As a B2B business, it doesn’t matter whether you map your customer journey as a funnel, flywheel, or free-for-all — no two customers will take the exact same path. Every B2B customer has unique circumstances and evolving needs. The quality of knowledge your business shares can be just as critical to your success as the quality of product you provide.

To fill knowledge gaps throughout the customer journey, businesses invest enormous energy producing resources, hosting events, building courses, and much more. B2B companies are creating and sharing more knowledge than ever before.

While more knowledge can empower more customers to succeed, 67% of B2B customers now have to navigate resources across five or more locations to find what they need. Content overload has turned customer knowledge journeys into frustrating mazes. When customers get stuck, they disengage and often take their business elsewhere.

So, how did we get here? How can you determine if fragmented knowledge is undermining your customer journey? And what can you do about it?

The Potential Cost of Not Reading This Article = 0.4 × Number of customers × Revenue per customer × (Lead-to-close rate + Current churn rate)

Let’s start with a thought experiment

Imagine the internet has been turned off, and to ensure your customers can access the knowledge they need, you host an in-person conference.

Scenario A

You’re a visitor at this event. As a new customer, you’ve arrived eager to learn how to get maximum value out of the product you’ve purchased. You also hope to connect with other customers facing similar challenges as you.

But when you walk into the conference, the building is empty. No brand representatives, no other visitors. 

You spot a row of doors at the back of the room. Although confused, you’re eager to make the most of your time, so you open the first door. Inside, someone from the brand is yelling into a microphone in an empty room, rambling about an industry you don’t belong to. Disappointed, you try the next door. This time, you find two people from the brand shouting at each other about a product feature that doesn’t concern you, again to an empty room. 

You press your ear up to the remaining doors to try and guess what is on the other side. The last door, silent. You open it. 

What you see is too horrifying to repeat. You flee, never to return.

Scenario B

You’re the same visitor with the same needs. But this time, as you arrive, a friendly brand representative greets you and asks a few simple questions about your goals and interests. Based on your answers, they create a personalized map and agenda for the day. They also reassure you that if you have any questions, they’ll guide you to the right session or connect you with an expert.

As you enter the building, the representative introduces you to a group of like-minded customers who are equally excited to meet you. You spend the day learning, networking, and sharing your insights. You leave eager to return and contribute more to this vibrant community you now feel a part of.

If you were in that customer’s shoes, which scenario would you prefer?

Scenario A reflects how most B2B customers experience knowledge from the brands they do business with today: hard to navigate, brand-centric, top-down. Scenario B demonstrates the personalized, community-focused experience we should all strive to create — and it’s achievable right now.

But how did we end up with such a dysfunctional approach to B2B knowledge sharing?

A (very) brief history of customer knowledge sharing

For a more extended history of customer knowledge sharing, you can read our article A Brief History of Customer Knowledge Sharing. But to summarize, as businesses have moved into the digital age, tools like marketing automation and CRM systems have become essential for handling customer interactions at scale. To make every interaction stand out, brands have become content factories. Some of this content contains valuable knowledge. Some just adds to the noise it is designed to cut through.

Blogs, resources, events, courses and forums have now all become standard practices to keep both potential and existing customers engaged. Patching different engagement strategies and tools together has led to valuable knowledge becoming fragmented. Not only is this costly to manage, but it's also hugely frustrating for customers.

Every time a customer struggles to find the right knowledge, you risk more than just their attention.

The  cost of fragmented knowledge on the customer journey

Maybe fragmented knowledge is ruining your customer journey. If high support ticket volumes and low customer engagement are already big concerns, then you may already be aware of some of the costs.

A Gallup study showed that 71% of B2B customers are at risk of churn when they aren’t fully engaged. When it comes to potential customers, Oracle reported that 95% of B2B buyers will choose the company that provides the right knowledge at the right time. Fragmented knowledge is a revenue killer — fact.

But to fully understand the risks to your business, and inspire your team to take a new approach, we need to look at the key stages of the customer lifecycle:

Acquisition

Educating potential buyers with the right knowledge at the right time is critical to acquiring new customers. This is a competitive process in any market. Zapnito analysis has shown by providing personalized content and community experiences, businesses can expect a 40% increase in lead-to-conversion rates. This buyer phase of the customer journey can be further broken down into three steps:

Awareness

When a potential customer first encounters your brand, fragmented knowledge can hinder their ability to understand the problem your product or service solves and differentiate your brand from competitors. This makes your value proposition unclear, stopping buyers from recognizing their pain points and the unique value you offer.

Consideration

When a potential customer is considering your products or services, fragmented knowledge can overwhelm them, leaving them uncertain about product fit and reliability. This complexity can put them at risk of engaging with competitors. A lack of access to the right knowledge can cause high drop-off rates and missed conversion opportunities.

Decision

Without the right knowledge and visible social proof, potential customers can have last-minute doubts about making an investment. Confusion about the purchase process and what they can expect in return for their money can quickly block deals.

