Personalization That Respects Boundaries In B2B

Personalization in B2B shouldn’t feel invasive—it should feel helpful, timely, and trustworthy. In this episode, we share a practical framework for getting personal the right way: focus on professional goals, public signals, and clear boundaries. Skip the birthday messages and small talk; instead, pay attention to milestones that matter—team expansions, product launches, and regulatory shifts that shape your clients’ priorities.

We dive into tactics for adding warmth to cold communications, from simple follow-ups to plain-language summaries that turn compliance into clarity. You’ll learn how to time outreach, tailor messages by maturity level, and link value to outcomes leaders care about—adoption, risk reduction, and ROI.

Finally, we explore the guardrails that protect trust: respect boundaries, avoid private data, and apply the “leadership test” for tone. Rethink your B2B playbook and build personalization that scales—with relevance, respect, and humanity.

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Don’t forget to register for our upcoming webinar, From Assessment to Action: Building Your CX Roadmap, on November 4th via bit.ly/CXAction

Resources Mentioned:
Experience Investigators Website -- https://experienceinvestigators.com

Want to ask a question? Visit askjeannie.vip to leave Jeannie a voicemail! (And don't forget to follow Jeannie on LinkedIn! www.linkedin.com/in/jeanniewalters/)

Episode Transcript

Jeannie Walters (00:00):
Hi everyone, it's Jeannie Walters with
Experience Investigators.
I want to invite you to a veryspecial webinar that we are
hosting for your fourth quarter.
This will be on November 4th,and it's called From Assessment
to Action.
This is about building yourcustomer experience roadmap.
Join us at the link on yourscreen, which is

(00:21):
bit.ly/CXAction.
See you there.
Personalization is an importantpart of the customer experience.
But what if we get toopersonal?
Great question today on theExperience Action Podcast.

Listener Question (00:39):
My name is Ron, and I have a question about
the dynamics of B2Brelationships.
B2B personalization can betricky.
We want to show clients we knowthem, but we also need to keep
it professional.
How do we strike the rightbalance between making things
feel personalized withoutoverstepping?

Jeannie Walters (00:56):
This is such a great question.
And I think there's a broaderconversation here about what
personalization can mean.
Because one of the things Ilike to point out is that in
B2B, in business to business, weare still dealing with humans.
We are still buildingrelationships, all the things
that we need to do in the B2Cworld as well.

(01:19):
Now, we might get excited as acustomer when we get a special
birthday coupon from ourfavorite frozen yogurt place, or
maybe a free coffee, orsomething like that.
There are all sorts of thingsthat happen around birthdays, or
maybe the anniversary ofbecoming a customer that can
feel very personal on the B2Cside.
But on the B2B side, we have tothink differently about

(01:42):
personalization.
So I like to think about thisas really it's connecting with
the people that are part of thisorganization in ways that are
both relevant and respectful.
Because of course, we don'twant to overstep.
Some of this, we have to readthe room.
We have to understand who isthis person that we're

(02:02):
interacting with and howpersonal do they like to be.
Some people separate theirpersonal and their professional
lives, and that's the way theylike it, and they are entitled
to do so.
So if somebody hasn't sharedmuch personal information, then
we want to make sure we don'toverstep by doing something like
going to their personal socialmedia profiles and trying to

(02:24):
glean information.
That just doesn't feel right.
But if they are a person, theyalso have goals within their
professional life.
So that's how we can reallypersonalize the situation.
We can comment on things likereports that their organization
has been sending out orprofessional ideas that they've

(02:45):
shared, maybe on a platform likeLinkedIn.
We have to figure out who arewe dealing with and how can we
respect the boundaries that theyhave put up.
Now, the other part of this isif we are just saying, hey, uh
notice that you went golfingthis weekend, cool, that's not
really telling them about thevalue that we could bring to a

(03:08):
B2B relationship.
So part of personalizing therelationship, whether it's
before the sale or after theybecome a customer, is really
understanding what are theirprofessional goals.
How can we help them achievethose?
So that could be something likenoticing when they are
expanding their team or whenthey have special announcements.

(03:31):
And by noticing, maybe that'scommenting and encouraging and
building that relationship, andthen at the same time saying
things like, you know what,we've we've actually worked with
teams that have expanded.
I have some ideas for you.
And just offer value.
Value when it's relevant andwhen it's respectful of their

(03:52):
personal boundaries.
That's what builds a reallysuccessful B2B relationship.
Now, we also want to make surethat we are making the
personalization focused on thatprofessional context.
So, for instance, it might bereally valuable to know things
like their birthday, like theiranniversary.

(04:14):
That might be very valuable.
But it also might be morevaluable to know things like,
you know what, I know their busyseason, I know when things are
going to be coming up that willimpact their work and what
they're trying to achieve.
So I'm going to be proactiveabout that communication.
By recognizing where they are,by recognizing their goals,

(04:36):
that's how we personalize inB2B.
The other thing to remember isthat when we have all sorts of
automated communications, howcan we warm those up?
Sometimes what that means forgroups like customer success
teams is knowing, okay,everybody's about to get this
legal notice and they're itfeels cold because we're in a

(04:59):
regulated industry and we haveto get this out to them.
What can we do to warm that up,to personalize it?
Well, we could make a follow-upphone call.
We could offer to walk throughit with them to make sure they
understand.
We could translate it tolayman's terms and say, you know
what, this is what it's reallytelling you.
I still encourage you to workwith your lawyer on this, but

(05:21):
here's my take.
That's another way of providingpersonalized value in the
moment.
So just like any other customerjourney, we want to think about
where they are on the journey?
Who are they, and how can wehelp them in the right moment
with the right information, theright relevance, and the right
level of respect.

(05:42):
That's really the balance wehave to achieve with
personalization in B2B.
Now, the last thing I want tosay here is that we live in a
world where we have to assumeeverybody sees all of our
communications.
Meaning, if you are emailing aclient or a customer and you're

(06:03):
having a little fun, maybe youare going a little off color,
maybe you are getting a littletoo personal because this is
somebody you know.
If you are doing that in aprofessional context, ask
yourself, would this be okay iftheir leadership saw this?
Would this be okay if it waspublished all over the internet?
If you say no to that question,then you need to rethink that

(06:27):
communication.
That's just the world we livein.
And it's really important thatwhen we speak to one another,
when we email one another, whenwe comment on our social posts,
we are doing that with a highregard for who we are posting
on, who we are responding to.
That is just critical no matterwhere you are on the customer

(06:50):
journey.
So, great question.
B2B is so important.
B2B is a huge part of reallythinking about the customer
experience.
How can we help them with theirjobs, with their professional
ambitions, with their goals,with their business outcomes?
All of that can be impacted bythe customer experience efforts

(07:12):
that you put in.
Thank you so much for joiningme for yet another episode of
the Experience Action Podcast.
You know I love hearing fromyou.
Don't be shy.
Ask your question ataskjeannie.vip. See you next time.
To learn more about ourstrategic approach to
experience, check out freeresources at

(07:34):
experienceinvestigators.com,where you can sign up for our
newsletter, our year of CXprogram, and more.
And please follow me, JeannieWalters, on LinkedIn.