When it comes to gathering data, you can take a couple of different approaches. One is called B2B survey, which stands for a business-to-business survey. Another method is a B2C survey or business-to-consumer survey.

Each type of survey has its unique features and benefits, and it’s up to you to decide which one will be most helpful for your purposes.

Let’s dive into the different characteristics of each method.

What Are B2B Surveys?

B2B surveys (Business-to-Business) are a type of customer survey that companies send out to their business partners, customers and vendors. Although the number of business partners you have is typically much smaller than your consumer customer base, B2B surveys are crucial for finding out how your company can better serve them. 

Researchers deploy B2B surveys through various channels (web, email, print, social media) like any other customer survey. The key is to find the best methodology for each partner and communicate with them in the manner they prefer.

While the number of business partners is typically smaller than the number of customers, they still have an important impact on the company’s financial viability. Therefore, it makes sense to conduct multiple deployment methodologies and reporting groups for B2B surveys to ensure accuracy and consistency.

What Are The Main Benefits Of Conducting B2B Surveys?

B2B surveys allow better communication with your clients. It enables you to get feedback from your customers. If you are unsure what kind of product or service they want, you can ask them what they would be interested in and then create something based on their input.

Another benefit of surveying your customers is that it helps you prioritize improvements that need to be made within your organization. If there are certain areas where you know your business needs improvement, then conducting a survey will help you identify those areas to focus on improving them first.

It also helps you anticipate trends in the industry. Getting feedback from customers about the type of products or services they would like to see offered by companies like yours will give you an idea as to what other businesses are doing well at providing similar products or services so that you can do the same.

B2B Surveys and B2C Surveys — The Differences

While the basic principles of survey design are the same for business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) surveys, there are some crucial differences in how B2B and B2C surveys should be constructed.

First, let’s look at the differences in who is being surveyed. Companies survey business partners and customers, and it is generally a good idea to investigate multiple levels within the relationship. 

For example, if you are a supplier of services to a large company, you may want to understand how your services are perceived by several levels of your contacts within the company. The appropriate references may include the executive, manager, and two or three individual contributors who use your services regularly. By surveying several different organizational levels, you can identify any potential disconnects in perceptions between other groups within the organization.

Another difference is that both B2B and B2C use online surveys to survey effectively, but we may need to employ a telephone strategy with a B2B survey. While many businesses use email and websites to communicate with their customers, it can be more difficult for them to get business partner employees to complete an online survey.  

In this case, we would use telephone calls as our primary data collection method.  The call also allows us to speak directly to decision-makers in companies rather than relying on someone else’s interpretation.

Conclusion

There is no clear-cut answer on which approach is better than the other. It depends on how much you know about your customers, how you want to use the survey and what you want to measure. For example, if you are looking to get a broad view of the general public’s perception of your services, b2c surveys may be a good approach. If you want to gain insights into how businesses perceive your products or services, b2b surveys would be ideal. In some cases, using a combination of both could be the right solution.

In each case, you will need a reliable market survey partner like Grapedata that has knowledge and experience in the market research industry to ensure you maximize all you spend on the research.

If you are interested in getting started with customer loyalty research, contact us today!