Underneath his nicely-pressed suit, the sales rep was sweating a little bit. Hired during the pandemic, this was his first in-person meeting with an account, and he felt a little out of his depth.
“Based on your machine specs, our engineers calculated tha-“
The COO across the table from him, a woman with an oddly simple pinky ring, frowned slightly. “I did the calculations myself to be sure, and we only need what we’ve ordered.”
The sales rep thought for a moment, pulling out a freshly-printed document. Perhaps a different angle would work. “That makes sense. Would you like to walk through our new product catalogue instead?”
Conducting sales in manufacturing can be challenging in our modern world of ubiquitous sensors, tight margins, and global competition. Especially since the pandemic, many traditional customer touchpoints were shifted online, further complicating the sales cycle, and research trends suggest that B2B buyers are developing expectations for digital and cross-platform experiences that rival the notoriously fickle B2C consumer.
Given these difficulties, manufacturers, who have historically been focused on traditional sales channels, must consider how e-commerce platforms like Microsoft’s D365 Commerce or Evenica’s e4Commerce, not only support the growing need for self-serve purchasing in B2B but empower sales reps to be more effective, capable, and authoritative when in the field.
E-commerce in Manufacturing
At Evenica, we believe that commerce exists where interaction meets transaction. Whether this happens between a field sales rep and a buyer, or between a buyer and your website, our mission is to facilitate better interactions and simpler transactions in support of growth and excellence.
What this means for manufacturers is a consolidated database of customer information, product information, and more, all linked with other parts of your business infrastructure and accessible by sales reps in the field. Using e4Commerce or D365 Commerce for this purpose enables you to not only create ecommerce portals for your buyers, but also take advantage of the Microsoft suite of solutions and create efficiencies throughout your entire business – such as the Dynamics 365 ERP.
What Commerce Can Do
Because manufacturing is characterized by complicated product specifications and sometimes extensive product lines, it is important to have a foundation like e4Commerce D365 Commerce that supports a single point of truth for all of your product information. This can be accessed through not only e-commerce portals, which has become common since the pandemic, but on laptops and tablets during in-person sales calls. Despite their relative inconvenience, in-person meetings are often higher-quality interactions than Teams calls, which means empowering your sales reps with searchable product information, AI-driven recommendations, and a customer’s history with your company will support success in this key channel.
Augmented Sales
The COO scrolled through the product information on the tablet. “Hm. This is new – tell me more about this new fabric-reinforced gasket.”
“Ah. Yes, after two years of R&D, we developed these reinforced gaskets which are performing very well in some of our client’s high-pressure hydraulic systems.” The sales rep waited as the COO scanned the specifications.
“You know, I might actually be able to use these for something…”
When your sales reps are fully connected to your consumer and product information, interactions become more fluid and can lead to emergent transaction opportunities. With e4Commerce or D365 Commerce as your e-commerce foundation, many aspects of your business become simplified – there is a single source of truth for all information, which reduces error and misalignment. Buyers are able to move between digital and in-person touchpoints as required, making it easier for them to buy from you and therefore more likely to do so.
The next evolution of e-commerce technology is, of course, artificial intelligence. With the capabilities that currently exist today, it is likely that many sales reps will have virtual assistants by the end of the decade, much like Cortana, Siri, or the fictional Jarvis. In addition to improving productivity and morale, scheduling may be entirely automated and many administrative tasks will be as well. All that will be left is to shake hands and sell.
Delivering Exceptional Customer Experiences
Evenica specializes in developing custom e-commerce solutions that deliver sophisticated customer experiences. We have worked in many different industries, including financial services, and offer custom Microsoft solutions as well as our own e4Platform.