Assessing Your B2B E-Commerce User Experience

Pivoting into a modern and future-ready B2B commerce organization is complicated by both business process and technology, as there are many approaches and options. Possibly the greatest competitive differentiator in the digital age is the experience you create for your customers both on and offline, known as your user experience.

“The Consumerism of B2b has lead to an expectation of a personalized, omni-channel purchasing experience with an equivalent level of choice, price transparency and service. This personalized expectation is not just about the shopping experience but also speaks to expectations around information consumption and device enablement.”
-Chip Winslow, President, Echidna

How can you be sure the experience you are offering your prospects and customers is superior to your competition? At Echidna, we work with our B2B clients to look holistically at everything involved with creating a successful multi-channel experience for your customers. We believe that your digital commerce is meant to integrate, support and complement other channels of your business. You’re likely to have customers who cross over between self-serving online and working with a sales representative. By reviewing the six core areas of your user experience you will be able to create and execute a plan to add value throughout your customers interactions with your company.

Six Core User Experience Areas to Assess:

Here are a sampling of ten assessment questions to ask when reviewing your user experience and building your future strategy and digital growth. For a complete assessment please contact us.

  1. Do you have a well defined site structure with your products well categorized with a robust taxonomy, attribution and meta-data defined?
  2. Do you utilize user personas and user journeys, which are mapped across multiple channels?
  3. Is user data unified across channels.?
  4. Do you have a current customer/user journey map of your online and offline ecosystem?
  5. Do you engage customers and internal constituents to generate content, in-bound links, and social content about your products, your site and other aspects of the company?
  6. Is your digital experiences reflecting the brand and shopping experience?
  7. What connection do your online assets have with any offline materials, if any?
  8. How often do you make content updates to your experiences?
  9. What is your customer service feedback functionality online?
  10. Have you tested the functionality or usability of your experiences via A/B testing or usability testing?

FINAL THOUGHTS

When is the last time your user experience had a heuristic analysis performed (collecting insights, recommendations, priority and effort)? Being able to chart a course for tactical execution, mitigate risk of channel conflict, and understand emerging trends in user experience is an great groundwork to digitally mature and not to mention a huge competitive advantage. Consider reviewing our 2018 Consumerism of B2B Report and the Digital Journey Maturity Executive Report for additional ways to improve your digital growth and e-commerce operations.

Download the 2018 Consumerism of B2B Report Now.

Download the 2018 Digital Journey Maturity Model Executive Report Now.