Consistency Is Key: How To Provide The Same Customer Experience Across Multiple Sales Channels

1 ConsistenCy is Key: How to Provide tHe same Customer exPerienCe aCross multiPle sales CHannels 1 Market dynamics have been changing dramatically, brought on by the evolution of modern commerce— data-based sales powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning that result in personalized efforts designed for instant quotations, quick deal closings, and a better overall customer experience. Here, we will take a close look at one of the key elements required when embarking on the mission to improve the customer experience—a consistent approach to assist and ease the customer through the entire process. The competitive sales environment today is fraught with landmines, especially for manufacturers and distributors that continue to employ formerly tried-and-true sales methods that worked for decades, but rely on outdated strategies that lead to buyer confusion, over-discounting on the part of sales staff and management, and lengthy delays before a final price quote is delivered. Research from Forrester has estimated that for a single transaction, as many as 95 percent of customers use three or more channels to interact with a company and about two-thirds use more than a single device to do so. Other research indicates that a customer—even a long- standing customer—encountering as few as two negative experiences during the process can be left with an overall bad impression of that particular seller, leading to the possible loss of future sales. In the changing world of modern commerce, along with all of the instant research options open to B2B buyers, it’s critical that distributors, especially, embark on developing a consistent platform across all channels for a positive customer experience. ConsistenCy is Key: How to Provide tHe same Customer exPerienCe aCross multiPle sales CHannels B2B meets B2C “The lines between a B2B and a B2C experience are completely blurred now,” says Richard Blatcher, senior industry solutions manager at PROS, who added that the modern B2B buyer demands a similar fast, frictionless, efficient, and reliable customer experience across any of the different channels now available to them. “When engaging with a company, it may be through a partner, a reseller, a distributor, via a website, an app, Customer loyalty demands ConsistenCy But, loyalty is hard to come by in today’s business environment. If distributors and manufacturers don’t get it right the first time, customers—even established customers—look elsewhere. “You can go online, you can look at the manufacturer’s website, you can walk into the local distribution branch, and if you don’t have consistency in the information, in the price, in the experience, then you’re a source of frustration for the customer,” according to Blatcher. “Offering that consistent experience across all the alternative points of interaction is the key,” Blatcher explains. “Then the frustration goes away, the reliability is there, the loyalty stays, and customers will come back— some may walk into your branch, some may turn to your website, some may call the help line, or ring the 1-800 number. But the experience is consistent.” Not unlike what has occurred for many years in consumer purchasing, the increase of digitization in the B2B a sales rep, or an inside sales person, but the customer expects consistency so they can pick up and continue negotiations when moving among all of those channels,” Blatcher adds. “When manufacturers and distributors work more closely together—particularly sharing information, such as transactions, win-rates, market & competitive data—that experience improves, customer loyalty improves, and everybody wins.” Customers today desire greater transparency throughout the whole process. They don’t want to haggle to see what price they can get if they push a bit harder. “If I’m buying from you, I’m selling to somebody else and they don’t have the time for me to be playing around trying to figure out what kind of discount I might be able to get,” says Geoff Webb, Vice President of Product Marketing at PROS. “With transparency, efficiency, and agility I can remove all of the friction from my process before I pass that on to my customer. There’s a real pressure to go faster, make it more transparent, make it simpler, make it more predictable, and personalize it so it’s easier for me to do business with you.” 2 space presents today’s customer with greater price transparency than ever. Buyers can quickly field price information from a variety of sources, including low-cost suppliers, giving the buyer much greater negotiating power. Today’s savvy manufacturers and distributors are taking full advantage of automation and machine learning to instantly produce data-driven individualized price quotes, factoring in the dynamics of the customer’s specific business, including past purchases, local market conditions, and key industry trends. This enables the manufacturer or distributor to present a market-reflective rational and reasonable price quote, with automatic instant approval, thus avoiding the lengthy process of back-and-forth price negotiations before closing a deal. With automation and machine learning, pricing is not a typical set-it-and-forget-it strategy, but rather continually updates data to determine every price recommendation based on the latest market and sales information. multi-Platform aPProaCH While almost all customers today use multiple channels— or platforms—when considering a single purchase and a growing number of them use a variety of devices to do so, it is critical that the customer is presented with a consistent experience when interacting through each of those platforms. This is a critical point in delivering a positive customer experience throughout the process. Much like in the B2C market, B2B customers may research a product, as well as delivery options and add-on services online. In traditional sales programs—i.e., those that do not take advantage of the data-driven benefit delivered by AI and machine learning in modern commerce—the customer may see one price on the company’s e-commerce site, receive a different preliminary quote when discussing the item with a sales rep by phone, and yet another price option when stopping by the distributor’s store front. That lack of consistency in the approach to sales not only can create a competitive environment within units at the same company, but also could lead a prospective customer to continue searching elsewhere and perhaps find a more attractive deal from a competitor, a low-cost supplier, or Amazon. Through a cloud-based platform, distributors now are able to deliver dynamically personalized prices consistently across all sales and e-commerce channels. Another key element in delivering a consistent experience goes beyond the uniform pricing of products and into the customer’s access via different devices and technologies. A quick question or request for additional information should be available quickly and clearly whether contacting the distributor via a MAC, PC, tablet, smart phone, or by placing a telephone call from a landline. With the latter, being placed on eternal hold, shifted into an endless loop of voice prompts, followed by an option to leave a message or instructed to call back later due to call volume could lead the customer—especially one looking for immediate action on a purchase—to buy elsewhere. PreParation, Planning, and integration Some recent studies have shown that 50 percent of buyers choose the vendor that responds first and more than 85 percent of buyers will pay more for a better customer experience and greater transparency. By implementing data-driven pricing powered by machine learning and managing change, distributors can improve margin by 100 to 300 basis points within days and realize new incremental revenue, experts say. As for consistency across all technical platforms, Blatcher says it takes good preparation and planning. “Integration is the key word because there’s a lot of technology on the table and available,” Blatcher concludes. “As long as you integrate the AI and the machine learning into the systems and link with those systems efficiently, then it’s not an issue. But, you need experts and vendors that understand integration with the various disparate systems across the business and, of course, consistency in the data is key. Then you’re looking at the same sets of data, just through different views.” 3 The information in this report was researched and produced by Advantage Business Marketing in conjunction with PROS. PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO) is a revenue and profit realization company that helps B2B and B2C customers realize their potential through the blend of simplicity and data science. PROS offers cloud solutions to help accelerate sales, formulate winning pricing strategies and align product, demand and availability. PROS revenue and profit realization solutions are designed to allow customers to experience meaningful revenue growth, sustained profitability and modernized business processes. To learn more, visit pros.com. aBout tHis rePort aBout Pros