The 5 Fallacies of B2B Customer Service

You’ve heard them before. You might have even thought it yourself at one time.  But be on the lookout for these 5 Customer Service fallacies ready to sink the unwary when thinking about a service management solution.

1. “We’re not really in the service business.”

The term “service business” is going the way of terms like “internet-based business” or “online retail”—that is to say, the distinction is becoming irrelevant! The new reality is, every business is a “service business” today—even traditional companies in industries like healthcare and energy/utilities are rapidly acknowledging their roles in co-creating value with their customers.

2. “B2B Customers don’t need a lot of fancy self-service options.”

If you’re measuring what’s at-risk in economic/bottom-line terms, it’s clear to see that the risks of not prioritizing customer service are significant. B2B companies are often held to a higher standard across the board, as individual customers have a sense of their financial importance to your business. Service improvements in everything from telecommunications (the first mobile phones) to logistics (overnight document delivery) were spearheaded by the B2B economy, and customer service is no different. Thanks to the easy availability of information regarding alternate suppliers and the ubiquity of customer reviews, the stakes are higher than ever for providing great service—great value as your customers define it.

3. “Providing more self-service is out of our reach (and probably unnecessary anyway).”

In a recent survey of 1,000 B2B decision makers, lack of speed in interactions with their suppliers emerged as the number one pain point, mentioned twice as often as price. And digital solutions loom large in executives’ thinking as a way to make routine tasks more efficient. Some 86 percent of respondents said they prefer using self service tools for reordering, rather than talking to a sales representative.

4.“We could never get all our key systems linked to Customer Service without a huge IT investment.”

You don’t have to overhaul your enterprise systems or leave yourself at the mercy of pricey consultants to benefit from a “Unified Service Management Platform” like Vivantio. With robust “out of the box” capabilities, Vivantio allows your team to configure processes, rather than solutions that require extensive custom coding. With a Unified Service Management Platform, you can give your CS team deep visibility into adjacent business data that lets them respond and resolve issues exponentially faster.

5. “We’d be better off investing our resources in finding new customers.”

The numbers say no. There is much greater ROI in keeping your customers happy. To start with, when it comes to sales, the probability of selling to an existing happy customer is up to 14x higher than the probability of selling to a new customer. Harvard Business Review says customers who had the best past experiences spend 140% more compared to those who had the poorest past experience.

Want to chart a better course?

Vivantio has been helping clients optimize their service organizations by leveraging a unified service management platform that help you avoid major Customer Service disasters. Learn more on how Service Optimization can benefit your business exponentially.

Or even better, how about a brief, no-obligation, demo?