terms
No PO/AP Processes at Checkout
“Pay the way I want” – Customers that want to pay on their terms. For example, Budweiser on 120 day terms.
Invoice delivery & format: Needing to accommodate for AP automation or AP portals; format needs to include the PO number or line item spec numbers
Invoice correctness – Did the invoice reflect the details of the agreement down to the bulk pricing details or line item specification numbers?
Internal:
Correct information: Correct billing address & Correct contacts
Tax complexities: Tax-exemption & Localization tax-reporting
Corporate/global structures: Unknown hierarchies & Multi-currency
Custom preferences
Collecting payments
Processing Payment: Multiple payment types & Payment application
Lack of capital
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Overdue Invoices: https://atradius.us/reports/payment-practices-barometer-americas-2018.html
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2018/late-payments-insolvency-trade-credit/
For our first area, we are going to break into two parts of purchase expectations: getting your account setup and then transferring the actual cash.
Customer Experience:
No-self service: no way for a customer to buy online without a sales rep
Multi-step processes: the process to get up has too many steps
Working across multiple teams: frustrated when having to work with multiple teams
Delays in setup/notification: not hearing back for days or not getting notified
No access to credit/terms: not being able to allow someone to buy on invoice terms
Internal:
Correct information: Correct billing address & Correct contacts
Tax complexities: Tax-exemption & Localization VAT tax-reporting
Corporate/global structures: Unknown hierarchies & Multi-currency
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Overdue Invoices: https://atradius.us/reports/payment-practices-barometer-americas-2018.html
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2018/late-payments-insolvency-trade-credit/
Our first two focus
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Customer Experience:
No PO/AP Processes at Checkout: the ability to input a PO #, validate that that person can purchase for that company OR get an approval
“Pay the way I want” – Customers that want to pay on their terms. For example, Budweiser on 120 day terms.
Invoice delivery & format: delivery includes to accommodate for AP automation or AP portals; format needs to include the PO number or line item spec numbers
Invoice correctness – Did the invoice reflect the details of the agreement down to the bulk pricing details or line item specification numbers?
Internal:
Custom preferences: the system limitations of custom payments
Collecting payments: cost and people to get the payments collected.
Processing Payment: Multiple payment types & Payment application
Lack of capital
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Overdue Invoices: https://atradius.us/reports/payment-practices-barometer-americas-2018.html
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2018/late-payments-insolvency-trade-credit/
Customer Experience:
No PO/AP Processes at Checkout: the ability to input a PO #, validate that that person can purchase for that company OR get an approval
“Pay the way I want” – Customers that want to pay on their terms. For example, Budweiser on 120 day terms.
Invoice delivery & format: Needing to accommodate for AP automation or AP portals; format needs to include the PO number or line item spec numbers
Invoice correctness – Did the invoice reflect the details of the agreement down to the bulk pricing details or line item specification numbers?
Internal:
Custom preferences: the system limitations of custom payments
Collecting payments: cost and people to get the payments collected.
Processing Payment: Multiple payment types & Payment application
Lack of capital
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Overdue Invoices: https://atradius.us/reports/payment-practices-barometer-americas-2018.html
https://www.pymnts.com/news/b2b-payments/2018/late-payments-insolvency-trade-credit/
Lets first focus on Setting up to Purchase and talking about the known pain areas.
Maybe they come to you via your internal sales team:
Maybe they come to via website:
- BUT if they are failing in self-service, our manual processes must be helping --- right? Sorry, As just around 35% actually offer a tailored experience to is made around customer experience.
Either way… here are the stats.
From our experience, these are some of the complexities qualitative pains from the industry.
If they are on your checkout site, there is a large chance that the Buyer Decision Makers are struggling to even create their account.
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
LOYALTY
In my article The Secret to B2B E-Commerce, I articulate that the biggest difference between B2B and B2C is that the people that visit a B2B site have to be there because it is their job. And B2B users want their job to be easy. If B2B companies give their customers the tools that make their job easier, their customers will come back to the site again and again. Those tools of course include the previous elements of the formula: Google, search and navigation, intuitive transaction, and product relationships. B2B companies should consider giving customers tools that are outside of the purchase funnel such as:
Order Status and transparency into supply chain
View, print, download, and pay invoices
Bill of Materials (BOM), assemblies and sub-assemblies
View, print, download past orders and products
This is probably the most exciting and most innovative part of B2B E-Commerce. B2B companies should strive to know their customers deeply. They can do that through usability testing, customer interviews, and just visiting them and watching how their customers do their job. Give them the tools to do their job easier and they will come back.
https://hbr.org/2018/03/the-b2b-elements-of-value
https://www.ibmbigdatahub.com/infographic/four-vs-big-data -Poor quality data costs U.S. companies $3.1 trillion every year. The reason bad data costs so much is that decision makers, managers, knowledge workers, data scientists, and others must accommodate it in their everyday work. And doing so is both time-consuming and expensive. The data they need has plenty of errors, and in the face of a critical deadline, many individuals simply make corrections themselves to complete the task at hand. They don’t think to reach out to the data creator, explain their requirements, and help eliminate root causes.
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/advertising-channels/b2b-buyers-online-and-offline/ re: loyalty – Purchasers who engaged digitally post-purchase were more likely to purchase again. By category: Industrial Manufacturers 2X more likely to purchase supplementary products; Industrial Suppliers 8X more likely to purchase supplementary products; Pack & Ship suppliers 2X more likely to repurchase the same product.
