Salespeople are a critical part of businesses, and particularly when selling wholesale or B2B. But some salespeople are distrustful of online Ecommerce, perhaps due to fear of it taking away their ability to sell to customers, or its disruptiveness into existing processes.
The reality is online Ecommerce is an increasingly important part of any business, and the savviest businesses provide their sales team B2B and wholesale tools on their Ecommerce website to make them more efficient and successful. Here are four Ecommerce empowerment tools salespeople can leverage:
1. Streamline Order Placement
Among the baseline Ecommerce tools of all stripes provide is basic order taking and tracking. When it comes to B2B Ecommerce, many companies still find orders to salespeople being sent through emails, PDFs, phone calls – all ways that mean multiple layers of data entry and management, slow and inefficient. It also means tracking these orders, since they’re placed in a variety of forms, is less than organized.
By using the Ecommerce website as the home base for all orders placed, whether by customers or by salespeople, you have uniform data and a single source for keeping an eye on all orders placed. Customers can log in to see orders input by salespeople, and salespeople can see the last time customers placed an order. This will give them useful data to know when it’s time to check in with their customers to place another order.
Another alternative is to provide salespeople with a B2B mobile app that can place orders into the same B2B Ecommerce system as self-service orders placed by your buyers. This can provide a more purpose-built option for your salespeople, while retaining the centralized order benefits when everything is one place.
2. Leverage a Quote System for Order Suggestions
If salespeople in your industry tend to make recommendations before purchase, leveraging Sales Quotes to build draft orders can be another way to leverage modern technology to guide the order process. Customers can get an email with the recommended order built by their salesperson, and convert the quote to an order right from their office with no further interaction needed by the salesperson.
If changes are needed, they can choose to edit it on their side and resubmit, or call their salesperson to adjust it, before completing the purchase. All of this streamlines the sales process and lets salespeople move on to the next customer that much faster. For salespeople, more sales opportunities is always a plus, and for customers, a quicker transaction means they can get back to other tasks sooner.
Quote systems can also let salespeople successfully work in the field, building a draft order in real time and, if the customer is happy with it, completing the order on site. This reduces paperwork and other processes compared with the way things were done in previous eras, and with an order already submitted will mean a customer’s goods will arrive that much faster.
3. Ensure Proper Attribution of Sales
One important aspect of salespeople and managing their customers is making sure they get credit for the book of business they build. Modern Ecommerce platforms can automatically attribute orders based on customer or customer group when a salesperson is assigned – if salespeople successfully get their customers more self-sufficient online, they’ll want to make sure they get credit for those steps and driving more efficient sales as well, so this and important attribute for any B2B or wholesale Ecommerce system.
Accurate sales attribution across all customer orders placed will make salespeople happier when they know they can count on accurate commission reporting and attribution for the sales they’ve generated.
4. Provide Information at a Glance
For many B2B businesses, the website has replaced the online catalog, providing product information and specifications. Salespeople can easily send customers to the website to compare products, find the right choices for their business, and move ahead with an order more quickly.
The My Account section of an Ecommerce website can provide useful customer-specific information. Customers can use their online dashboard to track orders whether they placed them or someone else placed them for them, to see if it’s been shipped. And if it’s something they order regularly, making a reorder option or a recently ordered page with products they’ve bought may encourage them to start self-service on common and straightforward orders.
They can also automatically update billing and shipping information without the intervention of a salesperson or customer service support, reducing non-sales support outreach.
Learn How Zoey Can Support Your Salespeople
Zoey has a variety of tools designed to support salespeople to effectively and efficiently serve their customer base. To learn more about how Zoey can support your salespeople, request a walkthrough here:
We also have more tips about how to leverage modern B2B and wholesale Ecommerce tools to support your entire team in our free eBook, “The Changing Landscape of B2B Ecommerce.” Click the button below to request your copy:
