When organizations begin a digital transformation and eCommerce journey, they often focus solely on technology. In reality, there are business decisions to be made and opportunities to explore before technology even comes into play. The first step is to set your objectives. Start by identifying what you want to achieve. There are the standard business goals to consider, such as increased revenue, but you should also consider goals around customer expectations.
Improve Customer Satisfaction
A customer-centric focus is required to compete and win in a competitive marketplace. It’s critical that you align your customer service strategy to your brand message. Consistent, easy-to-use customer service options are expected. Customers also expect you to understand them and provide personalized experiences that are tailored to them based on the relationship they’ve established with your organization.
Digital platforms provide the tools to help accomplish this. By leveraging standard platform capabilities, you can draw a deeper understanding of your customer to better meet their needs. Insights into customer activities allow you to identify buying patterns and journeys. This makes it easier for you to segment them more accurately to optimize product offers, pricing, and other needs that are unique to them.
The value of a B2B eCommerce platform often has more traditional goals of providing an improved customer service experience or service at a lower cost rather than to enable purchasing. Do your customers want to order more easily? See shipping statuses? Request and manage quotes? View their account balance? These are examples of benefits that go beyond the ordering process and aim to improve ease of use to increase customer satisfaction. These capabilities can help you retain customers and build loyal relationships.
Growing Your Bottom Line
Improving customer experience is one of the most effective ways to increase sales. Providing improved customer service via online/ digital channels has been proven to accelerate revenue growth with customers relative to overall corporate growth. In fact, B2B eCommerce sales are expected to outgrow B2C sales, reaching 6.7 trillion USD by 2020.
B2B eCommerce sales are expected to outgrow B2C sales, reaching 6.7 trillion USD by 2020.
Improved digital experiences and ease of purchasing will delight and foster loyal relationships with existing customers. But it’s just as important to drive new customers. Digitizing customer service initiatives will reduce order errors and potentially reduce the number of people engaged to handle order issues. In addition, an excellent online store can attract new customers that were not visible to your selling channels in the past.
Before embarking on a digital transformation you must have measurable objectives for both customer experience and revenue growth. These objectives will serve as a framework for future conversations and decisions made as the journey progresses. For the next steps in preparing for digital transformation in B2B, check out our guide.
