By being more collaborative, unified and leveraging digital avenues to optimize technology, companies can improve customer experience (CX) across all of their customer interactions. Thereby they also boost their revenue efforts.
How can sales make it easier for customers to buy?
It’s clear that we as companies and e-commerce sites need to make it as easy as possible for our customers to execute purchases. This goes for all companies, whether B2B or B2C. The harder it is for customers to make a purchase, the harder it will be for our businesses to make a profit.
Nowadays, digital commerce is integrated into the business strategy instead of seen as a sideline project.
Not only with Artificial intelligence (AI) but also the invention of digital sales rooms (DSRs) have meant that B2B sales are changing rapidly, and to be competitive companies must look outwards to the external customer experience. This is easier said than done, and even if businesses understand the need for superior CX, however the execution of this often fails.
How are leading organizations utilizing the way B2B sales are changing?
- “Reducing customer effort increases sales conversions and revenue.”
- Leading organizations are evolving past digital commerce as a project and integrating it into every part of the business.
- Innovations such as AI and digital sales rooms are changing the face of B2B sales.
- B2B organizations are rapidly working to become more digital, but may focus on internal goals rather than the customer experience.”
How will B2B sales change in the near future?
- “By 2025, organizations offering a unified commerce experience by frictionlessly moving customers through journeys will see at least a 20% uplift in total revenue.
- By 2025, 60% of B2B sales organizations’ digital sales optimization projects will not meet customer experience goals because of focusing on operational targets only.
- By 2025, organizations with distributive responsibilities for digital commerce endeavors will outperform those without by 25%.
Also:
- By 2026, at least 10% of salespeople at leading organizations will leverage AI to optimize all communications with their customers, thereby improving business outcomes.
- By 2026, 30% of B2B sales cycles will be managed through digital sales rooms and then used to manage the customer life cycle.“
What do B2B customers need in 2022?
Both B2C and B2B businesses are going digital, which is a clear need, not a want, from customers. They need self-service abilities and assisted experience options during their buying cycle. This is why omnichannel is so important. All channels need to be integrated seamlessly.
As the report says: “Shifting to unified commerce creates a continuous, cohesive and elegant path for customers to not only buy from any channel, but to allow them to actually meander seamlessly from channel to channel.”
Further: “This evolution of the customer experience (CX) not only increases customer satisfaction but creates an uplift in loyalty and revenue. Global retail e-commerce surged 25.7% in 2020 and is expected to grow another 16.8% in 2021.”
“Within B2B, the 2021 Gartner B2B Digital Commerce Survey found that both buying and selling organizations expect the digital commerce channel to capture the largest share of transactions by 2023, as explained in Increase Profits and Delight Buyers by Becoming a Digital-First, Omnichannel B2B Seller.”
Using data for customer insights and to assess customer behavior and preferences is crucial:
The continued evolution of data insights into customer behavior and preferences enables not only an opportunity but, arguably, an obligation to leverage that data to create offers that are respectful of each customer’s unique desires.
“B2C businesses have known this for a while, but B2B businesses, or any businesses that largely consist of human-assisted, long-cycle sales are only beginning to follow suit and capitalize on this potential opportunity. AI, digital sales rooms and carefully designed digital experiences that adapt instantly to changing information will dramatically change the buying experience in the next five years (see Figure 1).”
In regards to this, given the findings of the report, Gartner makes the following assumption:
“By 2025, organizations offering unified commerce experience by frictionlessly moving customers through journeys will see at least a 20% uplift in total revenue.”
Some other key findings in the report show that:
- “Unified commerce spans the customer journey that keeps customers in a continuous loop, leading to higher conversion, order value and customer retention.”
- “Unified commerce moves customers through journey stages in both physical and digital environments by pulling all necessary information for fast decision making and action taking, removing friction in the process and driving data consistency.”
- “Unified commerce calls for an organizational design based on the customer journey, evolving from cross-functional collaboration where divisional interest can get in the way of delivering a truly unified experience.”
To read the full report and get all of Gartner’s recommendations for both B2B and B2C companies, simply click here:
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FAQ
How can sales make it easier for customers to buy?
It’s clear that we as companies and e-commerce sites need to make it as easy as possible for our customers to execute purchases. This goes for all companies, whether B2B or B2C. The harder it is for customers to make a purchase, the harder it will be for our businesses to make a profit.
How will B2B sales change in the near future?
- “By 2025, organizations offering a unified commerce experience by frictionlessly moving customers through journeys will see at least a 20% uplift in total revenue.
- By 2025, 60% of B2B sales organizations’ digital sales optimization projects will not meet customer experience goals because of focusing on operational targets only.
- By 2025, organizations with distributive responsibilities for digital commerce endeavors will outperform those without by 25%.
What do B2B customers need in 2022?
Both B2C and B2B businesses are going digital, which is a clear need, not a want, from customers. They need self-service abilities and assisted experience options during their buying cycle. This is why omnichannel is so important. All channels need to be integrated seamlessly.
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