REINVENTED AND DIGITIZED B2B SELLING · reinvented and digitized b2b selling build self-service...

REINVENTED AND DIGITIZED B2B SELLINGBUILD SELF-SERVICE CUSTOMER PORTALS

THAT DELIVER A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

REINVENTED AND DIGITIZED B2B SELLINGBUILD SELF-SERVICE CUSTOMER PORTALS

THAT DELIVER A BETTER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................................6

Existing business models can’t keep pace with changing B2B ............................8Challenge # 1: B2B buyer preferences have fundamentally shifted .................................................................... 9Challenge # 2: Time-consuming and error-prone processing of orders .........................................................10Challenge # 3: Labor-intensive customer service business processes .............................................................12Challenge # 4: Siloed, outdated and inefficient systems ..........................................................................................13Challenge # 5: Zero integration of the digital channel within the wider business landscape ..........15

Digitized B2B selling ......................................................................................................................16Self-service tools for business buyers ..................................................................................................19Digitally enabled employees ....................................................................................................................24Digital self-service portal supports customer service teams ................................................28

Concepts that simplify B2B transformation ....................................................................29Persona profiling ...............................................................................................................................................30Customer journey ............................................................................................................................................32

Modern technology guarantees continuous innovation .......................................36

Summary ..............................................................................................................................................40

About Intershop ...............................................................................................................................42Successful Customers ....................................................................................................................................43

Introduction

6

INTRODUCTION

The traditional B2B sales model is at a critical turning point. Until recently, most B2B companies relied on print catalogs, armies of sales reps, and well-staffed call centers to drive and support customer purchases.

But today’s B2B customers are shifting their research and transaction activities online as well as onto their mobile devices. They are demanding B2C experiences, while expecting that B2B specific buying and self-management processes will be available and covered.

This is not the only trend impacting B2B commerce. Today’s B2B companies are struggling with business processes that are labor-intensive and costly. What’s more, their efforts to deliver a streamlined and efficient service to customers are being hampered by siloed systems that cause information gaps and customer dissatisfaction.

Meanwhile, conflict between online and offline sales channels generates further frustration for customers who expect a seamless omni-channel buying experience.

Introduction

7

All the while the competitive environment is getting tougher as newcomers emerge from near and far, thanks to technology that’s making commerce more global than ever before.

These trends and challenges are forcing B2B companies to rethink and reinvent their selling models in a bid to engineer true customer-centricity.

In this report, we summarize our observations, learnings and best-practices gathered from working with B2B companies for more than 20 years.

We explore in more depth the challenges B2B companies are facing today and discuss the approach they must take if they are to ride the digital wave, instead of being swept away.

We also take a look at concepts like ‘Persona profiling’ and the ‘Customer journey’, which can serve as a good starting point for achieving a successful digital transformation within the B2B commerce environment.

As we’ll see, understanding customers and their buying journey is the foundation for designing interaction scenarios for key buyer personas and employees – and then building the digital tools that add value to customers and enable employees.

Compared to embarking on a multi-year digital transformation project, taking such a step-by-step approach significantly reduces the complexities involved. It also ensures that implementation efforts remain focused on the scenarios that make a difference – and matter the most – to business customers.

Make no mistake, staying ahead of the competition depends on digitization of the selling model and the implementation of self-service tools. Meanwhile, continuous improvement and innovation – powered by future-proof technology – can help defend positions in penetrated markets and keep competitors at bay.

Ultimately, B2B commerce winners will be those companies that evolve their selling model to deliver against B2B buyer expectations.

EXISTING BUSINESS MODELS CAN’T

KEEP PACE WITH CHANGING B2B

Delayed order processing, a lack of information transparency, and inflexible customer service caused by inefficient systems and siloed channels frustrate self-service oriented buyers.

59%I prefer not to interact with a sales rep

I prefer gathering information online on my own

53%

Buying from a website is more convenient

74%

I prefer to buy online when I‘ve decided what to buy

93%

Existing business models can’t keep pace with changing B2B

9

CHALLENGE # 1: B2B BUYER PREFERENCES HAVE FUNDAMENTALLY SHIFTED

Figure 1: B2B buyers prefer digital self-service

A major shift is happening and a new breed of B2B buyer is emerging. These buyers expect a much more consumer-like experience and favor do-it-yourself online options for researching and buying products and services.

The ‘Death of a (B2B) Salesman’ report issued by research and advisory firm Forrester in 2015 confirms the changing preferences of today’s business buyers.

