B2B Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday continues to set records for consumer ecommerce. Meanwhile, B2B ecommerce remains largely underdeveloped.

Essent is publishing a series of articles that examine how B2B ecommerce can perform more like B2C.

Installments include:

Series Overview

10 Areas to Improve

Deals and Promotions

Carts and Catalogs

Customer Self-Service

Enhanced Self-Service

Guest Checkout

Leveraging Mobile

How effectively the seller handles the remote transaction dramatically affects an ecommerce sale.

The more convenient, the more likely the sale – and repeat sales.

A short trip through recent technological history makes this abundantly clear.

The first sellers to leverage telephone transactions put themselves at a distinct advantage. Instead of using mail-order catalogs or physically travelling to a store, the buyer could quickly and conveniently complete transactions from the home or office.

Then sellers began to use television to display products, in conjunction with the phone to close transactions. That created another distinct advantage because the buyer could conveniently see what’s for sale and also see it in action.

And then came ecommerce. As far as buying convenience goes, nothing currently tops it. So gaining the edge in convenience now rests in making ecommerce as convenient as possible.

And in addition to a user-friendly catalog and cart, customer self-service is a great way to deliver convenience in ecommerce.

A win-win

Customer self-service is a win-win in B2B ecommerce.

The buyer, procurement specialist, or purchasing agent gets a level of convenience, control, and confidence that makes the ecommerce website more inviting. Meanwhile, the seller saves time by receiving a properly configured order that meets the buyer’s specifications and the seller’s configuration requirements right from the start.

An ecommerce website lets the buyer specify necessary information like size and color. Advanced ecommerce websites even allow for customizations like name personalization and artwork. In the most advanced cases, the website is equipped with a Visual Product Configurator that allows the buyer to see the product customizations and its price change in real-time as adjustments are made. From the simplest specifications to the most complex customizations, product configuration technology now exists for true customer self-service for a variety of industries and market segments.

So whatever the product or service, the customer has the ability to engage in self-service and is confident because he or she personally sets all the variables. The store gains efficiency because all of the variables are already set by the buyer. Even though the buyer and seller don’t directly talk, both the buyer and seller are more confident than ever in the accuracy of the order, because the seller sets the requirements, enforced by the system, and the buyer sets the specifications themselves, visually seeing the results. Less time and less error.

Everybody wins

Custom items raise the stakes

Customer self-service is even more important in promotional products where the stakes are high, because virtually every item is customized. There are more variables than ever that manufacturers need to track! All these variables and variations translate into more time and more opportunities for error.

A distributor might sell the same make and model of pen a hundred times, for example. But every instance will be different depending on the end-user. So a given product isn’t just customized one way, it’s customized in a different way for every single order.

By allowing the buyer the convenience of setting the variables like colors and artwork, the promotional products distributor helps make sure the product is customized just right for every order.

Integration automates self-service

When the self-service engine is connected to the back office, the results are even more powerful.

The fully customized order can be imported into the seller’s business management system with no data re-entry or other time-consuming steps.

With true customer self-service, the ecommerce experience is convenient for the buyer, efficient for the seller, and saves time and money for both parties.

It takes true Self-Service

Self-service isn’t true self-service if it requires more than one’s self. In other words, the supplier should be able to define the requirements without any input from the customer. The buyer should be able to specify the requirements, without involving the supplier. A seller offering self-service that doesn’t end in a properly configured order — with complete pricing and lead times the buyer can approve — is not self-service and negates the proven advantages of self-service. The customer needs to be able to build an order themselves, in real-time, with all the facts, and without needing anything other than the website to get it all done.

True Self-Service Takes Integration

Even more important from the seller’s perspective is a fully-integrated back office.

With front-office/back-office integration, the order can be entered just once and stay correct from quoting to fulfillment to shipping to billing to accounting and beyond – all the way through the critical path.

There’s no need to re-key the order, to manually enter shipping or fulfillment details, or to copy-paste information into accounting. There’s no need touch the information again. That drastically reduces the need for intervention and the costly human error that invites.

So customer self-service assures the order is placed correctly. Integration with the back office assures it is entered correctly. And a fully integrated back office assures it stays correct through the critical path.

The result is a system of fluid self-service that’s convenient for the buyer and saves time and money for the seller.

True Self-Service is a True Win-Win for the Buyer and Seller

Experience proves that technology offers customer convenience that creates a distinct advantage in any transaction. Those who make the most convenient sales process more convenient stand to gain customers and repeat sales.

Customer self-service is a win-win in ecommerce because it creates convenience for both the buyer and the seller. The customer gets control and visibility, while the seller gets accurate orders with huge labor savings. This is especially true in markets, like with the promotional products industry, that deal with custom products.

If you want the best buying experience possible, implement true customer self-service with an integrated product configurator and an integrated back-office.

Take the next step

Essent business solutions provide a B2C experience for B2B ecommerce.