B2B CRM

When it comes to customer relationship management, the business-to-business (B2B) world has good reason to feel neglected. It is easy to forget that CRM is a concept with its roots in the B2B sector when it is often so poorly served with relationship techniques and examples. And with B2C ‘customer champions’ stealing the limelight, B2B CRM success stories rarely get a look in – indeed, outside of Dell, how many other B2B firms attract similar praise as their B2C contemporaries? As such, you can appreciate why the business-to-business field could feel somewhat short changed by customer relationship management.

Nevertheless, despite this imbalance, there is just as much benefit from customer relationship management for the B2B firm as there is for the B2C business. There are of course, some significant differences between the two. B2Cs may serve millions of customers whilst B2Bs often have only a few large customers. B2Bs also often have smaller product ranges than their B2C peers, and the purchases are less frequent but higher value. Yet despite these discrepancies, most of the principles that have proven such a success in business-to-consumer can also be applied with equal achievement in business-to-business – as well as providing the same ROI.

The elements of customer relationship management may take unique forms in B2B industries – there is ‘dealer management’ for automotive companies for instance, or ‘trade promotions management’ for consumer products firms – but the overriding concepts are still the same: understand your customers, form a strategy and then set in place the people, processes and technologies. High-level CRM may have emerged out of industries such as telcos and banking, but B2B has been catching up – and learning from the mistakes of B2C sectors too and these mistakes are many.

The B2B sector is developing and will lead to increased profits for the business world.