According to Forrester, this new generation of buyers is self-service-oriented and increasingly uses digital tools to interact, process orders and gather content. Indeed, Forrester’s research shows that 74% of buyers find buying from a website more convenient than from a sales representative, and that 93% of business buyers prefer to buy online once they have decided what to buy. In addition, buyers are using digital channels to research products and place their orders (see Figure 1).


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CHALLENGE # 2: TIME-CONSUMING AND ERROR-PRONE PROCESSING OF ORDERS

The majority of B2B businesses still process orders manually via fax. In many cases, the required product name and quantity is hand-written onto a pre-printed order sheet which is faxed or emailed to the supplier's customer service team where it is manually processed and entered into the ERP system for order processing. Let’s examine what happens in more detail.

The manual data entry process involves typing customer, material, and serial numbers into the system – which in itself is a time-consuming and potentially error-prone process. Orders are then processed in the ERP systems and shipped to the customer.

As customers don’t usually receive an order confirmation or shipping notification for orders placed, they have to manually check shipments based on the original order sheet to see if the correct articles and quantities have been delivered.

What’s more, with no visibility of product availability, the business buyer has no idea if the product needed is readily available for delivery the next day or has to be produced – and therefore has an extended delivery time.


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Manufacturers of assembly and fastening material face challenges with the manual consignment stock management.

Business buyers such as construction site managers manually check on the stock levels and product expiry dates, but have no tangible reporting tools to identify the ideal consignment stock levels at any given moment. Items are usually re-ordered after they’ve been used via the “consignment stock replenishment” process, which involves faxing a consumption notification to the supplier.

The supplier’s customer service team manually processes this notification sheet, entering the customer ERP number into the ERP order process and adding the used item serial numbers. The corresponding products are then booked out of the customer’s “consignment stock” and invoices can be created. The customer service agent (CSA) then creates a replenishment order for the used products.

However, this approach has significant limitations from the customer perspective. For example, business buyers have limited or no visibility of whether all necessary items are available for ordering – and can’t see estimated delivery dates. What’s more, they have no real-time visibility of stock levels – unless a manual stock count is currently being performed. As a result, an item needed for a assembly procedure may not be in stock – due either to a lack of ordering or damage of existing stock items. In such instances the buyer has to contact the supplier for an express replenishment and incur a high ‘express’ transportation charge for the organization.


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CHALLENGE # 3: LABOR-INTENSIVE CUSTOMER SERVICE BUSINESS PROCESSES

Business customers call telephone support agents to access information about their accounts, get answers to questions, initiate a support inquiry, request documentation, or change or update their account information.

This labor-intensive process involves the customer service agent (CSA) undertaking multiple steps to classify the request. For example, the CSA has to identify the need first, assign priority, deliver answers, order repair parts, and track repair or service status.

But this administrative burden could be significantly eased if business customers were given basic access to their account information, product information such as FAQs, and service contract status information – including the ability to renew existing contracts or initiate requests for contract upgrades, and parts ordering.


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CHALLENGE # 4: SILOED, OUTDATED AND INEFFICIENT SYSTEMS

Too many siloed applications result in ecosystem complexity that slows down innovation and agility and generates inconsistency across regions that impacts the customer experience. What’s more, systems are expensive to maintain and innately unstable; as a consequence, displayed products can disappear – which puts revenue at risk. Catalog updates across regions are cumbersome and time consuming to manage and, since the creation of quotes is complex, customers have to generate manual requests.

Providing information to business buyers involves multiple separate systems and individuals and there is no comprehensive process or seamless tool for constant customer interaction.

Outdated online tools do not display key order information – such as order status or delivery timeframe – and there are no self-service tools to support business buyers manage returns and create labels. All of this adds up to high manual and error prone effort that includes collecting order sheets, faxing, and hand writing relevant information of a variety of paper sheets.

What’s more, the lack of analytics capabilities makes it difficult to analyze important KPIs like frequently ordered products, quick orders, product recommendations, auto-reorder, and other data.

But that’s not all. Many B2B companies are struggling with the rigid architectures and inflexible, low functionality environments of their ERP-extended digital commerce offerings which typically feature slow performance and difficult-to-use interfaces. And that’s a problem when enabling digital selling.

Today’s B2B buyers expect online tools to offer the same features and functionality as those of top web retailers. However, ERP-centric solutions aren’t agile enough to allow quick responses to fast changing customer demands.

Because, while ERP systems perform well in the area of inventory and supply schedules, they significantly underperform in the areas of re-ordering, order history, mobile, social, marketing, promotions, analytics, and product information.

