B2B Customer Journey: Axioms and Actor Roles

Abstract

The customer journey has been identified as one of the most promising concepts in understanding business-to-business (B2B) buying and selling processes in modern digital environments. Although the B2B marketing literature has recognised the potential of the concept, it still lacks a perspective approaching the characteristics of B2B markets. This paper aims to build theory by bringing the customer journey to the B2B field. The paper systematically reviews the customer journey literature and reflects on it from the B2B perspective. It then proposes four axioms for B2B customer journeys and introduces four roles for both suppliers and customers through which the customer journey manifests. The paper hopes to inspire further B2B customer journey research by contributing to the B2B marketing literature through proposing the basis for considering B2B characteristics from the perspective of customer journeys.