Chapter 3: Personalisation: The key to customer loyalty?
Summary
In such a competitive B2B landscape, personalisation has emerged as a vital strategy for fostering customer loyalty. The majority (51%) of respondents believe customers crave personalised sales outreach the most, reflecting the importance of relationship-building. Hybrid selling is quickly becoming a key focus for B2B leaders, and our results here highlight this perfectly.
Respondents also believe website customisation (43%) and product recommendations (42%) are important as they significantly enhance first impressions.
Seamless omnichannel experiences (39%) and bespoke content (32%) also rank high, highlighting the need for consistency across all customer interactions.
Despite its benefits, implementing effective personalisation poses several challenges. Insufficient data quality (47%) is a major hurdle, emphasising the need for robust data management.
Additionally, 44% of leaders cite inadequate technology stacks as a barrier to delivering sophisticated personalised experiences.
Balancing automation with the human touch (42%) and keeping up with evolving customer preferences (41%) are also significant concerns. A lack of skilled personnel (39%) further complicates these efforts. AI is transforming personalisation in B2B. Respondents noted its ability to provide real-time product suggestions, adapt user interfaces, and enhance data segmentation.
One leader remarked that AI helps businesses understand customer journeys and concerns more effectively, highlighting the role AI can play in enhancing personalisation offerings.
The future is hybrid.
Hybrid selling has emerged as a key strategy in B2B commerce, blending digital self-service, remote interactions, and in-person engagements to meet evolving customer demands. This approach aligns seamlessly with the growing emphasis on personalisation. However, achieving true hybrid selling success requires more than just multi-channel availability—it demands robust process orchestration and automation. By integrating AI, enterprises can streamline workflows across sales and customer touchpoints, ensuring consistency and agility across channels. Such orchestration empowers sales teams to deliver tailored, data-driven experiences while minimising operational friction.
What do you think customers want from your personalisation offerings the most? (Respondents were asked to select three options)
Personalised sales outreach
Website customisation
Product recommendations
Seamless omnichannel experiences
Bespoke content
Tailored discounts and offers
Privacy and data security
Personalised emails
Faster checkout
Other
"We focus a lot of time and resources on personalised sales outreach, particularly in my industry in which the customers already have our equipment. Our customers either need to replace, improve or service the product. For our customers, it is therefore important to have personalised information about product selection and recommendations."
Liliana Torres, Global Head of Marketing, ABB
What are the biggest challenges you face with your personalisation offerings?
Insufficient data quality to derive actionable insights
Insufficient technology stack
Balancing automation and 'human touch'
"The persistent challenges around personalisation — such as insufficient data quality and technological limitations —reflect a broader complexity in delivering tailored experiences at scale. One lesson we’ve observed across the industry is the importance of simplifying internal processes to make personalisation achievable. Solutions that empower business teams to experiment with low-code or no-code tools can bridge the gap between ambition and execution. Ultimately, successful personalisation combines operational efficiency with a genuine understanding of the customer."
Eberhardt Weber, CEO, Emporix
"In terms of our strategy, we're not yet using AI for customer-facing purposes. The answers are very interesting however, as contract terms makes absolute sense for us and what we are working on. We are currently doing this manually, so it would be relevant to build that capability using AI to allow for sales to focus on strategically relevant / relationship-oriented work.”
Tanja Tschech, Digital Transformation Manager, Roehm