BUSINESSES ARE CHALLENGED BY OUTDATED

ONLINE TOOLS


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A case in point:Global pharmaceutical company switches from ERP to a customer-friendly commerce platform

A Fortune 100 global pharmaceutical company and longtime customer of SAP chose to implement SAP’s internet sales platform and Microsoft® SharePoint® for their digital self-service portal. The legacy B2B commerce platform was developed to make it easier for physicians, hospitals, and governmental organizations worldwide to place orders for the company’s vaccines.

However, the organization experienced many challenges with the online business. Customers complained that the portal was slow and its interface difficult to use. Not only did customers find the site challenging to navigate, much of their information was not retained between sessions. Each time a customer logged into the site to place an order, they found themselves re-entering key information. Between a frustrating interface with performance problems and the lack of key data retained between visits, the customer experience on the portal was poor.

The shortcomings of the online solution resulted in lost sales and a tarnished brand experience. The market for vaccines is highly competitive and the online portal was driving customers to competitors. Knowing this, the pharmaceutical company set out to find a best-in-class commerce platform that would integrate with its SAP system while helping it regain a competitive advantage.

Intershop’s commerce platform was flexible enough to meet the organization’s most complex business models. User experience was a key focus of the online implementation. While integrating closely with SAP, Intershop provided a greatly improved portal experience for customers. Almost immediately, the company began seeing the benefits, including better customer satisfaction, increased regulatory compliance, more sales, and fewer returns.


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CHALLENGE # 5: ZERO INTEGRATION OF THE DIGITAL CHANNEL WITHIN THE WIDER BUSINESS LANDSCAPE

Companies within the information technology industry lack offline and online integration

Digital commerce has been less successful due to low integration with the sales team. Due to this missing alignment, digital commerce is not “actively sold” to customers. Digital tools are not ingrained in the salesforce and teams are not driving continuous improvement and growth.

Digital transformation requires the adoption of the existing selling model and enablement of the traditional sales force through digital tools. In doing so, it is important to integrate digital into overall business landscape and complement offline with online and vice versa.

But by treating digital selling as a separate siloed channel, B2B companies risk their revenue growth and slow down innovation potential.

What’s more, failure to integrate leads to the channel conflict –sales representatives view the digital channel as a competitor and won't actively utilize digital tools to better serve customers and make more money.

For this reason, it’s important to train traditional sales staff and develop their roles within the digital environment, arming them with digital tools to help them sell more, deliver accurate information and provide agile customer service.

DIGITIZED B2B SELLING

The digitized selling model helps businesses become the supplier of choice through digitally enabled employees and improved interactions with buyers.

Digitized B2B selling

17

In its report ‘Death of a (B2B) Salesman’, Forrester speaks about a digitally enabled B2B selling model where traditional offline teams work seamlessly with online teams to improve customer interactions and drive sales growth (see Figure 2).

In order to better serve the new breed of self-service oriented business buyers B2B companies must facilitate a self-service customer portal containing digital tools that can be used on a variety of different devices. Also, customer-facing teams such as account managers, internal sales reps and customer service agents, have to be armed with digital tools that help them do their jobs more efficiently.

Manufacturers initiate digital transfor-mation of their B2B selling models to reduce administrative tasks for business buyers

Manufacturers serving customers from different industries in particular with B- and C-parts are implementing self-service customer portals that help buyers reduce administrative tasks unrelated to on-site installation activities.

These self-service portals give customers like construction companies online ordering and stock replenishment tools that support their processes and workflows.

The same online self-service tools also increase the efficiency of internal order fulfillment processes for the manufacturer, thanks to the automation that’s guaranteed through integration of the digital self-service portal and an ERP system.

CUSTOMER

SELF-SERVICE WEBSITEACCOUNT T

EAM

Field sales, Inside sales, Call center Mobiles, PC/Laptop, Tablet


18

Figure 2: The rise of the digitally enabled B2B selling model

33%I understand more about what I need than procurement does

I can research the options for products or services better myself30%

I can get lower prices/cut costs29%

I have more choices26%

52%It is more conventient/faster

What are the most important factors prompting you to purchase products or services for work yourself (rather than through the corporate procurement function)?(Select up to three)


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SELF-SERVICE TOOLS FOR BUSINESS BUYERS

Figure 3: Self-procurement of products and services is driven by convenience

Drawing on our experience working with B2B companies for over 20 years, Intershop provides a self-service customer platform with sophisticated online tools for B2B buyers.

Commerce technology platforms like Intershop Commerce Suite provide multiple components that can be implemented to run a self-service customer platform (see Figure 4).

Taking an iterative digital transformation approach will significantly reduce complexities and accelerate time-to-market. For example, starting with the definition of target personas and their shopping

journeys not only simplifies the creation of business scenarios, it also helps to prioritize which digital tools and features should be developed and implemented.

