3 Easy Ways to Build Your Online B2B Experience
Delivering a full digital experience can be overwhelming for many organizations; taking complex orders, generating quality leads, providing service and support all the while focusing on the growth of the business. When you approach your digital transformation on the key facilitators for success, rather than trying to tackle it all at once, not only will you deliver a high-quality digital experience for your customers from the start, but you will also deliver value incrementally, providing a more effective solution for you and your customers in the long-term.
Here are a few of the key facilitators for success;
1. Availability of High-Quality Product Data: Consistently maintaining high-quality product data and its availability is vital to your digital experience. You can start by organizing the products that drive the most revenue for your business into an intuitive catalog. Ensuring your catalog is intuitive doesn’t mean copying the category structure from your ERP. Rather, establish a limited number of product types and sub-categories your customers use. Navigation is critical to helping your new and existing customers find what they are looking for. Once your catalog is readily available, begin the process of establishing rich product information pages that, at the very least, include price, short and long product descriptions, an SEO friendly title, manufacturer part number, high-resolution images and specifications. It is also important to understand the overall quality of the product data available in your ERP and other systems, and how that product data will translate into the product detail page for your customers. It can be helpful to source content from a manufacturer, capture detailed images of various products and update your ERP data to fill any gaps in your product information pages.
2. Create Self-Service Capabilities: Selling directly or through a sales channel, it’s expensive to have your reps constantly handling phone calls, emails and faxes to place low-value orders, requesting special pricing or to ask about your inventory. As your customers mature, they expect the ability to educate themselves about your products and buy at their convenience. Building a self-service experience for your customers and reps will make their jobs easier and help you reduce the overall cost to run your business. By doing this, you are removing unnecessary barriers that are inhibiting your buyer’s ability to purchase and access to order status information. A robust digital solution will enable your customers to be in control, allowing them to seamlessly move between sales channels and engage with a customer service or sales rep on their own terms.
3. Increase Revenue: You can grow revenue by increasing the overall share of your customer’s wallet by selling new products and categories to them and by attracting new customers. Growing revenue from new or existing customers online is about creating an experience that makes it easy for your buyers to find information and make decisions, so they can get back to work. Your website needs to be optimized for growth and should guide your customers through the buying process and recommend higher-margin products, as part of an up-sell and cross-sell relevant accessory products. Part of guiding your customers through the buying process includes personalization; This experience can be established through targeting promotions to specific customers or highlighting products they have purchased before making reorders simple and timeless.
You should always be looking for new ways to improve your customer’s experience by making the discovery and buying process as easy as possible. If you create an amazing buying experience with high-quality product data, self-service capabilities, intelligent recommendations and personalized promotions, you will, in turn, grow revenue through incremental sales and customer loyalty.