Digital commerce is a powerful way to grow your B2B business, but it also requires a lot of planning, coordination, and alignment across your organization. In this article, we share some of the key learnings from a webinar that featured two experts in the field of B2B ecommerce: Sawyer Frank, Head of Sales at Oro Inc., and Andy Wagner, Executive Director at AAXIS Digital.
They discussed best practices and strategies for achieving digital commerce success in B2B, based on their extensive experience working with various B2B clients. Let’s take a closer look at the topics covered and the key takeaways from the webinar.
The Current Digital Commerce Landscape
The webinar began with Sawyer Frank showing how big the difference is between organizations that are digitally savvy and those that are not. He said that being digitally mature is more than just having the latest technology. It also means having the right attitude, culture, and ways of working. He stressed how crucial it is for the top leaders of the organization, especially the CEO, to support and drive digital commerce, as they are the ones who make and shape the decisions for digital transformation.
How to Secure C-Suite Buy-In
Andy Wagner shared his insights on how to address the challenge of securing C-suite buy-in for digital commerce initiatives. He admitted that many digital change programs don’t achieve what they promise, and pointed out three common problems that lead to failure:
- Organizational Misrepresentation: Many executives view digital commerce as an IT project, rather than organizational transformation. This leads to a lack of involvement and alignment from other departments that are crucial for digital commerce success.
- Metric-Driven Strategies: Many organizations focus too much on metrics like revenue growth, without articulating the strategic goals and the desired impact of digital commerce. This leads to a lack of commitment and engagement from the organization as a whole.
- Unclear Value Enablement Ownership: Many organizations fail to identify and assign ownership of the systems and processes that are needed to enable digital commerce. This leads to confusion and inefficiency in the implementation of the digital commerce vision.
To overcome these issues, Andy proposed a Digital Value Approach, which consists of three steps:
- Reframe the strategies in terms of broader impact, rather than just metrics. For example, instead of saying “We want to increase revenue by 10%,” say “We want to become the preferred partner for our customers by providing them with a seamless and personalized digital experience.”
- Identify the enablers that are needed to achieve the impact, such as technology, people, processes, and data. For example, to provide a seamless and personalized digital experience, you might need a flexible and scalable ecommerce platform, a customer-centric sales team, a streamlined order management process, and a rich customer data repository.
- Establish clear metrics for success, both quantitative and qualitative, that measure the progress and the outcomes of the digital commerce initiatives. For example, you might measure the number of customers who use an ecommerce platform, the average order value, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.
How to Drive Sales Team Adoption
One of the biggest challenges of digital commerce is to get the sales reps on board with the new way of doing business. Sales reps often resist change, because they fear losing their jobs, their relationships with customers, or their commissions. To overcome this resistance, organizations must:
- Identify Change Champions: Find individuals within the sales team who are willing to embrace change and nurture them to influence their peers.
- Provide Adequate Training: Train the sales reps thoroughly before launching the ecommerce platform to customers. Make sure they understand how to use the platform, how to guide the customers through it, and how to leverage its features to enhance their sales performance.
- Introduce Incentives: Motivate sales reps to adopt and promote an ecommerce platform by offering them incentives, bonuses, and rewards. These incentives can be based on various performance indicators, such as revenue, sign-ups, and logins.
- Focus on Self-Service Functionality: Incorporate features like order history and order tracking to empower customers to find information independently, allowing sales reps to focus on active selling and revenue generation.
How to Elevate Customer Service
Andy Wagner emphasized the often-overlooked role of customer service in driving customer satisfaction and the adoption of ecommerce. He explained that customer service teams can become catalysts for positive change by digitizing manual processes and creating a feedback loop. He suggested the following strategies:
- Cost Savings through Digitization: By automating manual processes, customer service teams can significantly reduce the cost of service, enabling them to focus on more valuable tasks.
- Feedback Loop for Continuous Improvement: Actively seeking and incorporating customer feedback provides invaluable insights for enhancing the ecommerce platform and aligning it with customer expectations.
- Positioning Customer Service as Margin Growth: Emphasizing the cost savings achieved through digital processes positions customer service as a driver of margin growth, making it an investment rather than a cost center.
- Enabling Customer Self-Service: By shifting manual tasks to a self-service model, organizations empower customers to manage their accounts and interactions independently, contributing to a more seamless and efficient experience.
Conclusion
Digital commerce is more than just a technology upgrade; it is a strategic transformation that can unlock new opportunities for growth, efficiency, and customer loyalty. To achieve this, businesses need to:
- Align their organization around a common vision
- Engage their sales team as change agents
- Empower their customer service as value drivers
- Leverage customer feedback as a source of innovation
As the digital landscape continues to evolve, the insights from this webinar can help businesses stay ahead of the curve and succeed in the digital age.
