In 2017, the “Death of a (B2B) salesman report” has been updated by the author Andy Hoar as business leaders are continuing to automate sales processes and promote digitally enabled commerce:
53% of the B2B buyers Forrester surveyed in 2015 preferred to gather information on their own, as opposed to interacting with a sales rep. Today, that figure has grown to 68%. B2B buyers want to do their own product research
The survey found that upskilled inside sales will play an even greater role in all phases of SMB and enterprise sales than initially predicted in 2015.
Shifting from offline to online sales is both cost- and customer-effective. Companies such as Coca-Cola and Levi Strauss reported that shifting its B2B customers to a self-serve portal increased their revenue by 10%.
As an example, German based software start-up foxbase.de has started to develop a solution for digital B2B sales. Likewise, in a professional sales conversation, customer and sales staff of a selling company can easily find the best product from a wide range of product portfolio online. Henkel Adhesives B2B has engaged with foxbase and launched multilingual digital product selectors (DPS) for different industrial adhesives categories. Customers provide their individual needs and, based on this information, the DPS searches for the best suitable product through filters, and recommends up to three products. Prices could be made visible based on stipulated volume agreements between the supplier and the customer. The DPS is directly linked with the supplier’s lead management system and search behavior, combined with different information coming from the user, can be used for conversion and optimized product recommendation through machine learning. Data from DPS is stored, analyzed and visualized in sophisticated dashboards and reports to validate customer requirements and identify trends.
First, understand the customer, then increase the value
The seller needs to get closer to the B2B and B2C customer and create engagement instead of demanding generation. This can be achieved by understanding the Customer Journey through Analysis (CJA). The funnel concept fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels, coupled with the emergence of an increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer. A more sophisticated approach is required to help marketers navigate this environment, which is less linear and more complicated than the funnel suggests. We call this approach the consumer decision journey.
1.1.2 E-commerce within multi-channel strategies
With the shift towards online business (e-commerce), the number of channels being used by consumers has expanded. CJA offers a company the possibility of visualizing and quantifying the CJ across multiple channels with the added value of understanding and optimizing the journey by analyzing large volumes of data. It should then provide more relevant and differentiated insights into consumer behavior, which is more complex today, since customers go through a sequence of non-linear interactions. While in 2016 50% of worldwide data has been collected, only few insights have been generated to introduce data-driven decision-making.
Predictive data analytics providers offer applications for finding complex patterns, profiles and common interaction paths to increase marketing effectiveness and customer satisfaction. Scientific research and studies have proven that the idea of online-to-offline flow (and vice versa) is common sense and online media can lead to offline sales. Sufficient technology (e.g. session-based tracking, multi-touch cookies and algorithmic attribution services), data coordination and knowledge management between business departments are the first steps in developing a new value model of marketing (Skinner, 2010), which includes the value of both online and offline media to sales. The Makebuzz example - how marketing automation impacts media spending- resulted in a decrease of 10% from the marketing budget due to a shift of approximately 25% of online media budgets (paid touch points), which reflected the growing importance of internet media and incorporated marketing and sales data from both channels to form a comprehensive CJ picture. By understanding the impact of all media to e-commerce, store and call center, Makebuzz.com found a way to ‘right size’ the complete customer journey with their advanced CRM technology. They transformed a media services firm from a single point offering to a significant technology and organization. Revenue grew from $80 to over $450 million. Table1 provides an overview of the CJA phases in more depth.
Table 1: Phases of customer journey analysis
| Phase | Description | Tools |
| 1. Analysis | Define objectives and target groups for touch point management and CJA. Identify relevant touch-points and channels. Output: Customer insights (e.g. process, needs, expectations). Mapping of customer experience (CE) at each touch point (TP). Develop a visually descriptive CJ map and charts which capture the TPs, the critical path of the CJ and processes More general: Investigate user experience/customer journey | Focus interviews (qualitative) or capture of real-time experiences (e.g. proband provides feedback with mobile phones) which is extensive Surveys (quantitative) like Google Analytics tool “Customer Journey” to understand online purchases Various methods e.g. usability walkthrough, critical incident technique or customer journey |
| 2. Redesign | Find competitive differentiators through CJA on customer service, process optimization concerning speed, positive emotional boosting, quality, flexibility and ease of doing business Redesign marketing-mix. Especially promotion-mix: advertising strategy, omni-channel communications (e.g. data-informed content strategy) and the in-store experience (e.g. waiting time, skilled sales representatives) Innovation of service quality Improve product design How to create value out from all the customer interactions? Develop business requirements and a creative strategy that execute the delivery of new value propositions | CJA, process design, Fishbone technique, Six thinking heads, Total Quality Management, ISO certification, Business process re-engineering, Innovation SERVQUAL methodology |
| 3. Implementing Change | Change management on cross-functional level with bottom-up and top-down approach, modify organizational structure towards a customer-centric model and adjustment of performance measures and employee incentives to improve customer experience and loyalty Technology upgrades to the appropriate channels | Change Management |
| 4. Review | Conducting regular reviews and continuous touch point management based on defined key performance indicators (KPIs) | Meetings, reviews, dashboards, measurement systems |
Source: Thomas Menthe, 2018
1.1.3 The linear funnel model – outdated?
The marketing funnel is a visualization for understanding the process of turning leads into customers, as understood from a marketing perspective. As consumers are using different researching techniques today (e.g. social media advertising) and get various inputs throughout the process, the linear sales funnel (see figure 1) in B2B or B2C is
