If you actively shape the B2B customer journey, you can sustainably increase your sales by improving the customer experience. In this way, you can turn prospective customers into convinced customers who feel understood and are happy to buy from you again. However, this process, B2B customer journey mapping, requires comprehensive research and analysis. This is the only way to create a successful B2B customer journey for your products or services. There are seven steps to mapping the customer journey.

Step 1: Obtain information

Start by gathering relevant information for the customer journey mapping. This is the basis for your subsequent success. Collect relevant data about potential customers. This includes the target group, the possible points of contact throughout the purchasing process and which people are involved in the purchase.

You can use internal and external sources to gather information. Internal sources include data from marketing, service and sales, for example. You can use external sources in the form of industry reports, comparisons with other companies and industry-relevant studies.

What makes European customers tick? Download the European E-Commerce Report 2023 now and use valuable insights for your own business - free of charge!

Step 2: Create buyer personas

Buyer personas in customer journey mapping are fictitious people who give your customers a face and a personality. In contrast to a target group as a whole, a buyer persona is more personalised and contains a description of the specific characteristics of your customers.

The B2B customer journey can contain several buyer personas, as in B2B there is rarely just one person who makes the purchase decision. It is therefore necessary to identify and create corresponding buyer personas. Each buyer persona contains, among other things:

• A fictitious first name and surname

• Characteristics such as age, income, marital status and place of residence

• Details of the employment relationship such as company, career level and job

Other data can also be included in the B2B customer journey mapping. Possible factors are, for example:

• Company size

• Number of employees

• Industry sector

• Budget

• Competitors

Step 3: Analyse touchpoints

The touchpoints in B2B customer journey mapping indicate which points of contact the customer has with your company during the customer journey. These can be divided into touchpoints that can be influenced directly and indirectly - such as a self-placed advert or an article published by a third party in a specialist portal.

A distinction can also be made between online and offline touchpoints. It is important that every possible touchpoint is identified and recorded in a structured manner. Unified commerce is helpful here, as customer interaction takes place via a single system.

Step 4: Categorise the phases of the customer journey

In B2C and B2B, the touchpoints occur in different phases of the customer journey. It is therefore helpful to assign the identified touchpoints of the customer journey in B2B to the corresponding phase. The customer journey is divided into five phases:

• Awareness
  In this phase, the customer realises that they need a solution to a problem. They begin their research.

• Consideration
  During the consideration phase, the person responsible searches for information, gathers it and compares providers with one another.

• Decision / Purchase / Conversion
  The purchase phase is particularly crucial in the B2B customer journey. This is because the decision-maker still has your offer on their shortlist. In a final review of the offers, the decision is made and the purchase is imminent. Conversion rate optimisation increases the number of satisfied customers who proceed to the checkout.

• Retention
  Once the customer has decided in favour of your offer, the B2B customer journey continues. After the purchase, it is important that the customer is satisfied with their choice. This is why customer care through customised after-sales marketing begins in this phase of the customer journey.

• Advocacy (recommendation)
  Successful customer retention is followed by the final phase of the customer journey in B2B: recommendation. If you have convinced your customer from the ground up, the customer will recommend you to others. Most likely not to your competitor, but possibly to other departments or subsidiaries of the same company. For you, this means more new customers through credible word of mouth.

Step 5: Determine the customer's needs

The next step in B2B customer journey mapping centres on the needs of your potential customers at the respective touchpoints. What does your customer need and when? The next step is to find out what emotions and information the buyer persona feels at each touchpoint.

Does the buyer persona encounter a negative review on Google right at the start, for example, or does the person encounter other negative data during research? What is the experience like in the next steps? You can record these experiences and feelings by going through the customer journey for the individual buyer personas.

Step 6: Visualisation of the B2B customer journey

B2B customer journey mapping provides your company with valuable information that you can use to improve the service and experience of your customers. Visualisation is recommended in order to make even better use of the B2B customer journey. This helps you to increase customer loyalty for your online shop, for example.

Step 7: Align or optimise marketing with mapping

Once the mapping of the customer journey in B2B has been completed, you can align your marketing activities with the results. This allows you to avoid negative experiences at the touchpoints or utilise touchpoints that may not have been used previously. Mapping can also be used for after-sales marketing, for example to increase customer loyalty.