#62: B2B CX and the Evolving B2B Customer with Rajesh Sankaran

Summary

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Podcast Summary: B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™

Episode #62: B2B CX and the Evolving B2B Customer with Rajesh Sankaran
Date: September 23, 2025
Guest: Rajesh Sankaran, SVP of E-Commerce, Amax Insurance
Host: Greg Kihlström

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Episode Overview

This episode explores the nuanced and evolving landscape of B2B customer experience (CX), focusing on how expectations from B2C are influencing B2B, especially within large insurance organizations like Amax Insurance. Host Greg Kihlström and guest Rajesh Sankaran discuss the convergence of B2B and B2C CX standards, the operational and cultural differences in serving these segments, and how Amax approaches personalization, technology, and measurement in both contexts.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Blurring Line Between B2B and B2C CX

• Customer Expectations Converge:
  Sankaran highlights how every B2B customer is also a B2C consumer, bringing their digital-first and seamless experience expectations from the consumer world into business relationships.

  • “The world’s changed because of our Starbucks and Netflixes … regardless of whether you're talking for yourself or you're customer, you're a customer, you want that same B2B experience that you have as a B2C customer.” – Rajesh Sankaran [03:40]

• Personalization and Value:
  Both B2B and B2C customers want personalized experiences, value, and long-term relationships, but the delivery must be tailored to the specific context and complexity of the business.

2. Key Differences in B2B vs. B2C CX

• Retention Challenges in B2C:
  Amax’s B2C customers are transient and price-sensitive, making retention a big focus, while B2B customers tend to have longer-term relationships.

  • “B2C customers are tougher to retain... they will change carriers ... for a $3 difference in payment.” – Rajesh Sankaran [05:41]

• Agent Training and Tools:
  Different skill sets and tools are requisite to handle B2B vs. B2C—agents are separately trained based on the segment, as their needs and the nature of client relationships differ.

3. Aligning Marketing, Sales, and CX

• Cross-Functional Alignment:
  Success in CX hinges on tight collaboration between sales, marketing, and service teams. While generally aligned, the alignment needs constant reinforcement, particularly regarding the rationale behind marketing activities such as lead generation.

  • “Salespeople don’t care how you do lead gen...it's hard to explain to a core seller what my top of the funnel is, what my bottom of the funnel is...” – Rajesh Sankaran [10:50]

• Consistent Customer Messaging:
  It’s vital to provide structured communication templates for agents, ensuring customers get consistent, correct information whether reminders are sent via phone, text, or online forms.

4. Digital Expectations & Evolving Strategies

• B2B Customers and B2C Expectations:
  Even small businesses now expect swift, digital, and frictionless experiences, though the complexity of insurance means some manual processes remain. Sankaran sees ongoing growth in automation, self-service, and proactive communication.

  • “The expectation about Starbucks and Prime ... is still there as a human being for everyone.” [14:11]

• Handling Complexity and Personalization:
  While the digital transformation is ongoing, B2B still requires due diligence and information gathering, but relationship-building and automation are key to bridging gaps.

5. Major Trends Impacting B2B CX

• AI and Technology:
  The rise of AI is reshaping personalization, channel blending, and self-service. Younger business decision-makers expect seamless omnichannel experiences.

  • “I've heard of this little thing called AI that's popped up everywhere now...our constant struggle is how do we take advantage of what's out there, how do we take advantage of it more responsibly...” [16:28]

• Generational Shifts:
  A growing proportion of B2B buyers are millennials or Gen Z, necessitating changes in CX approaches to meet new communication and service preferences.

  • “I read somewhere, I think 64% of the current buyers are millennials.” [17:47]

6. Measuring CX Success

• Feedback Collection:
  Traditional CSAT and NPS remain important, but the addition of real-time feedback (e.g., texts, call analysis with AI) feeds into continuous agent training.

  • “Phone calls are being heard and AI analyzes phone calls with agents and customers and that gives us some feedback ... we use basically that to turn that into training material for agents.” [18:24]

• Activating Promoters:
  A strategic focus is building a flywheel by activating promoters (satisfied customers who can refer others), although Sankaran notes they’re still optimizing this.

