ADDRESSING THE B2B OPPORTUNITY Hot customer experience (CX): five tips for improving commercial CX

Running any type of business is tough. Keeping payments simple and streamlined for commercial customers makes it easier. Balancing greater convenience with stringent regulation while ensuring there’s a human touch in an AI world is no small task – but can deliver tangible results.

Savvy financial institutions (FIs) are approaching B2B solutions from a customer perspective – easing the customer journey across all channels, with innovations that improve interactions and reduce friction at every touchpoint.

Here are five tips for how to deliver B2B customer experiences that are fast, secure, and data-driven.

Clive Cornelius and Edward Galvin

Hot tip 1: Build customer experience (CX) with blockchain

Blockchain isn’t just valuable for crypto currency. Rather, it is a Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) with several benefits for FIs intent on improving customer experience (CX) while managing risk.¹ For instance, it can reduce risk-weighted assets while accelerating workflows and enable instant transactions and tokenization.²

And there are many ways blockchain can build better CX for commercial banks. For instance, blockchain-based Visa B2B Connect’s multilateral network enables predictable, secure and cost-effective cross-border payments for FIs and their corporate clients.³ Enhanced customer experience benefits include finality via irrevocable payments delivered in full to the beneficiary bank, predictability through knowing exactly when funds will be delivered, and transparency thanks to fees and financial exchange (FX) rate clarity and transparency.

Hot tip 2: Champion virtual cards

There are many tangible benefits of virtual cards for commercial customers.⁴ Efficiency is a major advantage as virtual cards allow fully automated payments and automated reconciliation for invoice payments and employee spend. There are also working capital benefits involved in using credit lines associated with virtual cards and there’s greater transparency, since virtual cards offer customized, centralized data on every transaction. And security: virtual cards are safer than plastic, because there’s less opportunity for compromised data or loss.⁴

The virtual card market is projected to grow by 25 percent annually through 2027.⁵ As virtual cards can be used across multiple industries and countless use cases, opportunity abounds. For example, with B2B travel, airlines and issuers now have a commercial framework for accepting virtual agent cards. Integrations between agent cards and travel intermediaries mean both parties can offer simplified payments and services between multiple vendors, as well as mutually beneficial pricing.⁶

Hot tip 3: Upgrade your user experience (UX)

B2B customers want the same seamless user experience (UX) consumers enjoy. But FIs encouraging customers to move from traditional to digital payments may need to allay concerns about time taken for migration (and associated disruption), a lack of internal resources/expertise, and risk of failure leading to financial loss and reputational damage.

Such concerns can be overcome by implementing an intuitive, seamless and secure payments system that allows customers to make and track payments quickly, improving customer satisfaction and retention. Seamless UX combines best-in-class technology with access to expert humans, and an omnichannel process which ensures the application can be continued smoothly across various channels.⁷ Joining a global payment network of partners, tools, and technologies helps FIs deliver what businesses need.

Hot tip 4: Embedded card

Embedding card into ERPs and Procure to Pay platforms enables corporates to use their cards where they’re working today. Whatever the transaction, customers and businesses now expect financial services to smoothly integrate with non-financial platforms where they make regular purchases. And embedded finance enables this – you can complete a transaction without leaving a business app or website.⁸

Embedding payment capabilities helps businesses streamline workflows and reduce costs as well as enabling flexible spending and consumer-like personalization. For businesses of all sizes across different verticals, embedded finance capabilities promote convenience, security, and swift funds transfers.⁸

Hot tip 5: Toughen security

Financial institutions must improve UX while strengthening security. For instance, transforming to omnichannel, digital platform-based models involves identifying and waving though low-risk transactions, and desensitizing sensitive data via tokenization.⁹

But AI-powered fraud protection is helping banks fight back. Indeed, a 2024 pilot partnership between Visa and Pay.UK (which runs the UK’s retail payments operations) used advanced AI tech to successfully identify 54% of fraudulent transactions in a historic analysis of billions of historic UK retail bank transactions over a 12-month period.¹⁰ In the UK alone, this innovation could save over £330m a year in fraud and Authorized Push Payment (APP) scams.

Conclusion

In an unstable financial landscape, FIs can play a key role in assuaging the fears of their clients. With support from payments ecosystem experts, there are many ways they can convert challenges to opportunities and deliver enhanced security in ways that give commercial clients peace of mind and FIs a seat at the table.