Customers’ needs and purchasing habits are constantly evolving, for this reason the B2B and B2C markets are redefining the sales logic with the aim of offering consumers continuous assistance but, at the same time, also options that users can use to proceed independently in the phases of the purchase process. The adoption of a unified commerce’s approach allows you to create a linear path consistent with the needs of the user, with the ability to move from one channel to another without ever losing data and information. A fundamental aspect, as the possibility of exploiting such data allows us to respond to the unique wishes of customers always taking into account their preferences. This obviously not only affects customer satisfaction, thus increasing brand loyalty, but is a fundamental strategy for increasing sales. B2C companies know this well and have already embarked on the digital transformation journey that allows them to focus on customers and meet their expectations. On the contrary, B2B businesses are now taking that path towards digitalization, which is essential to offer a coherent and personalized experience to all stakeholders.
UNIFIED COMMERCE FOR A NEW CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
By engaging all touchpoints between business and customer, both physical and digital, unified commerce gathers all consumer information to ensure a continuous and consistent journey. This enables a greater conversion in sales and customer loyalty. Unified commerce focuses on the decisions consumers make at every stage of the purchase process, bringing them together in one place to facilitate decision-making. Let’s see together examples of unified trade application:
The customer monitors his consumption and receives alert notifications when his products are running out, with the ability to complete the purchase in just one click.
Store associates can access customers’ online carts and prepare items for in-store trial, suggest similar products, or help check out from the store.
Sales Reps can try and suggest products or packages and automatically manage orders.
It’s clear that in order to follow and interact with customers throughout the purchase process, companies cannot limit themselves to the collection and integration of data but it is necessary to transform their organizational structure, commercial and technological processes on the basis of the path taken by customers.
DIGITIZE PROCESSES TO INCREASE SALES
It’s mainly companies in the B2B world that still have to undertake the digital transformation path and focus on a fundamental step: detaching from the operational approach to include a customer-centered approach in their strategies. The growth goals underlying B2B organizations ensure that the company focuses more on earnings and efficiency without taking into account the customer experience. The most widespread idea is that companies monitor activities through data, share content without however differentiating profiles. In this way, the customer experience is not optimized and often does not lead to any purchase. It’s necessary to shift attention to the consumer experience by putting into practice some of the fundamental rules such as listening, diversification, experimentation and trust.
THE IMPORTANCE OF SPREADING THE DIGITAL CULTURE
In the digital world the first important thing businesses should keep in mind is the importance of spreading the digital culture in the whole organization. Why? Because everyone in the company should be aware of the tools and the strategies to implement to embrace the digital transformation. Everyone should be trained to use these tools actually, because apparently by 2025 organizations with distributed responsibilities for digital commerce will overcome the ones that are still organized in a vertical way, with a 25% more revenue increase.
Digital commerce started to spread over the last few years and is becoming more and more sophisticated. It has also integrated different fields such as marketing, sales, IT, finance or CRM and this is why it is crucial to create a seamless Customer Experience and integrate single digital commerce projects at all levels.
So, a vertical organization can actually limit both customers’ journeys and innovation and it is something businesses have to overcome in order to meet their clients’ needs. During their journey, customers usually move horizontally throughout organizations and they absolutely hate it when business structures negatively impact on their experience. This is why a business that wants to outperform the competition has to forget about hierarchy and focus only on customers’ demands.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO BUILD A BETTER OFFER
The adoption of artificial intelligence and its implementation within business strategies will be leveraged by 10% of salespeople by 2026.
This is because the adoption of AI in a business context has a positive impact mostly in brand-customers communications and gives companies the right tools and the efficiency to better understand customers’ needs. In this scenario, companies should implement a customer 360° solution as soon as possible, ensuring that all customer interactions are collected and analyzed by the machine learning algorithms and then used to personalize the offer. The AI actually enables companies to personalize their offer also by helping them to optimize both tone and content of customer communications based on the available data.
THE RISE OF DIGITAL SALES ROOMS
Digital sales and virtual shopping in general increased because of the pandemic and now customers are more willing to shop online. Even though buyers search for a self-shopping experience, they still have some difficulties in moving steps on certain online commerce platforms. This is why by 2026 30% of B2B sales cycles will be managed through digital sales rooms. What are we talking about? A digital sales room (DSR) is a secure, shared space where sellers can inform, interact and negotiate with potential buyers. In this space sellers can upload documents, videos, white papers about their offer so that buyers can access and engage with sellers’ content via a single link.
Companies should definitely adopt this way of sharing content and communicating with their customers, since in this way they are able to assist them and better meet their needs. Digital sales rooms give buyers a streamlined and convenient purchasing experience while providing companies with useful and real-time insights on customers behavior.