7. Staying Agile as a Leader

• Continuous Learning:
  Sankaran cites reading, networking, podcasts, and conferences as critical for staying current and adaptable in his role.
  • “There’s an inflow of information and how do you distill it and process what you want is the key.” [20:16]

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “The world’s changed because of our Starbucks and Netflixes ... you want that same B2B experience that you have as a B2C customer.” – Rajesh Sankaran [03:40]
• “B2C customers are tougher to retain... they will change carriers ... for a $3 difference in payment.” – Rajesh Sankaran [05:41]
• “Salespeople don’t care how you do lead gen...it's hard to explain to a core seller what my top of the funnel is, what my bottom of the funnel is...” – Rajesh Sankaran [10:50]
• “I've heard of this little thing called AI that's popped up everywhere now...” – Rajesh Sankaran [16:28]
• “64% of the current buyers are millennials.” – Rajesh Sankaran [17:47]
• “Phone calls are being heard and AI analyzes phone calls with agents and customers...we use basically that to turn that into training material for agents.” – Rajesh Sankaran [18:24]
• “There’s an inflow of information and how do you distill it and process what you want is the key.” – Rajesh Sankaran [20:16]

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Key Timestamps

• 00:33 — Episode theme and guest introduction
• 01:24 — Rajesh Sankaran's background and Amax Insurance overview
• 03:30-04:35 — Similarities and differences between B2B and B2C CX
• 05:27-07:05 — Approach to CX in B2B vs B2C, agent training
• 07:49-09:44 — Internal alignment and KPIs in CX
• 10:22-12:11 — Challenges in sales-marketing alignment, strategies for consistency
• 13:30-14:36 — Impact of B2C expectations on B2B CX strategies
• 16:11-18:03 — Trends: AI, omnichannel experiences, generational shifts
• 18:24-19:41 — Measuring B2B CX success, feedback loops
• 20:02-20:16 — How Sankaran stays agile as a leader

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Summary Takeaway

This episode underscores the increasing overlap between B2B and B2C customer experience expectations, the necessity of tight cross-departmental collaboration, and the adoption of new tech like AI to meet evolving demands, especially from a new generation of decision-makers. Rajesh Sankaran emphasizes that while the core needs of customers may be similar, the paths to providing excellent CX in B2B vs. B2C require tailored strategies, ongoing alignment, and continuous learning.

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Transcript

[Greg Kilstrom]

The Agile brand.

[Greg Kilstrom (Intro/Outro)]

Welcome to the B2B Agility podcast, where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing, with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host, Greg Kilstrom, advising Fortune 1000 brands on MarTech marketing operations and CX, bestselling author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show.

[Greg Kilstrom]

If you could fix one thing about your customer experience, what would it be and why? Agility requires a deep understanding of evolving customer expectations and the ability to adapt quickly to meet those needs, especially in the complex B2B landscape. It also demands breaking down silos between marketing, sales and customer service to create a unified customer journey. Today we're going to talk about the nuances of B2B customer experience, particularly within a large organization like an insurance company, and how it compares and contrasts in the B2C world. To help me discuss this topic, I'd like to welcome Rajesh Sankaran, SVP of E Commerce at Amax Insurance. Rajesh, welcome to the show.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Hey Greg, nice to be here.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah. Looking forward to talking about this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't you give a little background on yourself and your role at Amax Insurance?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Sure. With Amax Insurance, I work on the E Commerce side. So we work with. First, let me start with a couple of lines about Amax and then I'll go about talk about me. Amax has been in business for over 20 years. We have primary locations of business in Texas and California and we have a couple of brands, one of them being our Amax Commercial brand as well. So we have the Amax Commercial currently operates as preferred insurance and we're doing some work on the Amax Commercial brand as well. And then we have about 250 stores between Texas and California. I've been with Amax just over four years and I've been in consulting my whole life. So during the process of a lot of consulting, I worked with Accenture, hp, EDS and some of my own and so on and so forth. As part of that, I've spent a lot of time at different insurance companies, which gives me a unique perspective of the insurance world as I was on the other side and now I'm in the business side here. So I'm able to marry the both and say, okay, now what is changing? What is different? What can we do different? So it helps bridge that gap. Being on the other side to where we are now.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely gives You a good, good, good set of perspectives and a diverse perspective there. So yeah, let's, let's dive in here. And I want to start by talking about. So you know, this is a B2B show. We talk a lot about B2B. Those listening out there may also be familiar with B2C. But you a Max Insurance is a company that works in both B2B and B2C. And a lot of people are talking about the convergence of B2B and B2C customer expectations. You know, they always say, you know, B2B customers are B2C consumers after they clock out or whatever. So, you know, we're all. Some of those expectations from the consumer world are bleeding over into B2B. In your view, what are the core similarities between B2B and B2C CX and also where do they fundamentally differ?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

