Omnichannel: The New Habitual Reality

 

Despite considerable evidence indicating how important B2B Omnichannel Commerce is for e-commerce, not many companies implement it with zeal befitting its significance.

B2B Omnichannel is no longer a matter of choice for business. Taking inspiration from B2C, B2B customers continue to push businesses for more customer-centric functionalities.

As a retailer, you’re required to make sure you have:

a) Skilled staff to implement strategies related to customers.

Strategies need execution, and execution won’t happen without staff. This Salesforce report reveals that only 48% of B2B sellers meet staff criteria.

b) Access to processes to implement plans and strategies.

A roadmap has to be created to march step-by-step toward the execution of business strategies. Again, Salesforce reports only 41% of the B2B businesses meet the “process” criterion.

c) Technology to execute strategies.

Tools are needed to implement strategies verbatim. Only 40% of businesses, according to Salesforce, have the necessary technology to execute their strategies.

d) Prioritize B2B Omnichannel commerce to change business culture.

An omnichannel approach is necessary to overhaul the entire behavioral dynamics of businesses. Here, Salesforce reports only 40% of companies do prioritize Omnichannel.

B2C vendors pose challenges. The above criterion is met strictly by B2C sellers. However, customers expect B2B businesses to come clear on the above criteria as strictly as a B2C business.

There is an online-offline conundrum. Here’s how omnichannel commerce resolves the issue.

Forrester’s reports show businesses have miserably failed to appreciate omnichannel’s role in materializing self-service digital transformation, or in improving ROI.

However, e-commerce businesses that do implement digital strategies into their buying and selling processes reciprocate the above mistake by not letting offline selling and digital selling merge into a unified selling experience.

As a matter of fact, businesses need to bridge digital selling strategy and in-person selling strategy together.

AI-enabled digital automation brings speed, opens up new markets, and offers insightful data.

In-person selling, on the other hand, cements long term customer relationships, which end up in high-cost buying.

Omnichannel B2B Commerce offers businesses a robust platform to resolve tug of war between online and offline selling, or between digital and in-person selling.

While it automates recurring tasks, promotes self-service transactions, by integrating offline mechanisms with the company’s digital infrastructure, it goes one step ahead by streamlining complex in-person customer engagements as well.

B2B Omnichannel Commerce offers companies integration solutions to overcome challenges.

1) Integrating various sales channels is a challenge for businesses

In today’s technology-driven business world, businesses are challenged to maintain pace with cutting-edge technologies, while at the same time keeping up the tradition as well.

Digital and traditional sales channels are further pushed apart if businesses prioritize one over another. As a result, the gulf between the two widens.

That’s exactly how omnichannel B2B commerce plays its part and narrows the void.

2) Omnichannel is the new habitual reality

Today’s business is driven by e-commerce. Growth and scalability depend on a business’s efficiency in delivering digital eCommerce experience to its customers.

Online selling doesn’t only multiply revenues; companies get an AI-enabled pricing mechanism and personalized product catalog optimization.

In short, a customer’s overall shopping experience is improved significantly by implementing digital tools like omnichannel B2B.

Key omnichannel strategies for B2B businesses

Omnichannel selling is a future of the B2B realm. More and more businesses gravitate towards e-commerce with each passing day.

Undoubtedly, B2B e-commerce is a goldmine of opportunities. What businesses need are tools and strategies to receive the great dividends that e-commerce promises.

1) The whole buyer journey should be your omnichannel strategy

Businesses often narrow down their B2B omnichannel strategies to buying. In a way, they ignore what matters the most. That’s a buyer’s journey, from the first contact to the final checkout.

Buying behavior varies from online customers to offline customers. Those who buy in-person from physical stores search the store’s website for product information and other suggestions.

As a matter of fact, online information influences offline buyers as well. So, for businesses, it’s imperative to mark out the entire buying journey of customers for an insightful omnichannel experience.

2) Bridge online and offline channels to get the most out of omnichannel

The freedom to buy online, as well as offline, is an essential element of today’s consumer culture.

For cross-channel selling capabilities, businesses need data-driven collaboration between traditional, in-house selling and e-commerce selling.

B2B omnichannel commerce enables a unified viewing of customer data, so sales teams on both channels can draw valuable insights from customer data available simultaneously.

Using customer data, businesses can cement stronger and long-lasting relations with customers and offer a personalized experience.

3) Design your omnichannel strategy from customer and seller perspectives

Customers, the sales team, and other professionals will be accessing the same digital systems.

In other words, businesses need to conceptualize an omnichannel implementation strategy keeping in view both assisted-service and self-service approaches.

For a successful implementation of omnichannel approaches, the key is understanding sales requirements and service deliverables from seller-buyer perspectives.

Conclusion

Ecommerce and self-service have completely revolutionized B2B selling. However, it doesn’t imply the role of salespersons is over!

Self-service means empowering customers, making businesses digital-ready, and not displacing salespersons. Insights offered by e-commerce platforms to businesses do empower salespeople.

With omnichannel B2B e-commerce in place, businesses get all the tools necessary for self-service.