Adoption

New customers need to see value from their investment quickly to increase the chance of them staying loyal to your business. Zapnito analysis has shown a 20% increase in product adoption can be achieved by providing a single hub to access onboarding experiences and connect directly with experts.

Education is key at this onboarding phase. Insufficient self-service support and a lack of engagement opportunities can cause immediate frustration. If customers feel unsupported and undervalued post-purchase, they can quickly churn.

Retention

A Harvard Business Review study found that increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%. Our own analysis has shown customer annual churn rate can be reduced by as much as 40% by engaging customers to become participants in a knowledge-sharing community.

Under challenging economic conditions, B2B customers need to see continuous return on their investment. Full understanding and buy-in to your company vision can be essential to customer loyalty. Two-way knowledge sharing creates this connection with and between customers. Without this, customers will churn, and lifetime value will fall.

Advocacy

Customer loyalty and word of mouth are key to scalable growth. Zapnito analysis has shown providing personalized knowledge-sharing experiences across the customer lifecycle can drive up NPS scores by 50%. Removing friction for brand advocates to contribute knowledge not only helps drive direct referrals, but it also creates social proof for buyers at the acquisition stage of the customer journey.

Fragmented knowledge can disrupt the customer journey at every stage, leading to missed opportunities, lost sales, and a damaged brand reputation. For B2B brands solving complex problems or with sophisticated products, knowledge sharing can make or break success.

Gartner reports that 96% of customers who have a high-effort experience become more disloyal. Disloyalty translates into increased churn rates and lower customer lifetime value (CLTV). Without engaged and educated customers singing your praises, you’ll become dependent on expensive brand awareness strategies to attract new customers.

How to share and co-create knowledge with the right customers, at the right time

No two customers are created equal. Personalization is key to providing the right knowledge at the right time across the customer journey. McKinsey reported that personalization during the customer acquisition process can deliver between five and eight times the ROI on marketing spend and lift sales by 10% or more.

To deliver personalized knowledge sharing experiences, we have to understand the changing needs across the customer journey. Zapnito’s Customer Knowledge Sharing Model outlines four key customer mindsets and ideal solutions:

Researcher

Customers in this mindset are looking for quick, specific solutions to immediate challenges. Allowing them to search all existing knowledge helps them easily find the solution they need. Featuring community profiles in search results helps customers connect with experts to resolve issues efficiently if the right knowledge hasn’t yet been documented. 

Learner

These customers are open to exploring new insights to achieve personal or professional growth. By organizing content into learning journeys and providing personalizing suggestions based on a customer’s interests, businesses can drive engagement and build long-term trust at scale.

Collaborator

Customers in this mindset want to help enrich and expand the knowledge available. By engaging in discussions and connecting with peers, your customer community helps deepen the quality of knowledge available. Activating customers to contribute feedback also provides valuable insights which can inform business decisions.

Creator

These customers want to help others by sharing their expertise. Self-service content authoring tools drive user-generated content. Fully leveraging customers with this mindset can help scale the quantity and quality of knowledge available to everyone.

Unfortunately, providing ideal solutions to each of these customer mindsets is incredibly difficult without the right technology. Traditionally it takes a highly complicated patchwork of tools and integrations to come anywhere close. As a result, more businesses are realizing the benefits of consolidating multiple tools into a single platform.

All the knowledge your customers need — in one place

By bringing together resources, community, and learning in a single platform, you remove the risk that fragmentation poses to your customer journey. A centralized experience allows you to personalize what every customer can access based on who they are and what they need.

In the past, attempting to consolidate tools may have meant compromising key functionality. Today, a purpose-built platform like Zapnito makes it possible to create a personalized knowledge hub in weeks. This all-in-one approach not only brings significant benefits to your customers but also to your business:

• Deeper customer insights: A single platform collects data on customer behavior and and provides a clear channel for feedback. This helps businesses understand and respond to the needs of individuals and groups more effectively.

• Streamlined user experience: Customers find everything they need in one place, reducing friction and making it easier to access solutions, learn, and collaborate.

• Stronger engagement: Peer-to-peer networking and opportunities for collaboration keep customers engaged, building long-term relationships and loyalty.

• Operational efficiencies: Consolidating systems into one platform cuts costs and simplifies management, making operations smoother and more cost-effective.

Customer journey friction is no longer an unavoidable side effect of providing the knowledge your customers need to succeed. Your customer base is a community, made up of individuals, each with personal knowledge needs. Your brand, experts, and peers are all sources of knowledge that can help individual customers achieve their goals.

How can I create a personalized knowledge hub?

Streamlining how you currently share and co-create knowledge with customers is easier than you might think. The process of migrating existing resources and launching is straightforward with the right expert support.

Zapnito is the only platform for growing and retaining your customer community with a personalized knowledge hub experience. If you’d like to learn more about how Zapnito works, you can watch a platform walkthrough or book a custom demo with one of our experts.