I think you're spot on. Right. Every B2B customer in their off hours are B2C customers. So fundamentally everybody wants the. If you had heard any of my previous podcasts, fundamentally the world's changed because of our Starbucks and Netflixes. So regardless of whether you're talking for yourself or you're customer, you're a customer, you want that same B2B experience that you have as a B2C customer. So what we focus on and what a customer wants is that cool experience they work with and they don't care if it comes from an insurance company or Starbucks. They want star points, they want their next episode in 30 seconds. That experience is what is driving the world now. Both customers want that value and both customers B2B and B2C want that long term relationship, that personalization and how we collect the continuous feedback and are able to provide that service. Differentiated is the converging or diverging point between the experiences. Right. So for a company, I have to work with a company regardless of whether I'm talking to an IT person, business person or our favorite contract managers versus building that relationship with the individual consumer. My data driven decisions or decisions based on data that we collect is slightly different but generally similar, if that makes sense.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So you know, because Amax Insurance deals with both B2C and B2B customers, how do you see the approach to CX differing in terms of things like purchase complexity, maybe relationship duration? You know, there are some differences there. So you know, how does, how does a company like that approach CX when there are some fundamental at the business or product level even.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Yeah, our customers on the B2C side, we work with non standard customers. Which is for more people. It's like the subprime market, if you will. So these customers are very transient in nature. So B2C customers are tougher to retain. And it's a big focus for us is retention of these customers. They will change carriers, they will do some of the things that they do for $3 difference in payment. But again, they are looking at, am I putting food on the table or am I paying for insurance? And nobody cares for insurance anyway. But on the B2C side, we want them to have a different relationship with us because they tend to stay longer. Their nature and how we personalize the experience with them and, and for us also, a lot of, since we are a big agency, we are also working with a number of carriers and brokers, big brokers, to be able to get that information and pass it on to the customer. So we, our agents need to understand very clearly the difference between working with a contractor to a large customer to somebody that has a. That's a dentist that has 10 offices. So there is a lot of difference that the agents have to go through and understand. And for the most part, it's not the same agents that work with B2C and B2B. So they're trained differently, their focus is different. We give them a lot more tools, slightly different tools than each other to sort of bridge that gap between the two segments.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

What I've seen in, you know, successful customer experience within organizations has alignment between different teams. So, and I think there's marketing, there's sales, there's customer service, there's all kinds of alignments that, that can benefit both the organization and the customer. But I want to talk a little bit about some of that alignment and, you know, so how does your team, from a customer experience perspective, collaborate with teams like sales or even marketing to ensure a seamless customer experience? And what are some of the KPIs that you track to measure the effectiveness of the collaboration?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

What alignment are you talking about? Depends on which day of the week you ask them they're aligned or not aligned.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Right, right.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Generally, I think we feel like sales and marketing are quite aligned regardless of whether it's again, B2B or B2C. On the B2C side, I think there is probably a lot more, I shouldn't say a lot more alignment, lot less control confusion on the B2B side because it's very similar. Our customer nature does not change. Tomorrow morning Christmas doesn't affect customer behavior that much. A business is a business and they're going to have insurance and they're going to keep it and they're going to renew it. And the life cycle is slightly different. Where we see a lot of value is the same. KPIs can be effectively measured between the two. And the collaboration will help us with hey, what are the types of customers? Right? What are the types of segments that customers fall in? And a lot of that is on the B2C side, helped by the NASIS codes and some of the industry things that we have that we can leverage and knowing about the customer's business, understanding the business forecasting. If a body shop has is insured by us or if a restaurant is insured by us and they say hey, we're going to now start selling liquor, we know already enough to let that restaurant know, hey, by the way, here are the things that you need to look for. Or if it's a home based bakery, our agents will say hey, does your customer pick up from you? Do they walk into your property? Do they do. We will educate the customer on things. And when we do marketing, the salespeople will do this. But when we do marketing, the marketing material will include some of these nuggets of how do I help you? And the value add is there. It's not like hey, I want to sell you a policy and I want to sell it to you and this is the down payment. That's not how it works.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

