Many B2B commerce businesses have salespeople in a critical role for their business. Whether it be selling on the road, helping with complicated product types, or checking in on buyers who haven’t purchased in awhile, salespeople can be the glue that keeps sales rolling.

While self-service B2B Commerce is finally becoming more common, the role of the salesperson will remain important, and so looking for a solution that can ensure that salespeople are properly supported can be a key aspect of the technology for your business. Here are some capabilities to think about, or ask about, when it comes to selecting a new solution:

• Online/Offline Mobile App: Look up product information, customer-specific pricing and other information. Capture orders or create sales quotes, even when offline. Sync when back in service.
• Link Orders/Customers to a Salesperson: Make it easier to track commissionable events and orders/customers managed by a given salesperson.
• Draft Orders for Customer Approval: Allow salespeople or customer service reps to build orders based on customer requirement or history and send to a customer for approval. Alternatively, salespeople could puts items in a cart on behalf of the buyer, which can allow them to complete the order at their leisure, through your website.
• Tablet/Laptop Friendly Front-End: Ensures a salesperson can work with their customers on site and build an order in real time.
• Order Comments: Allow customers and salespeople to easily communicate within the online store through commenting. Also empowers customer service, fulfillment and other roles to have similar capabilities.
• Customer Analytics: Understand the buying patterns of a salesperson’s customers, and identify who’s overdue for a purchase based on previous buying patterns. Know when it’s time to encourage a re-order.
• Communication Management: Provide ways for salespeople to communicate with customers on draft orders, as well as placed orders, to confirm details about a transaction and updates as an order flows through the fulfillment process.

This category is one of many that can matter to B2B Commerce businesses in 2021, and that’s why Zoey has built a B2B Commerce New Solution Checklist, which has a wide array of features that you can expect to find within B2B Commerce solutions, and how they can benefit your business.

To see the entire list of features, organized helpfully by category to help you plan for your next site, download our checklist: