Voice Commerce in B2B: The Next Frontier

B2B customers today expect a great deal from sellers – personalized experiences, simpler ordering processes, and fewer errors – all thanks to advancements in commerce technology. 

The latest entrant in the market, voice technology, is finding a growing number of takers. By 2022, voice commerce is expected to generate over $40 billion in sales in theUS and the UK. 

Voice technology relieves friction between the parties involved in buying, making purchases faster and more personalized.

While this makes the B2C experience convenient, technology needs further development in the B2B realm. It is easy for a smart speaker such as Amazon Echo or Google Home to place an order for groceries and apparel. 

But if a business wants to purchase complex machines the same way that people order shoes, B2B players will need to rethink their e-commerce strategies.

Voice commerce can streamline buying

There is no doubt that voice commerce offers an opportunity for B2B players to improve sales processes. Much like how desktop and mobile ordering changed B2C before making their way to the B2B industry, voice commerce has the potential to be the next frontier.

Customers who’re not willing to meet with sales representatives or to spend time browsing through a catalog for the right product has much to gain in terms of convenience from voice technology.

Voice tech is especially useful in purchasing simple products. Businesses can make bulk, simple purchases such as stationery and snacks. It is also helpful to learn more about your order status by using a simple voice command. 

However, most business purchases are complex and will need more sophisticated voice technology than we have today. For instance, a buyer looking for manufacturing machines will not find much use for a simple voice device (owing to a large number of factors involved) and will instead prefer a face-to-face or telephone order.

To understand and facilitate a typical B2B order that involves numerous configurations, voice technology needs to get much smarter. 

Voice in B2B will need a powerful product configuration engine to quickly customize and price complex products. Here’s where Configure Price Quote (CPQ) the software can potentially transform voice technology in the B2B space.

CPQ software – the future of voice commerce 

Right now, voice commerce can be useful to buyers who are not sales-rep ready but want to save time pricing products in a way that is not possible with standard e-commerce experience.

But the fact remains that it’s only suitable for simple B2C-like transactions. However, CPQ software can enable voice commerce for complex orders.

CPQ software organizes the transaction history, customer history, price books, product catalogs, etc. to automatically generate price quotes, therefore simplifying complex buying processes and offering B2B buyers a smooth experience.

CPQ solutions offer intuitive interfaces and dashboards to allow customers to completely engage, from discovery to purchase.

While most CPQ software doesn’t support voice technology yet, the best ones can quickly adapt to emerging channels. Businesses that leverage CPQ technology can conquer new channels like voice commerce to deliver exceptional purchase experiences.

Clearly, voice commerce holds enormous potential to improve the B2B buying experience. But to reach the success of e-commerce, voice-controlled devices need a highly sophisticated backend solution to process the large amounts of data involved in the average B2B transaction. CPQ holds the key to achieving this, integrating siloed data (across channels) into a single system to generate accurate price quotes in real time.

With CPQ, many B2B players have already enhanced quote-to-order capabilities and improved e-commerce revenue. Because the most advanced systems work with all digital channels, it will only be a matter of time before leading B2B players leverage CPQ to improve their voice offerings.