Posts Tagged ‘B2B’

h1

Don’t settle for immature B2B eCommerce. Your customers won’t.

June 10, 2021

How mature is your B2B eCommerce? 

B2B buyers, especially over the last 12 months, want to self-serve at their convenience without waiting for quotations, product information, or complicated manual discounting. Forrester’s recent report concludes that being a B2B digital seller is about more than eCommerce – it is leveraging new business models for direct and channel selling and having a critical 360-degree view of the customer journey.1

Forrester concludes that B2B buyers defect to sites where the friction is lowest, search is easiest, and the selection is broadest and deepest. How can you provide the best webstore experience for your B2B customer when selling complex products, and maximize selling opportunities?

  • Make it relevant. Analyze your customer behavior and offer customers products and services that they want – consolidate your eCommerce and Configure Price Quote (CPQ) data sources to derive this information – quote and sales data can accurately drive future demand shaping.
  • Make the customer journey as simple as possible. Provide a webstore configuration experience that is user-friendly and intuitive – your CPQ should work with your webstore and can be achieved with industry-standard APIs, processing complex configuration rules overlaid with a simplified customer user interface.
  • Take the manual aspect out of complex discounting. Offer instant discounting via your sales enablement and CPQ with user prompts to optimize the buyer journey.
  • Leverage Product Management for recommendations. Allow your user to see similar products if a product they are viewing is out of stock. Additionally, suggestions should be made on other attach items ensuring they are compatible, competitively priced, in-stock and a manageable number of alternatives is displayed.
  • Ensure workflow is set up to your CRM. Route incomplete or abandoned transactions to your CRM to trigger a follow up on criteria-defined opportunities.

channelcentral CPQ services can help your webstore achieve all of the above. We can help your webstore mature to the buyer user experience your customer wants and expects.

1 Forrester, Gauge Your B2B E-Commerce Digital Maturity Assessment: The B2B E-Commerce Playbook by Joe Cicman with Allen Bonde, Brandon Shaik, Kara Wilson, and Madison Bakalar, January 8, 2021

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Channel Business, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, eCommerce, Product Management | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

h1

The Rise of the PIM Vendor

November 16, 2020

PIM pivotal 

Hot Air Balloon

Forrester’s recent Market Snapshot announced that it is time to consider PIM as pivotal to a successful digital experience strategy and that the PIM vendor landscape is in transition to meet CX needs. Solutions to manage product data are undergoing a transformation, driven by the impact of PIM on CX, scale of products and proliferation of touchpoints.

channelcentral met with Pimberly, a UK-based Product Information Management (PIM) Vendor last year. Multi-vendor sellers have to manage huge volumes of product data in a variety of different formats, connecting to multiple, non-standard systems. PIM Vendors not only normalize the data but also offer merchandizing and demand shaping functions to help improve the Customer Experience (CX).

Product data fuels CX

Many poor B2B Customer Experiences are due to insufficient or low-quality data integrated into the buying process. The product data exists but may be spread across multiple systems or stored in non-user-friendly format. Forrester emphasizes that product data fuels CX.1 channelcentral considers a project to consolidate and automate data sources as fundamental in ensuring that capabilities can be added, and error removed. An example leading to poor CX could be displaying a different inventory level in eCommerce to the one shown in CPQ. Businesses should identify the best (Golden) data sources and real-time delivery mechanisms.

Vendors aim to offer a consistent CX, regardless of where the product or service purchase is made in the omnichannel.  For a relevant product category, well applied PIM can significantly enhance the buying journey when coupled with Digital Asset Management (DAM).  Forrester stresses the importance of DAM and PIM collaborating to form compelling content for B2B buyers, recommending the integration to improve the omnichannel experience.

Adding value

Web Services play a huge role now, turning data from Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems into the dynamic data required by eCommerce and CPQ Systems. Expecting Product Managers to run reports or upload spreadsheets manually is not scalable. PIM vendors recognize this opportunity and in multi-vendor situations, where there is often more than one available data source (e.g. Vendor or Icecat), allowing eCommerce Store or CPQ stakeholders to set Golden sources per vendor or product line.

Watch the summary video here:

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, CPQ, eCommerce, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Helping the B2B Complex Buying Journey with Credible Empathetic Content

October 29, 2020

A recent Forrester report has identified that B2B marketers’ content ‘shows a deeper understanding of the concerns and challenges buyers face.’ To engage B2B buyers, Forrester says content should be empathetic and easy to consume.1

B2B customers want more than customized content; it needs to be genuinely helpful and embrace the outcomes that they desire.  Also, customers want reassurance that information they receive is from a trusted source. 

‘business and IT decision–makers say vendors give them too much material and most of it is useless.‘ 

Understand what is important to buyers in their job 

Focus on what helps your customers – engaging them in sustainable business conversations.  82% of buyers say it’s important to have a credible, authentic story showing how you help customers succeed. 1 

Make content accessible – shorter format, consumable content.  Forrester reports that 61% of B2B buyers prefer gathering information on their own. Preferred formats include ROI analyses/business cases, brief brochures, reports, case studies and guides, infographics, short articles and blogs, webinars and short videos. 1 

Make content credible and empathetic – 46% of global technology decision-makers find a business case format with ROI Analysis most useful marketing content format when making a technology purchase decision. 1   

What are we doing to instil confidence in our subscribers and their customers? 

We demonstrate with every communication that we have a full understanding of their industry – we know the IT Channel, IT Products, Configure Price Quote and the commercial realities and challenges our customers face. From customer case studies, through to demonstrating ROI with monthly BI Reporting for all customers. 

Giving your customers access to a self-service sales enablement tool allows them to quickly and correctly Configure Price Quote and then buy the products and services they need, exactly when they need. 