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/search/#?query=B2B&page=0,0&sort_field=date&limit=12&locale=en-us¤t_source=data_points These are data points mostly about mobile.
Lets first focus on Setting up to Purchase and talking about the known pain areas.
Maybe they come to you via your internal sales team:
Maybe they come to via website:
- BUT if they are failing in self-service, our manual processes must be helping --- right? Sorry, As just around 35% actually offer a tailored experience to is made around customer experience.
Either way… here are the stats.
From our experience, these are some of the complexities qualitative pains from the industry.
If they are on your checkout site, there is a large chance that the Buyer Decision Makers are struggling to even create their account.
----
Failure of Onboarding: https://divante.co/blog/how-to-convince-clients-to-use-b2b-commerce-platform/
http://www.northhighland.com/en/insights/white-papers/hbr-north-highland-b2b-onboarding
Lets first focus on Setting up to Purchase
You have made the connection with Buyer Decision Maker (on the phone or via your website) and they want to make a purchase… on terms.. Create their B2B account.
Activity 2: Solve – 10 minutes
Now that we have looked a common pains, it is time to go to solution mode. Mapping and getting creative to the experience you want to create.
We use the term a 5-star experience.
When you customers think about a 5-star experience, they do not think about B2B, they think about all of their experiences. From the apps on their phones to the nicest hotels they stay in.
https://a.sfdcstatic.com/content/dam/www/ocms-backup/assets/pdf/datasheets/salesforce-research-fourth-annual-state-of-marketing.pdf
In order to have a 5-star experience, all of these need to work together. We reviewed pain points in the last two areas.
As a leader in your organization, the goal of this exercise to pick the directions for your teams when you return to outline where your ideal customers experiences and platforms NEED to be.
I will present themes across the digital landscape… and examples of those themes.
Create an analogy for what you wan to help communicate with your team. Startup pitch… we are the Uber for blah, blah
Create your map to start the conversation with your teams.
We use the term a 5-star experience.
When you customers think about a 5-star experience, they do not think about B2B, they think about all of their experiences. From the apps on their phones to the nicest hotels they stay in. We will map those themes back.
Onboarding experiences focus on : X
For example:
Automation and Instant: How is your signup process fast? Get on a bird. Is your business account approval/review process this fast?
Integrated platforms:
(this is simple, sign in with your LinkedIn, already created a login for your online experience and then InsideView API pulled +40 data points on industry type, company size, addresses, etc.
See Tide Marketplace, that can give someone business credit in UK using a user approved integration that can pull in 5 years of banking history.
Tailored EXPERTS: a little more of US example, when there is a question on the TurboTax platform, there is a webchat with a real person.
How do these translate to you in B2B? Think about your process and the outcomes… not how, but the outcome you want. For example:
I want an business account with terms to be created instantly
I want to integrate to be able to get a global account created automatically
I want to provide an emergency rescue experience at the moment I see a buyer get confused.
https://www.instapay.today/article/iwoca-becomes-first-business-lender-to-connect-to-uk-bank-via-open-banking/
Now, these are meant to be examples.
Fill out the
Integrations
- Customers now have invoicing systems like Ariba…need a solution for AP integrations
Outsource the Pain:
You can outsource the costs/people: Firm providing data entry, call centre, accounting, and IT services
Custom Setups:
- Invoicing and
Pull out your sheet!
First way – make it too easy to keep buying. Amazon is king here. Seemless Buying:
Amazon one-click & AmazonGO, where
Embedded Payment with uber and concur
Sales insights:
- Using tools like PlanHat or Bellwethr, out of the box AI solutions for identifying churn and up-sell opportunities
Transparent & Predictive:
- End to end delivery transparency
- Advanced logic offers:
Themes;
Insights for your sales team
Loyalty: doing business with you (from product, fulfillment, and payment) is too easy and hard to leave
Intuitive & Predictive: recommending cross-selling, knowing when the next buying time may be, opening the credit line
LOYALTY
In my article The Secret to B2B E-Commerce, I articulate that the biggest difference between B2B and B2C is that the people that visit a B2B site have to be there because it is their job. And B2B users want their job to be easy. If B2B companies give their customers the tools that make their job easier, their customers will come back to the site again and again. Those tools of course include the previous elements of the formula: Google, search and navigation, intuitive transaction, and product relationships. B2B companies should consider giving customers tools that are outside of the purchase funnel such as:
Order Status and transparency into supply chain
View, print, download, and pay invoices
Bill of Materials (BOM), assemblies and sub-assemblies
View, print, download past orders and products
This is probably the most exciting and most innovative part of B2B E-Commerce. B2B companies should strive to know their customers deeply. They can do that through usability testing, customer interviews, and just visiting them and watching how their customers do their job. Give them the tools to do their job easier and they will come back.
Pull out your sheet!
Lets talk
And no matter the industry. 5-star customer experiences are worth it. In B2B, companies have seen up to 40-80% in additional revenues. So it is worth it.
Why are you here today?
Establish that most attendees want to select their e-commerce solution, better manage their data, and maximize their data…
…but after you solve that… What’s next? Hidden problems in the B2B customer journey.
Why are you here today?
Establish that most attendees want to select their e-commerce solution, better manage their data, and maximize their data…
…but after you solve that… What’s next? Hidden problems in the B2B customer journey.
Why are you here today?
Establish that most attendees want to select their e-commerce solution, better manage their data, and maximize their data…
…but after you solve that… What’s next? Hidden problems in the B2B customer journey.