Product Experience in B2B: Why the Turning Point is Now

PXM as the Game Changer? An Interview with communicode & ATAMYA

We all know the force of habit. When we go shopping today, we expect smooth processes, intuitive navigation, and recommendations that fit perfectly – an experience major platforms have long since accustomed us to. Signing in, browsing the offers, comparing, making a decision: fast, clear, uncomplicated. The customers of today expect clarity, speed, and immediately accessible information – in B2C just as they do in B2B. It is in B2B, however, where our expectations clash with complex products, multi-variant assortments, and different target groups. Those who sell machines, components, or technical systems, require precise and well-structured product information that all relevant target groups can find quickly – be it specialist planners, engineers, or decisionmakers.

Back in the days, purchase decisions were dominated primarily by technical factors. Today, the quality of the digital product experience decides whether a company even makes it onto the shortlist. How can one go about making even complex assortments intuitively experienceable? And what role does PIM, AI, and automation play? This is what Tiffany Wiener, ATAMYA Senior Manager Demand Generation & Partner Marketing, discusses with three experts who have been working for decades in the intersection field of data, technologies, and customer experience.

Our Interview Partner

Michael Ochtrop – communicode AG
Co-founder of communicode and expert for information management, systems evaluation, and PIM implementations for more than 20 years. He develops operative and processual concepts and knows: software is only effective when humans and processes go along with it.

Stephanie Ebbert – communicode AG
UX designer with focus on complex B2B and B2C platforms. For her, good product experience does not come to be through “beautiful design,” but through authentic user understanding, tests, and psychology.

David Klein – ATAMYA
Senior consultant for ATAMYA. He accompanies companies from all industries on their path to better product data – for a customer journey that holds from the first click to the final decision.

 

Why Is Good Product Experience Indispensable in Today’s B2B?

Stephanie Ebbert: Customers in B2B expect the very same usability as they do in B2C. They want to understand products quickly, compare them, and conduct a save evaluation. Good product experience means: complete and correct information, clear-cut structures, expressive images, as well as functions such as filters or comparison tables. Those who do not offer convincing product experience are often times do not even qualify for the shortlist.

David Klein: And B2B content is becoming ever more target-group-oriented. Specialist stores, installers, technical salespersons – all of them present different requirements. One and the same product must work in entirely different contexts.

 

How Can Companies Design Complex Products and Variants in a Way that Provides Convincing Product Experience?

Michael Ochtrop: The truth is as follows: Many B2B companies have not structured their variant landscape cleanly because their sales team has handled things manually on site. Once they make the digital turn, they suddenly come to realize that they are lacking both systems and data structures.

Stephanie Ebbert: Complexity must not be visible. Intuitive searches, filters, and complete product pages with all relevant information – everything must come together to help the customer in finding suitable solutions faster.

David Klein: Creating comparisons is essential. Be it smartphone or complex industry goods: humans seek orientation. And product experience also means factoring in everything revolving around the product: accessories, care instructions, service contracts. Our customer Christ Juweliere  shows how it’s done: not only do they sell high-quality necklaces but also teach you how to maintain them. This strengthens purchase decisions and trust alike.

 

What Preconditions Must Be Met by Companies to Distribute Continuous Product Experience Throughout All Channels?

Michael Ochtrop: It may sound trivial, but it makes up the very core: one common data basis! The product information must be centralized, up-to-date, high-quality, and as granular as possible. And it must be accessible and available: through intuitive interfaces without the need to launch a new integration project every time. Simply introducing a PIM system, on the other hand, is insufficient. What is commonly underestimated in practice is organization. In many companies, product areas are organized in many small units. When it then comes down to forming a consistent presentation throughout all areas, the teams must come together and agree upon shared processes. This is real change management – it usually constitutes the greatest challenges.

 

Does B2B even have Room for Emotions?

Stephanie Ebbert: Yes, absolutely. Even in B2B, people have to make decisions – and they do react emotionally. Good product experience creates not only functionality but also trust and security. Once a customer notices ‘I can find all product information quickly, I can rely on them being correct,’ then trust is established. And without such trust, you will usually not even make it into the second round in B2B selection procedures – no matter how good the product is.

 

How do AI and Automation Help Without Losing the Human Side?

David Klein: It’s impossible to get by without automation these days. The time-to-market is decisive, while manual processes simply take much too long. AI is very helpful to this end. It helps, for example, when it comes to translating, generating text recommendations, or data checks. We do, however, also need the human in the loop: only people can make judgments about whether the content is truly meaningful.

