At the Magento Imagine 2017 conference, there has been an emphasis on focusing on great Customer Experience (CX), User Experience (UX), and Design.
CX encompasses all the interactions a person / customer has with your brand. Measured in:
- overall experience
- likelihood to continue use
- likelihood to recommend to others
UX is part of a broader CX, but CX contains some aspects outside of a product that UX does not.
Great CX gives a user / customer the ability to:
- Have a pleasant, professional, helpful interaction with an organization/company
- Feel generally positive about the overall experience with that organization/company and everything associated with it
CX and the entire customer journey is a key element for B2B commerce success, according to the recently published Forrester Report: The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q1 2017:
“Personalized digital commerce experiences. Personalization can be on the website or mobile app — like The Home Depot’s ability to detect location when a customer searches on its mobile site and show that customer what is or isn’t in stock. Personalization is also instrumental for B2B companies, like MSC Industrial Supply, that use targeted promotions and fulfillment guarantees to drive sales volume and enhance the B2B shopping experience.4 Commerce suites can provide B2B customers with a personalized buying experience by controlling the front-end experience or managing the customer data that fuels personalization.”
Watsco, Inc. (WSO – NYSE) started their B2B commerce journey by emphasizing the importance of a great customer experience. Watsco bet on Responsive Design as an early adopter for delivering a great B2B experience as ground was initially being broken by design agencies for things like selling silk ties (Watsco teamed with Brendan Falkowski with GravDept and Perficient to develop some initial sites).
Great experience is dependent upon great content. Watsco invested early in building out rich product data in a PIM. PIM is a foundational element for longer term eCommerce success.
Watsco and some of their business units have earned awards over the last couple of years for emphasizing and investing in creating a great UX.
At the Magento Imagine conference this week, Carrier Enterprise (Watsco) is in the finals for Best B2B Experience:
The best-in-class, self-serve user interface that addresses the unique needs of wholesale, industrial, or commercial customers.
Carrier Enterprise – Powered by Perficient & Gravity Department
Other Recent awards earned by Watsco and Perficient include:
- Gemaire – Best B2B User Experience Award, 2015
- 2016 Imagine Excellence and Trailblazer Awards – Watsco, Perficient Customer
CEO A.J. Nahmad of Watsco, Inc. was also recognized as a Trailblazer for setting a bold vision for the company and encouraging his incredible team to achieve success in the wholesale distribution industry. “The winners of the 2016 Imagine Excellence and Trailblazer Awards embody the relentless commitment of our clients and partners taking commerce to the next level,” said Mark Lavelle, CEO of Magento Commerce. “From the omnichannel and technology innovators to the explorers carving out new ways of doing business, it is because of the continued innovation of our community that Magento is at the forefront of global commerce. On behalf of everyone at Magento Commerce, congratulations to all the finalists and winners of the 2016 Excellence Awards.”
Like all Commerce, it is all about the customer. Great CX and becoming customer intimate helps to ensure adoption. Customer Adoption (commerce site usage statistics for current and net new customers) is success.
