B2B Referral Marketing - Comprehensive Guide

The Importance of B2B Reviews in the Purchasing Process

Imagine you stumble upon something online that you absolutely want to buy but are unsure if it's a legitimate offer. Naturally, you check the reviews on Amazon. The product has a 4-star rating, so you think it’s a safe bet and proceed to click on the item. As you scroll through the reviews, you encounter a mix of opinions: "Don’t buy. Never received my product. BEWARE." followed by a few 4-5 star reviews praising the quick delivery and quality: "Great, high-quality product," "Rude customer service," "Takes a while to arrive, but the price is good." What do you do now?

“Everyone’s a critic” has taken on a whole new meaning with online reviews. Whether verifying a company's credibility or choosing your next CRM software provider, reviews empower ordinary people to:

1. Conduct their own research.
2. Become experts in their own right.
3. Share their experiences.
4. Shape brand perception in an open forum.

While platforms like Amazon and Yelp have transformed the consumer's buying journey, B2B companies still grapple with leveraging referral marketing despite its significant impact on their bottom line.

In fact, G2 Crowd reports that around 92% of B2B buyers use online review sites to gather information and recommendations to aid their purchasing decisions.

B2B customers often make larger financial commitments than individual consumers, making customer referrals invaluable during the vendor selection process. According to G2 Crowd, 71% of buyers actively seek out reviews.

In this article, we explore the importance of B2B reviews for lead generation, how to incorporate customer recommendations into a Customer Experience (CX) program, and best practices for leveraging B2B customer feedback.

The Value of B2B Referral Marketing

When it comes to publishing online reviews, many businesses hesitate, fearing the impact of a “negative” review on their reputation. However, several reasons suggest that negative reviews shouldn’t deter your B2B company:

The Broad Value of Positive Reviews

Research from Dimensional Research found that 90% of customers are influenced by positive reviews when making a purchase decision.

But the value of B2B reviews goes beyond this superficial benefit. Many companies can use these reviews to create other assets to generate revenue:

• Social proof.
• Quotes for a website or marketing presentation.
• Starting points for future case studies.
• Conversation starters for future referrals.

Negative B2B Reviews Offer Another Channel

One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is ignoring critical customer reviews. Customer reviews provide a channel for customers to express their opinions and share them with others. B2B companies should treat their review platforms like any other feedback channel. Take customer feedback seriously and respond quickly and proactively, especially to critical feedback.

B2B review platforms offer companies a way to close the loop with customers beyond social media and surveys. This improves customer retention and loyalty, and companies can then ask if a customer is willing to update their review after the issue is resolved.

Diverse Opinions Enhance Credibility for B2B Providers

Researchers at Northwestern University found that presenting five or more reviews for products/services increases the likelihood of purchase by 270% compared to products/services with no reviews.

The same study encouraged companies not to overlook negative reviews. They found that some negative reviews enhance credibility:

"Purchase likelihood typically peaks when the average star rating is between 4.2 and 4.5 stars and starts to drop as the star rating approaches a perfect 5.0. While it might seem counterintuitive, negative reviews can have a positive effect by providing credibility and authenticity."

This positive influence of negative reviews was echoed in other research. 72% of respondents said that “negative reviews give the product depth and insight,” with an additional 40% stating that it helps make the review profile more credible.

In the next section, we delve into what many B2B service providers get wrong about reviews: asking nicely!

The Art of Asking for Customer Referrals

Some companies mistakenly believe that customers will refer, recommend, or provide a review without any prompting from the company. While this may occasionally happen, it is not common for most B2B companies.

In the previously mentioned Northwestern University report, 80% of companies stated that reviews resulted from follow-up emails from the company. But how should companies ask for reviews? Here are a few steps to start this process:

• Establish a formal B2B review program.
• Assign someone to oversee reviews.
• Make it easy for customers to leave a B2B review.

Asking customers for reviews during the process can create a lot of work not only for your team but also for the customer. Additionally, depending on the size of your B2B customer portfolio, personally asking customers might not be realistic.

The best course of action is to create a formal review program for customers. The best B2B referral marketing programs are successful when they are automated and integrated into your business operations. Similarly, having a process for creating reviews is important.

Start by addressing the following questions:

• Which departments should be responsible for creating and monitoring reviews?
• How and when do you ask for reviews?
• Where does the customer leave their B2B review?

The first question is straightforward. Marketing and customer support should be responsible for securing customer references. These two departments should work together to answer the next two questions.

How and when you ask for reviews depends on your current method of communicating with customers and your business size. You might ask for a recommendation in a personal conversation after project completion or upon reaching project milestones for larger projects. You could also use email as the formal communication channel. Others use surveys to gather reviews. Later in this article, we describe how review management with a B2B Customer Experience program can automate and optimize the review process for companies.

After identifying when and how to ask for reviews, the question arises: Where should these reviews be gathered and published?

The Quality of B2B Reviews Matters

B2B providers have typically relied on services like Google Reviews to collect reviews. But how relevant are such "simple" reviews to B2B buyers? Simple star ratings, as commonly seen, are not very relevant to B2B buyers. They are easily manipulated and lack sufficient detail. B2B reviews around digital products are only relevant to customers if they are verified and consider important aspects of such projects from the provider's perspective:

• Expertise and specializations
• Industry knowledge
• Project costs
• Achievement of project goals
• Efficiency in execution
• Project approach
• Project planning
• Quality of results
• Collaboration with clients

B2B Reference Calls

To bridge this lack of transparency, many providers are often asked by potential new customers to arrange reference calls with existing customers during the pitch phases. This allows clients to make their purchase decisions based on real and authentic customer feedback without the provider's participation. While this workaround may initially serve the client’s purpose, it is disadvantageous for the provider:

• The provider does not learn the specific feedback their existing customers shared "behind closed doors."
• The same customers have been repeatedly "bothered" with such reference calls, and the service provider hesitates to ask them again.
• Former customers, with whom the provider has no ongoing business relationship, cannot typically be asked for reference calls retroactively.

Clients also know that the selected customers are likely to give positive feedback. Therefore, the authenticity and credibility of this feedback are viewed cautiously.

The B2B Referral Process by Feedbax

To address these issues and strengthen the online reputation, Feedbax has developed an innovative solution for B2B providers. With minimal effort, you can collect decision-relevant customer reviews, publish them, and use them for future sales activities. This solution offers several benefits:

• Seamlessly integrate B2B customer referrals into your CX program.
• Simplify and shorten the otherwise laborious referral process for both customers and service providers through Feedbax's assistance.
• Receive an SEO-optimized company profile with detailed and verified customer recommendations to reference during new customer acquisition.
• Providers can effectively market their services thanks to the user-centric presentation of their expertise and specializations.

Integrate B2B Customer Recommendations into Your Customer Experience Program

Here’s how you can get started:

• Provide the contact details of your customer contact by submitting the appropriate reference (5 minutes of effort).
• We arrange a phone call with your customer and draft the customer recommendation for you. Your customer recommendation is then published in your company profile.
• Don’t forget to respond to your published customer recommendations. Share your company profile with the recommendations on social channels.

Conclusion

B2B reviews are a crucial component of a CX program. By integrating customer feedback and incorporating Feedbax into your CX program, you can significantly simplify and automate the referral process for both you and your customers.