There are three key dimensions that should always be considered – convenience, content, and customer service. Getting these three Cs right is key to successfully digitizing the B2B selling model and driving sales. Because, as a study conducted by Forrester on behalf of Intershop shows, B2B buyers want purchasing to be simple and quick (see Figure 3).


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Figure 4: Intershop Commerce Suite portfolio

MULTI-TOUCHPOINT MANAGEMENT

INTERNATIONALIZATION & LOCALIZATION

BUSINESS API (REST)

B2B BLUE PRINT STORE

B2C BLUE PRINT STORE

CATALOG MANAGEMENT

PRODUCT INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

PRODUCT DATA COMPLETENESS CHECK

ORGANIZATION MODELLING

CUSTOMER DATA MANAGEMENT

ROLE & PERMISSION MANAGEMENT

USER & ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT

MANAGEMENT TOOLS

DEVELOPMENT TOOLS

PERFORMANCE & SCALING INFRASTRUCTURE

SYNAPTIC COMMERCE API

HIGH AVAILABILITY & CLUSTERING

HIGH SECURITY ARCHITECTURE

SERVICE CONFIGURATION

ADVANCED REPLICATION

iSTUDIO

PLATFORM CORE

CAMPAIGN MANAGEMENT

PERSONALIZATION MODULE

SEO & SEA SUPPORT

PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

PROMOTION ENGINE

AUDITING

DASHBOARDS & WIDGETS

MULTIVARIATE TESTING

CONTENT VALIDATION

SEARCH & NAVIGATION

MEDIA ASSET MANAGEMENT

WEB CONTENT MANAGEMENT

PRICING & TAX ENGINE

CART & CHECKOUT

PAYMENT

SPECIFIC B2B FUNCTIONALITY

ORDER MANAGEMENT

SHIPPING


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Key advantages of modern self-service platforms

[ User-friendly sites, easy navigation, extensive information, intuitive ordering tools and modern checkout processes are key ingredients for the highest customer satisfaction

[ Advanced on-site search and navigation improves the intuitiveness of the customer experience

[ Allowing business customers to maintain a persistent/saved shopping cart removes frustration of repeat searches and refilling shopping carts

[ High-quality content such as images and videos as well as user-generated content (like ratings and reviews) enhances selling and customer engagement

[ Incorporating personalization into features such as related products on product detail pages, special offers on checkout pages, and “top sellers” and “top-rated products” provides greater relevancy to business customers

[ Online tools like quick re-ordering and order templates speed up purchases and drive higher AOV (average order value) and order volume

[ Automated order approval and price negotiation processes reduce manual work and speed up purchase decision making

[ Finally, outstanding customer service can prove to be a competitive differentiator that increases customer retention e. g. live chat reduces the percentage of abandoned shopping carts from buyers who can’t get issues resolved quickly


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Self-service customer portals within the information technology industry improve customer satisfaction

[ Modern and user-friendly digital tools such as self-service configurators improve customer satisfaction.

[ Centralized and modern systems improve add-on attach rate and increase ease of bundling (e.g. by intelligent recommendation, prominent placement) which accelerates cross-sell and up-sell potential.

[ Digital tools minimize manual touch and free up higher cost resources to go after complex and higher-value opportunities.

[ Taken together, all these gains increase operating profit and reduce the annual cost base.

Digital tools will enable the B2B customer to focus on the ‘job at hand’. Within the manufacturing sector this may be helping a construction site manager in a project, while in the fashion industry it’s selling trendy apparel, while for the IT sector it’s all about building innovative devices.

What B2B customers need is to be as efficient as possible, achieving the best outcome at the lowest cost. So when they require something – product, information, or support – it should be either directly available or easily accessible without any need to interrupt their present workflow.

Digital tools increase efficiency and minimize errors through the reduction of manual processes, and give buyers visibility of out-of-stock situations alongside transparency around their order status.

Now, both customers and sales and support teams have access to information and additional services such as up-to-date announcements and service information alongside information such as order status, real-time product availability, product information and current service levels – all of which can be conveniently accessed anytime and anywhere.


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Self-service customer portals within medical technology industry increases ordering efficiency

[ Increased efficiency through reduction of manual processes (e.g. order processing).

[ Improved consignment stock management for better visibility on out-of-stock situations and soon to expire products.

[ Increased visibility and transparency on order status.

[ Reduction of errors through minimization of manual processes.

[ Accessibility to information and additional services such as up-to-date announcements and service information.

