The quest for autonomy, the emergence of artificial intelligence-powered tools, and the advent of tailored experiences—the year 2024 has seen many changes in the B2B customer journey. But how can we adapt to these changes and thus avoid a mismatch between supply and buyer expectations?
HubSpot's latest report, "The keys to performance in 2024," is based on recent studies carried out with HubSpot customers. As a preamble, the company deciphers recent developments in the customer journey, then suggests ways to anticipate and support them. Here are the main findings of the report.
How will customer expectations change in 2024?
In its report, HubSpot highlights several changes in customer behavior.
The emergence of self-service
Will 2023 mark the advent of the self-service experience? That's what HubSpot suggests, noting that 96% of prospects conduct their research on their own before approaching the sales department. According to the company, sales reps must therefore "evolve to adopt a consultant or partner posture" in order to assist and guide customers through their journey, whereas they were traditionally focused on presenting the features or benefits of their product. This evolution also implies the enrichment of content libraries "with more self-service demonstrations, interactive presentations, and free trials," says HubSpot, with the aim of maximizing conversions.
Increasing use of AI
To find out more about a product or service, many prospects are now using tools powered by artificial intelligence, and chatbots in particular. The aim, according to HubSpot, is to evaluate different options before initiating the purchase or subscription process. "8 out of 10 buyers already know about a company's products and services before their first interaction with the sales team," contextualizes the company. This growing use of AI-powered tools could ultimately accelerate sales cycles and improve sales performance, as it promotes autonomy and enables customers to make informed decisions.
The quest for a personalized experience
According to HubSpot, the expectations of sales teams have evolved both before and after a transaction has been finalized. Now, their role is no longer to provide product or pricing information, which is already known, but rather to offer strategic advice and use cases for the product or service to anticipate its ROI. "[Customers] rely on a personal experience as part of an ultra-individualized experience," HubSpot believes.
By the time a buyer fills out a lead generation form or contacts the sales team, he's already well informed. They expect high value-added exchanges, including tailored use cases to visualize the ROI of specific products or services the company can offer them. Building and maintaining relationships is therefore more important than ever, says HubSpot.
Harmonizing marketing and sales strategies: an imperative in 2024
To establish a lasting relationship with this "new generation of customers," as HubSpot calls them, it becomes essential to synchronize the strategies of sales and marketing teams. This is not necessarily the case today: according to the company, only 35% of marketing professionals consider that their strategy is aligned with that of sales teams, whereas the pooling of data makes it easier to achieve or surpass pre-set objectives as well as to understand one's target. To reinforce this synergy and create a perfect symbiosis, HubSpot recommends building on four pillars:
- Harmonization of objectives: HubSpot recommends dividing up roles and setting objectives upstream so that marketing and sales teams are aligned on the number of leads to be generated, lead processing time, etc.
- Data pooling: to enable teams to understand target expectations more easily, but also to obtain a 360° view of the customer base, HubSpot considers it essential to have a single source of information that references all customer data (preferences, needs, etc.) and can be used to adjust campaigns and strategies.
- Collaboration in content production: according to HubSpot, marketing and sales teams need to focus on providing jointly developed content that can, above all, facilitate conversions. To achieve this, the company recommends focusing on "formats that deliver tangible added value to customers.".
- Exploiting the benefits of CRM: by providing sales and marketing teams with a comprehensive, unified data source, a CRM solution is an "effective alignment lever," explains HubSpot, since it centralizes all customer information and facilitates the identification of effective strategies.