1  Credible Empathetic Content Wins Over Elusive B2B Buyers: Four Practices Deliver Value And Engage Your Buyers’ Attention, Forrester Research, Inc., April 30, 2020, Laura Ramos with Caroline Robertson, April Henderson, Miriam ElKorchi, Kara Hartig 

Watch the summary video here:

Posted in channelcentral.net, CPQ, eCommerce, Marketing, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Channel Partner Experience – The New Trifurcation Channel Model

October 19, 2020

Earlier this year, Forrester’s Jay McBain included in his channel trends analysis, a newly evolved channel model – Trifurcation.  This model identifies three key streams to the channel, influencing different buyers at different stages in their buying journey: 

Influencer channel: affinity partners, referral agents, affiliates, advocates and ambassadors with potential to influence a buyer during their pre-purchase research. With more B2B buyers expecting a customer experience (CX) similar to that of a B2C buyer, Forrester found that 68% buyers are spending their buying journey digitally before speaking to a salesperson and 71% reaching vendor selection after a digital-only journey.1 Influencers have just that effect; the potential to recommend a product or service through social media, even if they’d never be directly linked to a sale. 

Transaction channel: in which the buyer operates, and sales take place.  Configure Price Quote (CPQ) supports eCommerce and facilitates ‘as-a-Service‘ in this stream. There are additional opportunities in this traditional part of the channel.  McBain believes that tweaking channel data management, automation, insights, onboarding, incentives, co-selling, and co-marketing will determine winners and losers here.’1 

Retention channel: consultants, integrators, adjacent ISVs, accountants and digital agencies. This stream has increasing relevance, as vendors move towards ‘as-a-Service’ models, working with customers to ensure adoption, integration with existing tech and processes.  The customer needs to experience integrated communications from the vendor and partners with the same mutually beneficial consistent messages. More than 80% of these (potential) partners will show up before or after the sale, and channel leaders need to break the transactional channel model.1 

There is an opportunity for vendors to support influencer and retention channels.  As part of that ecosystem, we recognise the value that CPQ offers in enhancing the CX, whilst facilitating as-a-Service in the IT channel for Manufacturers, Distributors and Resellers, and influencing their new complementary channels.

1 What I See Coming For The Channel In 2020 blog post by Jay McBain, Principal Analyst, Channel Partnerships & Alliances, Forrester, JAN 7 2020 

Watch the summary video here:

Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, channelcentral.net, CPQ, CPQ Software, eCommerce, Quote Software, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Don’t waste time on a poor CPQ User Experience

May 18, 2020

The configure element of Configure Price Quote (CPQ) consists of combining parts available to create a product that will operate.  The more complex the component combinations can be for a product, the more highly configurable it is. 

There are several approaches to configuration which affect the User Experience (UX) in a CPQ application.  Each has its benefits for different types of users; however, being performant is critical to the application’s success.

Free flow, including accordian

A user can add any option or part to a quotation or basket. Errors are permitted, e.g. overpopulation, but the system generates warnings alerting the user that the errors need to be corrected. Many of channelcentral’s CPQ applications use this approach.

Free flow is ideal for regular users that have some knowledge of the products and options, or technical information is readily available.

Always correct

The configuration system constrains options so that anything that a user adds is functional.  As a user adds more options, the remaining choices are restricted further. Some of channelcentral’s light eCommerce customers adopt this approach, using boost! and APWS.

Always correct is ideal if a user is infrequent or has limited knowledge of products, to simplify the process of selecting parts.

Pre-Qualification

The user is asked a set of questions up-front, and the configuration system limits options and therefore, complexity based on the responses.

Pre-Qualification is ideal if a user has no real knowledge of products and options available but does know clearly, the solution they require in purchasing a product.

Forrester has recently announced a top trend for 2020 will be an increase in ‘self-service for end-to-end customer journey‘, including customer-facing CPQ solutions for B2B buyers. 1  channelcentral designs all its CPQ and eCommerce applications with users in mind, so that users can self-serve. 

Is a poorly designed performant User Interface equally bad to ‘egg-timer time’?  Present the user with a form that takes one second to load but 30 minutes to complete is worse than something that takes a few seconds to load on each click but only takes 10 minutes to complete.

Our CPQ applications have not only complexity, but also a lot of dynamic data (notably price/stock), that enables them to generate complex configurations.   So, we are refactoring (altering the code architecture) to make them as performant as possible for the best possible UX. By optimizing the architecture and the UX design, the future releases of our CPQ applications will enjoy the best of both worlds.

1 Top CRM Trends for 2020, Forrester blog by Kate Leggett, Vice President, Principal Analyst, 11 February 2020

Watch the video summary here:

Posted in Attach Pattern Web Service, configurator, CPQ, CPQ Software, Data Services, Quote Software | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »

h1

Ever wondered what CPQ integration looks like?

March 2, 2016

channelcentral CPQ Ecosystem

For those that are new to Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) tools it can be hard to understand what an integration could look like and how it can work for your business.

The following diagram shows a typical CPQ integration for one of our customers. channelcentral offer the Software as a Service (SAAS) to their customer (CPQ Host) so they can make their sales processes more efficient. For those customers that would like to gain maximum efficiencies, the service is extended to their customers (CPQ Consumer) through webstore integrations. The CPQ tool suddenly becomes very powerful as it has B2B and B2C functionality to open up your market and provide real-time reporting. Whichever CPQ Service and level of integration is required, you can be assured of on-going channelcentral support and lifecycle management as part of your SAAS contract.

channelcentral CPQ Ecosystem

If you would like to learn more about how a CPQ tool could help you grow your business, contact us.

www.channelcentral.net/cpq

Posted in Channel Business, channelcentral.net, configurator, CPQ Software, Product Management, Quote Software, SaaS | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a Comment »