Self-service customer portals within the fashion industry provides a best-in-class experience for business buyers and employees

[ Better guidance and customer assistance (contextual help, chat service) to relieve the sales reps and reduce CSA workloads.

[ Easier customer onboarding and account management functionality.

[ Best-in-class customer experience for business buyers as well as for the employees.


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DIGITALLY ENABLED EMPLOYEES

Digital tools reduce the workload of sales forces selling fashion goods to retail customers

For example, fashion manufacturers use digital sales tools to handle a large numbers of SMB buyers in retail scenarios. B2B apparel pre- and re-ordering capabilities with a best-in-class B2C experience optimize the engagement of field sales. The provision of self-services for small businesses owners reduces the workload of customer service and sales representatives.

When it comes to sales in the digital age, companies do not need to choose between selling digitally or face-to-face. Rather, they need to determine how they can use digital tools to help their sales teams sell more and become more relevant.

Sales reps, for example, can use mobile applications to track customer accounts, trigger alerts and manage relationships in a variety of ways, and there are multiple digital capabilities that

The rise of digital technology signals the rebirth of the traditional sales force, marketing and customer service functions. Armed with new skills and digital tools, these teams are able to address the needs of multiple buyer personas and provide services and digital tools that help buyers focus on their core business.

The activities of the sales team are no longer focused on visiting business customers to share information and help fill in order sheets – business buyers can now digitally access the content and information that sales reps previously shared with them.

This frees sales, marketing and customer service teams to reinvent themselves and become more responsive and relevant to today’s business buyers. But achieving this new customer-centric vision depends on sales reps using personal profiling to understand buyers better and initiate consultative style conversations about potential product or service solutions that directly address buyer issues and objectives.

DIGITAL TOOLS REDUCE THE WORKLOAD OF EMPLOYEES

AND HELP THEM PROVIDE RELEVANT INFORMATION AND VALUE-ADDED SERVICES


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can be handed out to sales teams. These tools can be tailored to enhance the face-to-face experience, pulling up a tailored set of products to deliver even more value.

How the responsibilities between offline sales and online self-service commerce are split depends on whether businesses are selling to SMBs or enterprise customers. It also depends on the expectations of the different buyer roles and archetypes that B2B companies serve.1

Due to the evolvement of business buyers, the roles of field sales, internal sales, call center and online self-service within the selling model will undergo a transition. Online self-service sites will be complemented by experiences comparable to those previously delivered by the sales force in the past. Meanwhile, the role of the traditional sales force will shift to more consultative models.

1 Forrester Death of a (B2B) Salesman, Andy Hoar, April 13 2015


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Examples of digital capabilities that support sales teams

[ Call scheduling – create customer meetings in a few simple steps. Manage meetings every day with an intuitive interface.

[ Set site objectives and goals – define goals and objectives for the sites sales reps visit. From increasing product on shelf to selling products on special: progress towards goals and outcomes are easily measured.

[ Task management – sales manager or sales reps maintain and update call schedules. Management reporting includes online meetings, call schedules, length of time spent on site, and revenue per site and sales representative.

[ Contract management – multiple contracts can be dynamically setup per site by each sales rep or sales manager. Contracts can be revenue or quantity based using individual price lists and conditions.

[ Action items – items containing a subject and listed activities can be created on and off site. Images can be attached to action items and emailed to whomever relevant.

[ Order, invoice, credit, quote entry – the app features a comprehensive sales document entry capability incorporating up-sell and cross-sell merchandising to match the needs of your business. Order, invoice, credit and quotes can be created supporting contract, price lists, promotions and sales history. Signature capture, printing and email support is also included.

[ Productivity and sales forecast reporting – the app enables sales managers to report on the productivity of the sales reps in their team. In addition, sales forecast reporting is also supported.


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Digitally enabled salesforce in the manufacturing industry

Sales reps can use self-service tools to gather product or customer related information, view order status or delivery information, place orders for customers and communicate with customers through announcements, and alerts about the next sales rep visit.

Field sales reps can see customer profiles, their service history, status of consignment stock levels, contracts and pricing, and price lists for all service contracts. They get alerts to promotions that are running, software updates/upgrades for measuring and testing devices, and equipment information with related promotions.

Internal sales reps have access to all contract and customer information. They get an alert pop-up when a customer logs in and changes any information, wants contract information, renews a contract online, or requests more information. They’ll also get a notification if a service ticket is opened for a device that’s not under contract, so that they can proactively contact the customer with an offer for contract sales. They also have access to field sales documentation and invoicing in order to understand changes in equipment at customer sites. They’ll also know if a financial transaction does not go through so they can work with the customer to proactively fix it. What’s more, repair ticket information is available to them so they can check repair status, accessing central dispatch information to track the repair.


