B2B purchasing decisions are complex. They\u2019re financial. They\u2019re political. But more than anything\u2014they\u2019re unpredictable. While B2B firms have more systems in place than ever to predict sales outcomes, they\u2019re still blindsided when prospects choose another vendor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But it doesn\u2019t have to be that way! To avoid this fate, it\u2019s critical to have a process in place for exploring, analyzing, and improving the buyer experience<\/a>\u2014win or lose. You might have already guessed it, but I\u2019m talking about buyer interviews.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s no one right way to collect feedback. It depends on the audience, the timing, the circumstances, and ultimately\u2014what you\u2019re trying to learn. Whether you\u2019re sending SMS surveys, analyzing social reviews, or conducting phone interviews, it\u2019s about using the right<\/em> listening technique for the situation to get the best results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following the methodology below, our own customer experience<\/a> (CX) program (Elevate) is successfully getting feedback from upwards of 90%<\/strong> of closed sales opportunities in our best months\u2014and the insights are invaluable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Here\u2019s what we\u2019re doing and why we think it is successful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n For our post-opportunity listening post, we\u2019ve found that interviews are the most effective way to engage buyers. And the intelligence we glean from these \u201cbuyer interviews\u201d is impactful across teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Interviews can either supplement or replace a post-sales survey. I\u2019ve found that many buyers actually prefer spending 30 minutes on the phone with me rather than two-minutes completing a survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, the suggestion of a phone call lets the client know that we\u2019re willing to take the time to listen\u2014that we care, we want to learn, and we want to improve. It\u2019s all about building that human connection, and it is a great<\/em> way to get sticky with new clients and show your investment from the start. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, I bet you\u2019re wondering how we efficiently scale this largely manual process!<\/p>\n\n\n\n First, we conduct dozens<\/em> of interviews each quarter. The open-ended nature of an interview allows us to ask all of the right questions and follow the conversation wherever the respondent takes it. And we use the robust insights to drive cross-functional action. Across all of our listening posts, I can confidently say buyer interviews have quickly become one of our most beloved data sources. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Here are some of the things we\u2019ve learned\u2014and the teams that have benefited\u2014by rolling out our buyer interview program:<\/p>\n\n\n\n At a regular cadence, our \u201cExperience Improvement Board\u201d looks at the emerging themes, chooses projects and specific actions, and assigns an executive owner. This owner then forms a \u201ctiger team\u201d to research and tackle the project\u2014and reports on progress each month! <\/p>\n\n\n\n If buyer interviews are not currently part of your post-opportunity strategy, they should be. They will not only increase your response rate, but will give you additional intelligence and insight into what your buyers expect from your company. It\u2019s the most personal way to request feedback and build lasting relationships, win or lose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019m not done sharing the successes of our buyer interview program. In subsequent blogs, I will talk about some of the questions we ask during interviews, challenges you may face in your conversations (and how to overcome them), interview do\u2019s and don\u2019ts, how to build your \u201cinterview team,\u201d and what sorts of insights you should specifically try to gain from interviews.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But in the meantime, if you have questions about launching or refining your own buyer interview program, I\u2019d love to talk to you. I\u2019m Josh Marans, Director Experience Improvement at Pearl-Plaza, and you can find me on Linkedin<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" B2B purchasing decisions are complex. They\u2019re financial. They\u2019re political. But more than anything\u2014they\u2019re unpredictable. While B2B firms have more systems in place than ever to predict sales outcomes, they\u2019re still blindsided when prospects choose another vendor. But it doesn\u2019t have to be that way! To avoid this fate, it\u2019s critical to have a process in Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":44349,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[152,57],"tags":[422],"industry":[],"class_list":["post-44348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-experience","category-best-practices","tag-experience-improvement"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44348","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44348"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inmoment.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=44348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Using the Right Listening Technique<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Building Human Connections<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Buyer Interviews Process<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The Insights<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Time to Get Started!<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n