As B2B buyers increasingly expect more self-service and convenience during the purchasing process, developing highly intuitive and top-notch customer-facing web portals is becoming a necessity to stay competitive.
Read on to understand how changing B2B buyer behaviors are spearheading this trend, the core components of effective self-service portals, important ease-of-use considerations, and how to drive user adoption when developing B2B-focused self-service portals.
B2B Buyer Expectations Are Increasing
Modern buyers have grown accustomed to omnichannel experiences when making purchases. These experiences come from their day-to-day shopping activities, which are mostly performed on B2C websites.
However, they now expect a similar degree of flexibility and convenience from suppliers who service the organizations they own or work for.
Demand for Omni-Channel Experience
B2B customers now use multiple devices and channels for research before engaging with sales reps. They expect consistent functionality and information across laptops, tablets, and smartphones via web experiences, email nurturing, and sales interactions.
Unified data is key to succeed in this particular aspect. To meet expectations, portals must seamlessly integrate with other systems like CRM software and ecommerce platforms to create true omni-channel experiences. APIs can be used to connect these data sources easily.
Looking for Flexibility and Convenience
With access to product info 24/7 and online, buyers resent rigid business hours and channels. They expect to be able to place orders, track their status, and manage accounts on their own timelines. Hence, portals must respond to these needs and preferences accordingly.
Convenience also means not having to re-enter data or go through the same procedures over and over again. Portals should automatically populate fields with existing account, billing, and shipment details at checkout and be able to retain certain information from past sessions to make it easier for B2B shoppers to complete their purchases.
Key Capabilities that B2B Self-Service Portals Should Develop in 2023
Robust self-service customer portals provide 24/7 access to accounts, product information, and other resources for increased efficiency. Here are some specific features and tools that should be available nowadays to ensure that a website intended for a B2B company succeeds at its core mission.
Customized Account Overview Dashboards
Websites should greet users personally by name on the dashboard homepage a display relevant alerts, favorite order views, payment options, subscription details, and easy reordering.
Saved dashboards should be customizable by users based on their preferences, like procurement managers wanting to quickly access an overview of all pending orders and their tracking information.
Real-Time Order Tracking & History
Enable order lookup with current status visibility from submitted to fulfilled/shipped. Access to past invoices and bills of ladings (BOLs) for reference or reprints is also a plus as this helps procurement officers keep their documentation up to date.
Tracking links should take the user directly to the shipping provider’s website for deeper shipment details including expected arrival dates, carrier contacts, and even real-time location in cases where this is possible.
Online Reordering & Subscription Management
It should be easy for B2B customers to repeat sales and websites can achieve this by letting users quickly duplicate previous orders. Configure preferred products for saved carts. Manage multi-year software contracts or auto-replenishment schedules to facilitate renewals in the case of SaaS subscriptions and other similar products or services.
Auto-replenishment allows customers to set preferred ongoing delivery schedules or trigger thresholds for reorders based on stock levels. For this to work, the website’s back-end systems must be capable of integrating with the client’s ERP.
Self-Service Reporting & Analytics
Empower customer teams to generate real-time data reports on purchase history, product usage trends, and spending by custom parameters for internal insights.
Websites that offer easy data exports, connections to business intelligence software, and customized dashboard creation based on their analytics needs are adding value to clients’ supply chain and procurement processes and will surely stand out from rivals.
Considerations for Mobility & Portal Ease of Use
Portals must offer responsive templates supporting any device as managers and decision-makers rely on different gadgets to review and perform actions. These are elements that can contribute to offering a great user experience to customers regardless of where and how they access a supplier’s web portal.
Responsive Design Enabling Mobile Access
Interfaces must dynamically resize to browser or smartphone screens. Meanwhile, minimum scrolling and taps should help users navigate more easily and complete transactions on tablets/phones.
Mobile optimization requires streamlining key tasks into as few fields as possible, with elements like drop-downs over free text for faster form completion.
Intuitive IA Structure, Navigation & Interactions
Conduct usability testing to ensure all elements — from site menus to account tools — can be easily located by users regardless of their tech-savviness. User effort should be minimized as this increases conversion rates.
Analyze clickstream data to identify common user pathways. Developers can structure the site’s IA hierarchy accordingly with most accessed links/pages being more prominently featured.
Leveraging Mobile Order-Taking
Consider developing proprietary mobile order taking apps allowing sales reps to quickly capture product orders during onsite customer meetings for faster fulfillment.
Integrate order data from mobile apps into core order management and inventory systems to align fulfillment processes with ecommerce orders and make sure that inventories are accurate.
Driving Adoption Through Change Management
Proactively boost engagement by securing executive sponsorship, promoting portal advantages, offering training resources, and iterating based on feedback.
Secure Executive Alignment on Portal Objectives
Educate the leadership team on the hard and soft benefits of self-service portals for B2B audiences — from operational efficiencies to improved customer retention thanks to exceptional buying experiences.
Share case studies from competitors or other industries demonstrating strong ROI from self-service adoption to prove the necessity of competing by developing similar solutions.
Define & Communicate Ideal User Personas
Clarify which job roles stand to benefit most from the portal’s capabilities to appropriately position the solution during training courses and meetings.
Conduct remote usability testing with different buyer personas to gain insights that help inform the developing team regarding possible upgrades and changes to the interface.
Develop Hands-On Training Programs and Collateral
Create portal demo walkthroughs, quick reference guides, help articles, and videos tailored specifically to different user personas like service techs, procurement managers, or inventory analysts.
Incentivize usage through gamification offering rewards points for portal activity milestones.
Collect Ongoing Feedback & Optimize
Encourage portal user feedback through comment forms, user acceptance testing, and direct contact with large customers. Identify the most popular features vs. those that are being shunned. Refine the site accordingly based on these findings.
In today’s digital-first business climate, self-service customer portals are invaluable for strengthening B2B customer relationships by providing convenient 24/7 account access and order management functionalities. By ensuring that platforms offer robust tools along with intuitive mobile responsiveness organizations can drive strong user adoption.