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DIGITAL SELF-SERVICE PORTAL SUPPORTS CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAMS

A digital self-service portal increases access to customer information such as service contract status and features, scheduling of specific services (e.g. as preventive maintenance), status of service events and repair, and education. Field service technicians are able to order parts, view contract status, and schedule preventive maintenance. Meanwhile the CSA has access to all customer and product information, can view a customizable dashboard that shows ongoing issues, and can create promotions for specific pieces of equipment.

Using Intershop’s Omni-Channel Services Toolset (OCST) B2B companies can easily develop a set of tailored business apps and tools for different personas within the sales and customer service teams. The Intershop OCST comes with a ready-made Contact Center application that is designed specifically for use in the area of customer service.

Catering to the needs of contact center agents, its standard features enable fast and accurate processing of customer inquiries. Agents can locate and view the order history and order details of any customer in their database, and provide advice on current orders. They can also place fast-track orders by entering the relevant SKU, or take temporary control of the shopping cart and add more items.

Using the co-browsing function, agents can view the storefront exactly as the customer sees it. This enables them to access customer-specific catalogs and offers, complete the entire checkout process on behalf of the customer, and edit customer information – including shipping and payment details. In addition, agents can issue customer-specific coupon codes and provide a personalized range of services.

TECHNOLOGY FOUNDATION THAT HELPS FACILITATE

A SET OF TAILORED BUSINESS APPS AND TOOLS

FOR DIFFERENT PERSONAS WITHIN THE SALES AND

CUSTOMER SERVICE TEAMS

Understanding business customers and their journeys helps implementing the right digital tools that add value quickly.

CONCEPTS THAT SIMPLIFY

B2B TRANSFORMATION

Concepts that simplify B2B transformation

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PERSONA PROFILING Doctors will want:

[ access to all information such as contract status, contracts renewal purchase, training materials and modules, new product details and pricing, owed balances, service alerts (warranty or contract expiration), promotions, and preventive maintenance

[ access to billing and shipping to address(es), along with the ability to change the address and to track the status of repair service tickets

What information does the business buyer need? What products do they search for? Which device do they use to get to the required content? How do they browse? How do they order? The answers to these questions all depend on the role of the individual involved.

In developing customer journeys that include multiple user scenarios and tools, B2B companies must first have clarity on the typical user.

Businesses have adopted the term “persona” to refer to the typical profiles of their customers. Personas such as ‘small business owner’, ‘doctor’, ‘medical engineer’, ‘procurement professional’, and ‘sales executive’ all have different needs and may choose a different purchasing path. Implementing the right digital tools that create value quickly is all about understanding these key personas and guiding them through their purchase journey.

For example, a medical technology manufacturer serves large hospitals but also smaller accounts such as doctors who own medical practices and whose purchasing journey, online tools and content requirements differ sgnificantly.


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By contrast, serving a large hospital involves several personas such as biomedical engineers, hospital administrators and procurement professionals:

[ A biomedical engineer requires access to the contract status, documentation, and technical status, and needs the ability to open service tickets and initiate phone, email and chat support; they also need access to training modules and service bulletins.

[ A hospital administrator will need access to contract status and documentation, renewal notices, status and repair/cost analytics, training materials and modules, new product details and pricing, owed balances, service alerts (warranty or contract aspiration), promotions and preventative maintenance, access to billing and shipping to addresses, locations of devices, service history tracking and costs, access to POs for service contracts, sales and consumables.

[ A procurement professional will need accounts payable functionality, data on equipment age and related service costs, and comprehensive pricing on consumables, parts and service.

Persona profile templates represent a helpful tool to capture and visualize key information around target personas. These personas include both customer and employee personas.

Information can be gathered by interviewing business customers and their users to understand the key responsibilities, primary motivations and pain points that each specific persona faces during his or her purchasing journey.

This information helps B2B businesses to develop business scenarios and map the digital tools which will solve each persona’s pain points and help them accomplish their tasks.


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CUSTOMER JOURNEY

Transforming the existing B2B selling model and succeeding against trend-setting leaders requires technology and tools that help business customers find the full range of products they need – saving them time and helping them to do their job better as doctors, medical engineers, procurement professionals, and sales executives.

Designing a customer journey and mapping persona profiles with business scenarios will help businesses choosing the right commerce technology to deliver self-service tools that simplify interactions and improve the buyer’s experience.

The following visualization shows a customer journey within the B2B environment (see Figure 5). Structured into four stages, it illustrates some of the common business scenarios targeting multiple customer and employee personas. The scenarios shown are powered by commerce platforms such as Intershop.

