How COVID-19 changed B2B sales B2B sales (forever)?
2020 is a historic year. It marks the first pandemic in a globalized economy, where it's easy to track its progress with a wealth of data and statistics.
As a result, governments have chosen to impose an unprecedented paradigm: confinement and the near-obligation to telework whenever possible.
Sales forces, particularly those of printers, converters and packaging manufacturers, moved overnight from the "field" or office to the "home". Were they ready for it? What was the impact for them? How did buyers and customers experience this new business relationship?
Finally, what has this new organization of work definitely changed in terms of business practices and the expectations of professional buyers?
This is what McKinsey Company has tried to analyze and understand through a groundbreaking study (1) carried out in 11 countries, across 12 different sectors, and involving more than 3,600 companies that sell products and services to other companies (in B2B, or Business-to-Business).
1. Business customers increasingly for a digital sales experience experience
The study shows that business customers prefer an online experience (via a website, chat tools, videoconferencing) to traditional interactions (face-to-face meetings, trade shows).
On average, in the 11 countries surveyed, twice as many customers want to interact with their suppliers via digital tools than before COVID-19.
The trend is even more marked in Spain and the UK, where there are 3 times more of them than before the health crisis.
2. Business customers are working more on mobile
Business customers are indeed using their cell phones (smartphones) to order from their suppliers.
COVID-19 has accelerated this trend, with 30% more customers preferring to place orders by cell phone, and a 250% increase in orders from mobile applications between professionals.
3. Offer an accomplished digital experience to its experience to generate more orders
Providing a successful digital experience for business customers is the key to new orders. The study shows that a company that has invested in an effective digital acquisition channel increases its chances of winning new orders by a factor of 2.
What is a successful digital experience?
- It's not limited to a "seller" or ecommerce site. In fact, some companies offer products or services that cannot be sold "through the catalog". This is the purpose of the HIPE technology we propose to packaging manufacturers, some of whom sell almost exclusively customized packaging.
- It starts with the first contact, and can even extend to after-sales service. From the identification of the prospect to the transformation into a customer with the first order, and then the long-term retention of this new customer.
4. Omnichannel sales, the new standard for B2B commerce
The McKinsey study underlines that the omnichannel sales trend is accelerating with the health crisis. Almost 80% of B2B companies say they are accelerating their investments in this direction.
Omnichannel sales is the mix between:
- offline sales, including management of incoming calls and messages, cold calling, sales force presence in the field and trade shows.
- online sales, for example, with a site that "captures" new prospects and new business opportunities, or even an ecommerce sales site. But also the use of digital tools to automate certain sales tasks.
5. Faced with this situation, how do you launch digital transformation of its sales processes? processes?
Identify your added value
Optimize your website
Identify what is most important to your customers and targets: speed, transparency, expertise?
Once you've done that, build your tools accordingly.
Whether you're selling or not, offer your customers and prospects a pleasant, easy-to-use experience.
Make sure your site is integrated with the other tools you need to manage your sales (CRM, emailing tools, project management, etc.).
Take away your customers' frustrations
Automate yes, dehumanize no
Avoid the mistakes that generate your customers' main frustrations: taking too long to obtain a quote (a recurring problem in the packaging industry, for example), taking too long to place an order, difficulty finding products, technical problems on the site...
Add the "human touch" to your sales relationship as soon as the customer or prospect needs it during the buying process.
Train your sales force
Optimize the customer journey
Create a group of digital experts to train and support your sales force in using new tools and optimizing new processes.
Identify, track and measure how customers use the new paths you offer them.
Keep optimizing them!