I mean it sounds like also there's. That requires understanding a lot of different types of business. You know, if you offer insurance and products to a lot of different types of businesses, those salespeople at the very least, if not the marketing folks as well, need to really understand the, you know, a lot of nuances of the difference between, you know, the needs of a bakery versus a body shop or whatever. Where do you see maybe the biggest challenges in alignment and marketing and sales around. Around CX and you know, particularly in B2B again. And what. What strategies have you found in effective in overcoming them?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Yeah, in. In the B2B world, what where we see the. I don't know that if it's a big challenge, but it is a challenge in not quite aligning marketing and sales. But sales almost needs to wrap their head around some of why marketing activities happen in a way salespeople don't care how you do lead gen as an example. Right. It's hard to explain to a core seller what my top of the funnel is, what my bottom of the funnel is and how I do MQL and SQL. It's not the same. The lead gen activities I think is one of the areas where we will need constant education for the salespeople and why and how we can do some of that. That's one area. The other area I think is a good, it's more education. Right. What are the marketing materials? How can we help you with generating marketing materials? If you're saying, hey, I'm a salespeople, we are running this promotion. They can't run the promotion without getting completely aligned with marketing. So developing those landing pages as an example that makes sense for customers. That make sense for these experience for them online and or on the phone, scripted material giving them. If the agent just wants to send text messages to customers and they free form it, most of the times it don't end well, end well. So giving them structured information and say, hey, use this, this and this as your template for reminders. Use this, this and this as your template for payment reminders. So that type of stuff is where there is a little bit of. I don't know if there is even a challenge, but it's definitely consistent reiteration of the need for alignment.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Yeah, yeah. It just, it requires coordination so that the customer has that, you know, customers don't really care or understand how the, how the process is made. They just want that seamless experience. So you know that that seamless experience requires a lot of coordination.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

On the one thing we've recently done to our websites is we understand, hey, a lot of customers that are particular. I'm just talking about B2B right. That want. It's a very simple request in their mind, hey, I want my certificate of insurance. They'll say, they'll call and say I want my certificate of insurance. There they go to the website, click, I want certificate of insurance. It gets frustrating to the customer sometimes. Why we ask so many questions, hey, do you need me to add somebody else to it? Do it. All these questions, right when we put them in the form and we think of the flow of how we generate the form, then the agents go, this makes sense why we should do it this way. Versus if you just put every phone call into the agent without a form fill, they're going to spend a lot more time on the phones just dealing with certificate of insurance. It's like simple things. As we learn and grow, we make sure that it's the process that is customer friendly and easy to navigate.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So back to, you know, what I mentioned at the very top of the show and what we touched on a little bit is you know, are you seeing that B2B customers are really expecting that B2C, like, you know, the Netflix, the Starbucks, the Amazon, you know, and you know, what does that mean in terms of when a company like yours is adapting strategies? You know, what? Particularly, you know, digital engagement, personalization. Like, how does, how does that expectation kind of shape the way you think about strategies?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

I think a hundred percent the expectation is changing. Small businesses, artisan businesses, which is our primary, probably our sweet spot, maybe their expectation is just a little bit tamed compared to other areas. So we're somewhat lucky still in that regard. But the expectation about Starbucks and Prime and all that is still there as a human being for everyone. So the decision making complexity probably is the biggest difference between B2C and B2B. Our personalization approach with B2B customers is evolving because not every product that we sell that we are able to provide to the customer has that same level of flexibility. Right. We still need to collect information, we still need to work with the online purchasing for B2B customers is not there to do everything on a click of a button. So we have to collect information, we got to do some due diligence and we have to come back to them with that. Which this is why the building that strong relationship, more strategic relationship over time is that big difference. And it's the nature of the business. Some of the B2B transactions end up becoming transactional. Some of them have a really strong relationship. They want to call and they want to talk to that particular agent that they have serviced them for years. And some of them don't care. Hey, I just want my policy and I want to keep renewing it. Don't talk to me. So there is a difference between the two, but the changing ecosystem certainly is. It's a constant everywhere in every aspect of the business. We are trying to see how much can we introduce a little bit of automation, little bit of value add to the customer. Hey, by the way, customer, your payment renewal date is coming up. Our policy renewal is coming up. You got to pay for this or do you? By the way, there's a new product we've added to our list. Do you want me to run that code for you as well? So those are. We got to get in front of these customers on the B2 B2 a certain extent.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah, yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Beyond that, you know, that concept of that, the B2C expectation in B2B, what other trends are you seeing in B2B? Customer experience? And how are those, you know, how are some of these trends influencing Your long term CX strategy there is this.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

