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Acquiring customers is vitally important for B2B businesses, and advanced technology can help improve the strategy of reaching out to and engaging potential clients. A combination of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Data Analytics capabilities, along with traditional marketing methods, creates an excellent blend for attracting and interacting with B2B customers. Let's explore how using technology can improve B2B customer acquisition, and discover specific tech solutions to help you stay ahead in the B2B market.

Technology to improve B2B customer engagement

AI provides several tools to enhance the customer experience, such as predictive analytics, chatbots, recommendation systems, voice assistants, and behavioral scoring. By applying these tools, businesses can better understand their customers and provide them with a more personalized experience, which can lead to increased satisfaction, engagement and, ultimately, increased sales.

A recent Gartner survey found that the majority of B2B customers, 86%, expect companies to be well-informed about their personal data during service interactions.

Therefore, to establish a robust connection with your customers, the only choice you have is to gather as much information about them as possible and interact with them on a regular basis.

Customer Relationship Management

Today's marketing professionals, and software developers believe that companies must have CRM. But who really needs a CRM system and why? What does it give to a company?

The software arranges customer and transaction data, tracks customer interactions, and automates tasks such as generating custom documents, producing reports, and setting reminders. This enhances managers' productivity and expedites the sales process. Additionally, CRM stores all communication history with each customer on their profile. You can always see all messages and hear call recordings.

Basically, CRM optimizes the work of sales, marketing, and customer support by engaging customers and driving interaction at every stage of the customer journey. The latest CRM software is now smarter than a simple customer database because it assesses leads and develops optimal sales strategies through AI.

Automating back-office support and access to knowledge bases can increase workforce efficiency. If AI and automation provide personnel with current customer information prior to a call, they'll be better equipped to promptly resolve queries. Furthermore, real-time tailored instructions will result in a personalized customer experience.

The most popular CRMs: Salesforce, Zoho, Freshworks

Personalized Recommendation Engines

Advanced recommendation engines that use AI to provide highly personalized product and content recommendations to B2B customers, increasing cross-sell and up-sell opportunities. Personalisation systems tailor and refine customer experiences, including automated marketing, web pages and product suggestions, by analyzing customer data based on behavior. These tools automate the process of segmenting, testing and distributing marketing efforts, ensuring campaigns are both efficient and engaging.

Personalized recommendations make online experience more user-friendly. It's like a helpful friend who knows what you enjoy and suggests things you might like.

Some recommendation systems utilize up-to-date data to modify recommendations based on changes in user behavior. This guarantees that customers are always shown relevant content or products.

The most popular CDPs: Braze, CleverTap, Yieldify

Customer Data Platforms

The rise of ever more advanced data collection and analytics methods and tools empowers businesses to dig deep into their customers' behaviors, preferences, and pain points. Harnessing insights from the collected data allows businesses to personalize messaging and offerings, make tighter and more meaningful connections, and show a deeper understanding of the pains and goals of potential clients.

60% of customers say they're more likely to make a repeat purchase after having a personalized customer experience. (Twilio)

Customer data platforms (CDPs) are becoming more and more popular for decision-making. It is quite similar to data management platforms (DMPs), but CDPs have a narrower focus and are designed to create an integrated omnichannel customer database that can aggregate customer data from various customer touch points.

CDPs give you a complete understanding of your customers, allowing you to gain valuable insights and see every point of contact.

It records everything your customers do across multiple channels, including websites, mobile apps, and social media. It keeps track of their preferences based on their activities. Additionally, predictive modeling tools can identify where and when to take action – the product can literally anticipate the next customer interaction, improving the depth of engagement.

The most popular CDPs: Insider, Klaviyo, Bloomreach

AI-Powered Email Marketing

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the power to help you build successful email marketing campaigns, tailor your digital marketing messages, and ultimately increase opens, clicks, and conversions. Email marketing platforms use artificial intelligence to improve the content and timing of email messages, resulting in increased engagement. These programs analyze large amounts of data to optimize the way you communicate. They are smart tools, using AI, which analyze your clients' email responses to recommend the best way to respond. For instance, if a customer asks about a product or service, it sends an email with a quote to a company representative. It figures out the most suitable timing and frequency for sending the email by considering the unique properties of each customer on your list.

The most popular AI-Powered Email Marketing Tools: Phrasee, Seventh Sense, GetResponse

Chatbots and virtual assistants

Using natural language processing (NLP), AI chatbots imitate natural human communication. They answer questions and solve problems for customers when they contact the help desk, and as a result, routine tasks are automated. To make their responses more accurate, AI chatbots collect and analyze customer data. AI chatbots can continuously improve their communication skills by learning from real conversations your customer service team has with clients.

Businesses can significantly reduce the cost of their customer service team by implementing chatbots. And importantly, you can improve the customer experience by providing 24/7 customer support with AI chatbots. With chatbots that are always available, you can take care of your customers even when your competitors are not. Automated responses can be given to frequently asked questions, giving support staff more time to address complex inquiries, and handle feedback and complaints.

The most popular Chatbots and virtual assistants: IBM watsonx Assistant, Kore.AI, yellow.ai

Technology implementation challenge

Creating a great customer experience requires a balance between empathy and technology. Without a balance, it's easy to fall into the trap of "Fake Empathy", using automation to simulate interest in the customer. What does "Fake Empathy" look like? Endless and pointless emails from the company, chatbots and e-assistants providing answers that do not solve the issue, as well as product recommendations that are not relevant at checkout, all contribute to aggravation and a negative customer experience. Technology and automation that ignore empathy and personalized customer insights will drive churn rather than increase efficiency.

To provide the best customer experience, it's vital to truly comprehend the client – their identity, desires, issues, aspirations, and sentiments. Thus, before implementing any technology, a well-defined and clear empathy map must be established.

Sadly, multiple businesses forget the importance of empathy and jump straight into utilizing complex technologies, only to later backtrack and realize the mistake, returning to the starting point of understanding the customers. We strongly suggest commencing the automation of processes only after gathering and analyzing customer data. This order will ensure that automation benefits your business.

To determine the optimal set of technology solutions to help your business improve customer engagement, consult with strategic marketing and IT experts.

Improving customer service through technology

Artificial intelligence is not only an everyday part of our lives, but also an irreplaceable tool for business owners. These clever tools that use artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques help companies communicate more effectively with B2B clients, providing a more detailed view of their needs and preferences. As a result, better and more appropriate interactions are established, which contribute to higher customer acquisition and retention rates. The subtler company's feel of its audience, the more effectively it can fulfill clients' needs – which is a huge competitive advantage, increasing sales to new clients and loyalty of existing ones. Applying the latest tech solutions and services, you optimize routine workflows, cutting costs and saving resources.