B2B Sales Strategy: Where Buyers Say Sellers Are Falling Short 

As a seller, you want to be easy to do business with. That’s why you invest in your eCommerce experience and make sure you have the best sales and customer support teams in place – to make doing business with your company the preferred choice. But no matter how well you know your B2B customers, there are always pain points they don’t tell you. That’s why we partnered with Murphy Research to survey global business buyers to see where sellers are falling short.

In this blog, the first in a three-part series, we’ll focus on where sellers are falling short. It expands on the first section of our full report, The Data Is In: B2B Buyers Expect a Better Payments Experience. The second blog in the series covers what buyers really want; the third takes a deeper dive into the perfected payments experience.

Let’s start with a closer look at where business buyers think B2B sellers could do better. 

B2B Customers Can Feel Back-Office Flaws

Your sales team might be doing a great job of keeping prospects and customers engaged, but even the best B2B sales strategy can’t overcome barriers such as slow or error-riddled back-office processes. In fact, when asked to select from a list of 12 pain points they typically experience while making business purchases, our respondents told us that their top three payment pain points are inefficient processes, invoices that are incorrect and slow buyer onboarding. 

In other words, buyers see straight through many so-called “digital” buying experiences that start on a website but are managed manually behind the scenes. For “inefficient processes” to top their list of pain points, they must have experienced a variety of frustrating experiences. 

Credit Cards Aren’t the B2B Payment Solution 

Some sellers hope that inefficient processes, incorrect invoices, and slow onboarding can be avoided by having B2B customers pay with credit cards. It is true that 95% of the B2B buyers we surveyed report using credit cards monthly, and B2B sellers certainly accept these payments. However, credit cards alone won’t cut it for all B2B purchases. 

We asked B2B buyers which barriers they face when using a credit card to pay for purchases, and their top five answers were: 

• Transaction limits 
• High processing fees 
• Increased strain on the A/R department 
• Increased strain on the Procurement department 
• Surcharges 

In addition to accepting credit cards, you need to offer B2B customers trade credit. In the second blog in this series, we’ll explore how trade credit can help you grow your B2B sales. 

So What Do Buyers Really Want from B2B Sellers? 

We certainly know that business buyers are looking for a good payment experience that is efficient, accurate and fast. They’ve been spoiled by their B2C purchasing experiences and want the same sleek experience while they’re wearing their B2B customer hats too.  

In the second installment of this series, we take a deep dive into what B2B customers want from the payments experience. Read B2B Sales Strategy: What Buyers Say They Really Want to learn the top 10 seller features B2B buyers look for before making a purchasing decision. Plus, we’ll discuss exactly what they want from the trade credit experience.