I've heard of this little thing called AI that's popped up everywhere now.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Right, right. I think, I think I've heard of that.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

Yeah, yeah. I think we want sales leaders, as sales leaders, as digital leaders, as CX leaders. I think our constant struggle is how do we take advantage of what's out there, how do we take advantage of it more responsibly, how do we make sure it seamlessly works with everything else? Then of course, as we have discussed, personalization, channel blending the channels. Right. Seamless integration of all the channels that we can service them with. From a phone call to a text message, to online chatting, to walk in, everybody needs all of that. And there are some people that absolutely don't want to talk to a human being. So we're developing and enhancing our self service capability. And one of the I think biggest changes that we are seeing in the B2B space is the, all the startups that are popping up and the millennials to Gen Zs, to whoever this new generation is, the CEOs and CFOs that are in their 20s want to have a completely different type of interaction with other businesses. I read somewhere, I think 64 percentage, 64% of the current buyers are millennials. So we have to think about, okay, my 60 year old sales leader cannot possibly easily wrap his head around how do I service a customer who's 25 years old.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Right.

[Rajesh Sankaran]

That's probably some of the shifting that we're doing and we're doing a decent job of it.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah.

[Greg Kilstrom]

So in terms of measurement then, you know, how do you look at measuring B2B CX success? You know, there's obviously a lot of traditional metrics and potentially some newer ways of doing it. You know, what's your approach?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

There's collecting customer feedback, right? I mean be it CSAT or NPS or any of that, or asking straight up, right, hey customer, how did I do for you? Will you, can we work with you further? Any of these types of surveys or a simple one text, hey, how did we do? Can you give me some feedback? So that still is happening. And then we have of course phone calls are being heard and AI analyzes phone calls with agents and customers and that gives us some feedback. I think there are lots of good nuggets of information we get from that, that we leverage that and we use basically that to turn that into training material for agents. So that's a, that's a enhancement that has come around because of AI and every meeting is transcribed and heard and received and instant feedback for salespeople. And then the other thing that we're trying to do, I don't think we are, we've cracked that code a hundred percent, is activating those promoters of our brand. Right. We gotta get, get to the point where that becomes a really, really. I think we're getting there, but we want to make that part of the flywheel and that part of that flywheel has to take off. And the activating the promoters is probably one of the key things that we are focused on.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah. Yeah. Love it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, Rajesh, thanks so much for, for joining today. Definitely, you know, always, always good to talk through this and, and hear, you know, real is being done. Really appreciate your insights. I got one last question for you. I like to ask everybody here. What do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?

[Rajesh Sankaran]

I golf a lot. No, just kidding. No, I think I read books, listen to podcasts, networking and hey, friend of a friend did this. Do you know this? So it's definitely a lot of word of mouth and reading and keeping up with this through conferences and so on. I don't think there is one, one easy answer to that, but it's everywhere. There's an inflow of information and how do you distill it and process what you want is the key.

[Podcast Guest or Co-host (Unspecified)]

Yeah. Yeah. Love it.

[Greg Kilstrom]

Well, again, I'd like to thank Rajesh Sankaran, SVP of E Commerce at Amax Insurance for joining the show. You can learn more about Rajesh and Amax Insurance by following the links in the show notes.

[Greg Kilstrom (Intro/Outro)]

Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can access more episodes of the show at www.b2bagility.com. That's b2bagility.com. While you're there, check out my series of bestselling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon. Until next time, stay focused and stay agile.

[Greg Kilstrom]

The agile brand.