In the Spotlight

A group of four people stand around a table. Two of the people are shaking hands across the table.

Figure 4.1 Business-to-business marketing is when one business sells products or provides services to another business, which involves building strong working relationships. (credit: “CC-BY-Mapbox-Uncharted-ERG_Mapbox-c086” by Mapbox Uncharted ERG/flickr, CC BY 3.0 US)

Chapter Outline

4.1 The Business-to-Business (B2B) Market

4.2 Buyers and Buying Situations in a B2B Market

4.3 Major Influences on B2B Buyer Behavior

4.4 Stages in the B2B Buying Process

4.5 Ethical Issues in B2B Marketing

Say hello to RingCentral, a company that provides businesses with cloud-based business communications solutions that include messaging, video meetings, phone, and an omnichannel cloud contact center. RingCentral, a business-to-business (B2B) company, partnered with Medallia, a customer feedback management software platform. Soon after implementing Medallia, RingCentral was able to obtain important insights about product innovation and was able to turn that feedback into product features and customer retention.

How did it do that? First, with direct access to customer feedback, the product teams at RingCentral can use that feedback to spur product feature innovations that meet customers’ needs. Second, the company’s sales and support teams were able to use that same customer feedback to tweak their training programs and support processes. The results? After rolling out the dashboards (visual displays of the information captured), the company’s support team reached an average customer satisfaction (CSAT) score of 9/10 in two key market segments. “Without real time customer feedback and the opportunity to close the loop with the customer when the feedback is fresh, this score would have been much more difficult,” said Chad Freeman, RingCentral’s customer support director.¹

LINK TO LEARNING

RingCentral

To learn more about RingCentral’s business model, watch this video of Jim Cramer, from CNBC’s show Mad Money, interviewing RingCentral’s CEO.

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- Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
- Publisher/website: OpenStax
- Book title: Principles of Marketing
- Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
- Location: Houston, Texas
- Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
- Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/4-in-the-spotlight

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