 

Which AI and Automation Features Are of Particular Relevance in B2B?

David Klein: In B2B, automation mainly reduces the workload. A good example is smart imports in ATAMYA Product Cloud: it identifies which products are being imported, automatically assigns the data, and delivers an initial draft – all that’s left is to briefly double-check it and make adjustments where necessary. AI also helps serving different target groups. Engineers require installation instructions and tools – the specialist store, on the other hand, needs prices, quantity, and weight. These contexts can be generated automatically by us. And AI spots errors that people are quick to overlook by accident in daily business. Recently, it recognized that a supposedly 60-inch monitor is, in fact, a 60-centimeter product. Checks like this are worth gold.

 

Quick Wins: What Measures Can Companies Take to Improve Their Product Experience?

Michael Ochtrop: We usually launch our projects with quick wins – small measures that quickly return results. In many cases, a compact analysis of product pages already translates into small UX improvements. And many companies do not tap into available potential: when images or assets are delivered with a clear naming convention, you can use this for automatic assignment. This saves enormous amounts of time and quickly generates success. An example: A customer had 40,000 products but only roughly 100 of them had rich content since everything was done manually. With a PIM, we could equip more than 1,000 products with rich content automatically and, hereby, generate measurably more profit.

David Klein: And, of course: A quick onboarding is a quick win, too. With ATAMYA, companies can get themselves started within 30 minutes – standardized interfaces to other systems, workflows, and a clean UI. This guarantees that users will feel the value immediately.

 

What Are the Most Frequent Mistakes Companies Ought to Avoid When Optimizing Their Product Experience?

David Klein: A popular mistake is to build data models that strictly abide to a classification. This works only until something needs to be multi-classified. The entire data model will be quick to collapse. On top of this, many try to manage their product data in Excel, shop backends, or even enterprise resource planning systems. This eventually hits a limit at certain data quantities, is prone to error, and tough to distribute.

Michael Ochtrop: Often times, companies underestimate just how important an understanding of the target group and organization is. Many think: ‘We can handle that one on our own’ – without first defining what users truly need. Equally as often, one tries to solve everything at once instead of prioritizing quick wins with clear business value. One further typical mistake: Reconfiguring systems beyond recognition instead of optimizing processes. This leads to technological debts and prevents updates.

 

How Can Companies Design the Product Experience So That They Can React to New Requirements, Markets, And Channels Flexibly?

Michael Ochtrop: With clear guidelines: technological, organizational, data-driven. A central API, a central design system, service-oriented architecture – all this guarantees that modifications scale and no department is just doing their own thing.

David Klein: Cloud, microservices, headless and APIs according to the MACH principles – this is future. No retrofitting of servers, no outdated plugins. Modern platforms scale automatically.

 

What Role Does Data Quality Play for Product Experience?

David Klein: It’s everything. Without quality, no experience. Users compare in various ways, so they need many technical facts, neatly structured, and target-oriented. No walls of text but chunked data, lists and relations such as recommended products, spare parts, service contracts, and much more.

Michael Ochtrop: Once they spot an error, all trust is gone. Consistency, up-to-dateness, and technical accuracy are not just data requirements but business requirements.

 

What Is the Most Important Switch for Sustainably Improving Product Experience?

Michael Ochtrop: For me, there are two central switches: first, a clean PIM process with a central, high-quality data foundation. Second, the target-group-oriented processing of data for each and every channel.
What companies commonly underestimate is accumulating leftover issues. We had projects where about 7 million assets piled up in the old system – and, after data migration, it came to light that they only really needed roughly 10% thereof. 90% of the assets were files that accumulated over the years that nobody needed anymore. Such legacy issues hinder any PIM or PXM project, both technologically and organizationally. Those who continuously work on reducing such issues create the basis for efficiency and scaling.

David Klein: And to this end, everything needs to be managed centrally. A single system that pools product data centrally and prepares it for all channels – it is precisely this that makes the difference.

 

Conclusion: Product Experience in B2B is a Strategic Factor Today.

Product experience in B2B is no nice-to-have any more – it decides over whether companies become visible at all. Those who master their product data can tap into new markets, improve sales processes, and establish trust. And for precisely this reason, the combination of good technology, good organisation, and authentic user orientation is required.