The global B2B e-commerce market had a value of $6,883 billion in 2021. By 2030, that value is set to reach $33,317 billion. That’s a CAGR of 19.7% between those nine years. This goes to show how rapidly this market is growing, and one of the reasons behind this is that more people are investing and joining the B2B market. That means more competition for your B2B company when it comes to retaining top clients.
Retaining top customers is the key to business success. However, it’s not easy to retain them in a cutthroat marketplace. B2B companies need an effective strategy to hold onto their most lucrative accounts and keep them happy.
Here are a few ways to ensure that your B2B company can keep hold of its best clients.
Ensuring Strategic Account Planning
Strategic account planning in B2B sales is a process that helps ensure each of your clients has a personal relationship with your company, and it’s one of the best ways to retain top clients. One of the primary benefits of strategic account planning is that it can lead to better customer service, which in turn leads to happier clients. When you have an established roadmap for serving your client well, you’ll be able to anticipate their needs more easily and reach out when they’re open for business again.
Strategic account planning also helps ensure client retention because it allows businesses like yours to nurture relationships with past clients so that they feel comfortable referring others who might benefit from working with you too.
Proper account planning isn’t just beneficial for existing customers. Some companies have found success by expanding their target market through this method by targeting potential new customers who fit well with their existing ones.
Receiving Feedback
As a business owner, you understand that your top clients are the foundation of your revenue. You may feel like you have to do everything in your power to retain them, but that’s not always true. In fact, one of the best ways to keep these key customers happy is by actually receiving feedback from them.
The feedback can be positive or negative and should include specific examples and actionable steps for improvement. The best way to ensure this happens is by asking promptly. If your client has a year-long contract with you, consider reaching out to them for feedback once every month or quarter. On top of that, you also need to show them that you’re working on their feedback. Otherwise, there’s no point in doing this.
Sending Regular Updates
Sending regular updates to your customer is a great way to keep them in the loop and ensure they know what’s happening in the company. This helps build trust, which is essential for retaining customers.
You should send these updates regularly (weekly or monthly) depending on how often you communicate with them and what kind of relationship you have with them. The updates should include news about new products or services that are launching, changes to prices, and any other relevant information.
Know the difference between spamming them and keeping them updated about important stuff. The former will lead to a poor understanding between the two, while the latter will help strengthen your existing bond.
Understanding Pain Points
One of the best ways to understand what your clients want and need is to ask them directly. Ask specific questions about where they are having trouble or what their pain points are. Then, ask them how they would like for you to address those problems moving forward. If you can get a sense of what’s going on in their organization, it will make it easier for you to provide solutions that address those issues.
It may be tempting just to think about what’s best for you when thinking about which clients should remain as part of your client roster. However, remember that if a client isn’t getting value out of working with your company (or vice versa), there’s probably no reason why this relationship should continue.
Exceeding Client Expectations
You should be exceeding your client’s expectations, and it all comes back to the basics. Deliver on the promise you made when you first started working with them. Are they getting what they need? If not, why?
Make sure that as you’re planning things out, you’ve got a clear understanding of what makes each client unique and what will keep them happy so that their needs can be met accordingly.
Data is a vital resource for making decisions about how to improve both B2B companies’ customer retention strategies and sales processes. Use data from past interactions with clients to develop future strategies for retaining top customers by tailoring to their specific needs instead.
Developing a Dedicated Team for Handling Client Needs
Approximately 81% of consumers say that they will make another purchase if they like the customer service experience. This is something that’s more applicable to retail shopping, but it also has implications for B2B companies. After all, an efficient support team is everything clients ask for. As for the top clients, they deserve a little extra.
When you’re building a scalable business, it’s crucial to have a dedicated team in place that can ensure your top clients’ needs are being met. This is especially true if you want to turn on the sales spigot when you face challenging periods in the market. You may be tempted to outsource this process, but make sure your customers are happy with it. Otherwise, they might switch to a different B2B company for their needs.
A dedicated team will know what each client prefers based on their past interactions with the company and its employees. They’ll also be able to anticipate whether there will be any issues before they arise. That’s what makes these teams so vital when it comes to retaining high-value clients.
Alibaba, Amazon, ChinaAseanTrade, DIYTrade, and eBay Inc are some of the biggest players in the B2B market right now. The US, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region are some of the biggest consumers of their services. One of two things will happen in the future. Either some of these big companies will take over your top clients, or a new player will jump into the scene to do the same. Either way, the only thing that will prevent this from happening is client retention in the best way possible.
The key to retaining clients is to make them feel like they’re the most important thing in your business. Even if you have other clients, their needs must be met, and their expectations exceeded at all times. Thus, keep these points in mind whenever you’re planning to retain a client over time.