ENGAGE TRANSACT FULFIL

SERV

ICE

Create customized catalog

Create a campaign with special packages

Search for a product

Display product information on the product detail page

Create a new contract

Set up quoting rules

Create a time-based promotion

Pre-order products

Manage users, cost centers and budgets

Stock replenishment

Negotiate price

Approve order

Manage order templates

Re-order assortments

Change an order

Merge orders

Track orders

Cancel an order

Access "My Invoices"

Pay invoices via di�erentpayment options

Setup shipping options

Self-learning, FAQs and tutorials

Manage account in "My Account"

See spending report

Request contact center assistance

Trigger return

Print return label

Receive credit note


33Figure 5: Customer journey map


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EXAMPLE:

PERSONA PROFILE/CUSTOMER JOURNEY

(BIOMEDICAL ENGINEER)

The example that follows focuses on a persona working in a large hospital. Emma is a biomedical engineer and her main responsibility is to manage medical equipment, place orders and coordinate the placement of delivered equipment. Within every phase of the customer journey we’ll look at a few scenarios that describe Emma’s tasks and the tools provided by a manufacturer who sells the required equipment.


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PersonaEmmaBiomedical Engineer

BackgroundMaintain medical equipment. Manage inventory, services and repairs. Serve as the medical equipment consultant.

Key motivationOrder required equipment and coordinate the placement of equipment throughout the facility.

Journey

Challenges – Emma doesn't know about new technology trends and products. She explores to discover advanced products.

Solution via digital tools – Emma uses a networked computer (or mobile device) and opens the digital self-service portal. She inspires herself in the 'what's new' section. She navigates new products. She scrolls over the recommendations.

Challenges – Emma has to fill in the re-order sheet and fax it to the supplier. She can't find material numbers and gets frustrated.

Solution via digital tools – Emma logs in on the self-service portal and opens the ‘consumption notification’ section. An entry field is selected in which she is prompted to scan the item barcode. Once the barcode has been scanned, the item is added to a ‘shopping’ basket. She can add further items to the shopping basket. Emma proceeds to the check-out. She is able to select/enter different ship-to and bill-to addresses.

Challenges – Emma has no overview on the status of her orders.

Solution via digital tools – The order is transmitted from the digital self-service portal to the ERP system and is automatically processed for invoicing of the used products and replenishment of these items. Moments after the order/shopping basket has been transmitted Emma can see the order status, including an estimated delivery date in the "My account" section.

Challenges – The wrong product has been delivered and Emma needs to return it. She has to contact the call center first and wait for the return confirmation email containing return labels.

Solution via digital tools – The order is delivered and a goods-in scan of the received items automatically reference checks these against the order to confirm correct delivery of items and quantity. In the event of a discrepancy, Emma can create a return order. Meanwhile, Emma can view both order history or invoices within the ‘My Account Dashboard’ within the self-service portal.

ENGAGE

TRANSACT

FULFILL

SERVICE

MODERN TECHNOLOGY GUARANTEES

CONTINUOUS INNOVATION

Implementing innovative digital tools deeply binds business customers to their suppliers.

Modern technology guarantees continuous innovation

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As their commerce capability evolves from a siloed B2B online site to a fully integrated digitized B2B selling model, B2B organizations will be better positioned to initiate a unified approach that incorporates traditional sales channels as well as digital sites, marketing and customer service.

This new B2B selling model encompasses a multitude of customer-facing systems and functions that require an integrated design and delivery approach to provide the best customer experience – along with the creation of persona-oriented tools that empower business buyers and employees.

To support continuous innovation, B2B companies will need a centralized, global platform that connects to the wider technology landscape and integrates any application and service with ease. This flexible, componentized platform architecture should contain standardized and stable APIs to ensure that a tailored technology landscape can be built and extended with moderate development costs.

It should also provide a set of "business services" that share common capabilities and can be reused in multiple channels and apps. Making use of "business services" significantly reduces time-to-benefit by eliminating work duplication when developing persona-specific tools.

This lowers development and operations costs through reuse across customer touchpoints. Business services such as checkout, order taking, delivery planning, and product configuration should work the same way within each touchpoint. Each touchpoint can then be overlaid with differentiated value; for example, different sales and marketing channels can provide differentiated interactions, the contact center is better informed, while the e-commerce site provides digital tools that support business buyers and help them grow their business.


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Characteristics of a future-proof, scalable and high performance digital customer platform

[ Global platform supports the easy rollout of new countries and customer segments (e. g. SMBs, key accounts).