According to a study, 68 percent of B2B buyers prefer gathering information online instead of connecting with sales representatives for the same.

Today buyers research products using e-commerce. As more customers turn to e-commerce, the need to offer easy user interface, speed, and self-service to B2B buyers keeps on rising.

Source: Omnichannel

B2B Capabilities: Intelligent merchandising & analytics tools

 Marketers are beginning to understand that searches these days go way beyond most users’ traditional understanding of keyword searches.

The advent of people-tracking technology allows companies to know where their customers are, what they have shown an affinity for in the past, what other customers like them have done, what type of inventory is available, and more. Approaching the customer is worth it.

The most successful retailers, who have managed to excel with e-commerce platforms, are constantly sharing and working together on the data that drives better customer experience.

The evaluation of the success of predictive marketing tools goes back to what always matters in retail: Did you sell more? Did you spend less to sell it? Did you do more volume in sales?

Key B2B capabilities

• Product ID search: Present the right products to the right customers at the right time with engaging details that drive conversion. Consolidate and publish all data catalogs and products for consumption through the digital commerce platform.

• Segment based & 1:1 personalized search: A digital experience that customers want can be achieved by focusing on streamlining transactions, checkout, and segmented pricing, etc. Elevate the whole B2B customer journey by looking for a platform that includes these capabilities:

Executing Personalization: for Increasing sales through product recommendations, showing relevant content based on customer interest and previous behavior, and displaying search results according to customers’ previous search history.

Bring content to commerce: to offer consistent business experiences at any point of contact, companies are turning to platforms that can link commerce and content systems.

The ability to create marketing landing pages that integrate knowledge bases and enriched product pages with videos and guides without having to integrate disparate systems together.

Multi-language support:

Support multilingual catalogs for a global commerce site.

Language is not just a means of communication, but it has deep implications over people’s sense of belonging to a culture, which relates to their self-consciousness and pride.

People (customers, stakeholders) tend to feel more secure and well-treated when they can run businesses in their own native dialect.

Intelligent analysis and marketing tools:

retail marketing analysis solutions implement advanced analysis methodologies and BI tools to help retailers better understand business functions.

These solutions incorporate pre-built data analysis models that facilitate store-level and department level traffic queue and pattern analysis, profit and loss budgeting, cannibalization analysis, market basket analysis, category affinity analysis, and storefront layout optimization.

The following are some of the must-have features in a retail analytics tool:

1. Active and customized competitor monitoring

It is all-important to have command over the source of your data.

As a fundamental base for your intelligence, having the ability to control who and what you are monitoring in the marketplace is of the utmost importance.

Any data set must comprise of your competitors and other retailers that fit the product catalog and style that you are offering through your online or offline store.

1. The propensity to drill down into data

Every worthwhile strategy stems from taking a holistic view of the market landscape while still being able to drill down to granular detail.

Having the ability to track data at all market stages enables stakeholders to make critical decisions at exactly the right point in time.

Knowing where the products are and which ones are sold (or not) allows the retailer to make informed decisions and act quickly.

Having access to detailed product information is one of the main requirements of B2B buyers for an e-commerce site.

Since B2B buyers buy items for pragmatic reasons, merchants must provide additional information to ensure that the buyer knows what they are buying.

Product descriptions, videos, certifications, marketing sheets: all this information can help you clearly show all the benefits of your products and address the different problems of several decision-makers in a preventive manner.

1. Evaluate the content of your product against the competition

Analyzing the way in which your competitors describe your products can reveal gaps in the content of your own product.

What is the level of detail of the product? What content formats are they using? How do customers discover their products online (i.e. organic search, paid search, social networks, affiliated sites, etc.)?

Competitive analysis can provide answers to these questions, helping you substantiate your catalog content strategy.

1. Onsite (website) recommendations and cross-sell suggestions

As shoppers visit an online store, searching and selecting items for purchase, the recommendation engine shows items that may be of interest based on browsing history and trends in the analysis platform.

The mechanism can implement several strategies, including product packages and discounts to maximize the effectiveness of cross-selling and selling products.

1. Tracking Data to Transform Into Insights

To execute customization strategies effectively, you must be equipped to track and collect data and transform it into information that can be leveraged to drive those strategies.

Digital platforms can track and take advantage of a large amount of data; otherwise, it is not possible through traditional commerce.

A powerful digital solution is capable of offering data reporting tools that not only track performance metrics but also provide real-time analysis of traffic patterns, customer perception, and page performance to reveal what customers are doing and what is effective on your website.

When data are united in one location, those insights can be used to power personalization efforts, discover new business opportunities and identify bottlenecks.

When selecting a retail analytics tool, it is very important to ensure that the above features are included, as well as a highly customizable and easy-to-use interface.

Leveraging the analysis of real-time data is a critical part of building intelligent retail sales and marketing strategy, merchandising mix, and supply chain optimization.

The interpretations, recommendations, and automation that are derived from that analysis are invaluable and will ultimately have the biggest impact on your bottom line.

Source: Intelligent merchandising & analytics tools