[ Easy adaption to local specifics such as content, services, currency, language and cultural specialties.

[ Fast onboarding of other business units and brands.

[ Fast development, testing and rollout capabilities to cope with new and emerging market trends and changing customer behavior.

[ Efficient application management and operation to reduce time-to-market and to avoid redundant developments.

Innovating continuously is essential in order to be able to stay in the game. B2B organizations need to focus on making life easier for customers, taking care of processes and arming them with digital tools that help them better plan their business and giving them the confidence of knowing that their B2B vendor is the supplier of choice. An example for such an innovative digital tool is the Intershop Commerce Advisor, a prescriptive business optimizer.


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Intershop Commerce AdvisorToday many merchants and business owners act on instinct. Their sales estimations and stock-keeping are a long guess based on experience only, not data. There are multiple factors such as assortment, location and target customers that influence the success of a merchant. By combining their gut instinct with data and consideration of these influencing factors, retailers can optimize their sales.

B2B vendors, including manufacturers and distributors, can support merchants by providing digital tools for assortment planning optimization. Based on data such as profile and purchase history, assortment, available retail space, store location, budget as well as a merchant’s sales estimations, the B2B vendor can provide recommendations around the right quantity of articles within an assortment.

In addition, the B2B vendor can help diagnose the relevancy of the assortment or missing articles that the merchant wants to pre-order. They can predict and recommend the composition of the assortment to better fit the merchant’s profile based on criteria such as target group, location and customer frequency. The quality of the B2B vendor’s recommendations will increase over time as more and more reference data – such as shopping cart, sales data from merchants – are collected. In this way merchants can be compared to their peers.

Finally, the right shipping dates can be calculated by taking into consideration additional influencing factors such as special events. Ordering a specific event-related assortment in advance is critical, as special events stimulate demand and lead to sold-out assortments. If merchants haven’t pre-ordered, the manufacturer won’t be able to factor this into their production planning or will have to do this with a much higher risk.

Summary

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SUMMARY

In order to serve new self-service oriented business buyers manufacturers and distributors must digitize their B2B selling model and utilize a centralized commerce technology to build self-service customer portals that deliver a better customer experience.

[ It eliminates administrative tasks unrelated to their core business for buyers.

[ Online ordering tools increase the efficiency of the internal order fulfillment process and ensure visibility and transparency around the order status.

[ It’s easier and more cost effective to provide guidance and customer assistance when it’s needed – such as contextual help or chat services.

[ Business buyers and employees have full accessibility to information and additional services.

[ Digitally enabled employees can provide better guidance and customer assistance to customers.

[ Relieved from manual tasks, sales representatives and customer service agents can focus their efforts on interactions that create additional value for business buyers.

[ A self-service customer portal significantly simplifies customer onboarding and account management – leading to a better customer experience and service.

THE PROVISION OF SELF-SERVICE AND SELF-MANAGEMENT FACILITIES

DELIVERS NUMEROUS BENEFITS:

Draft a customer journeyStart with the persona pro�ling

Choose a commerce technology that powers the journey scenarios

Map personas, customer journey and scenarios

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Go-live in a step-by-step approach Innovate continuously

1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

Summary

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Building a digitized B2B selling model requires a step-by-step transformation approach. The following recommendations may help organizations to focus on essentials first:

About Intershop

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ABOUT INTERSHOP

Intershop is the leading independent provider of enterprise e-commerce solutions for creating a seamless omni-channel buying experience. Around the globe more than 300 enterprise customers, including HP, BMW, Bosch, Merck, and Deutsche Telekom, run Intershop solutions for modeling sales processes to suit any organizational structure or business model.

Intershop offers high-performance packaged software for commerce management, product information management, order management, and commerce analysis, complemented by all necessary services. Using the Intershop Commerce Suite, companies can showcase their brands, market their products worldwide, and implement the strategies that will grow their business.

As a project partner with extensive industry knowledge, Intershop delivers turnkey solutions that are tailored to the needs of complex B2B and B2C scenarios. Intershop also acts as a business process outsourcing provider, covering all aspects of online retailing up to fulfillment.

Intershop is headquartered in Jena, Germany, and has offices in the United States, Europe, Australia, and China.

TAKE CONTROL OF CHANGE WITH INNOVATION POWERED BY INTERSHOP.

About Intershop

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SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMERS

Find out more about our successful customers:

Intershop Communications AGIntershop Tower07740 Jena, GermanyTel.: +49 3641 50-0Fax: +49 3641 [email protected]

© 2016 Intershop™ Communications AG. All rights reserved. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Date post:	14-Mar-2020
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