With the progression of digitalization in various sectors, companies are trying to replace personal contact with chatbots, long product descriptions, recommendation engines, and Augmented Reality features. These solutions are far from replacing the personal touch you get when talking to a consultant – and this is especially true in the B2B sectors.
With this in mind, we created a Sales Meeting Hub. It’s a solution that connects personal contact with online sales.
Find out more about world-changing ideas from the Divante Innovation Lab.
The specifics of digitizing the B2B sector
Many companies put personal contact with sales consultants above online shopping. Unfortunately, the last global crisis caused by the coronavirus outbreak (see more about the COVID-19 impact on eCommerce here) stopped many companies from making business trips, presenting products in person, attending trade fairs, and engaging in other sales activities that help build close and reliable relations with their business partners and clients. It also pushed many companies on a faster path to digitalizing business.
Common reasons to start digitalization in B2B
- Growing digitalization level of competing companies
- Ongoing global crisis
- High costs of business trips
- Cancellation of industry events
- Low level of physical product discovery
The digitalization of B2B companies is not something new, of course. There are good examples of companies that already transformed their businesses, like TIM or Axel Johnson International. They drive significant revenue from online channels but, usually, these processes take significant amounts of time and need a proper transition period when both employees and customers can adjust.
And it is important as companies must onboard B2B users on their new eCommerce platform.
“Onboarding users in B2B is crucial. These are often mixed teams that will shop for the same company, settle them with different departments, and care for precise delivery times. Many of those people are not frequent online shoppers, and that’s why we started looking for solutions that could ease this process and keep close contact with a sales representative.”
Artur Wala, Head of Divante Innovation Lab
The intermediate step of digitizing B2B
At Divante Innovation Lab, we looked for some solution that would allow sales forces to keep undisrupted contact with their clients while introducing them to online shopping processes freshly implemented in their businesses.
We were looking for a connection that mirrors the in-person interaction that happens in brick and mortar stores or at a face-to-face meeting. The idea is to create a solution that maintains close contact with a customer, builds full transparency in the shopping process, and creates opportunities to show additional products.
We came up with an idea of combining traditional commerce with a video conversation, also making it the first step of online shopping or an extension of existing eCommerce solutions.
Video chat is a form of communication that many of us know from private situations but, this time, instead of connecting with our friends, we talk with a business partner. By seeing the emotions and body language of the conversation partner, a salesperson can easily adjust the way of communication to the situation. On the other hand, the customer sees an expert with whom he is speaking and finds it easier to express his thoughts and needs. This is the element that many of us lack in online shopping.
This element became a base of our idea, as well as the opening of the shopping process as we connected it with an interactive shopping cart that customers and salespeople fill in as they talk. We named it the Sales Meeting Hub.
What is the Sales Meeting Hub?
Sales Meeting Hub is a simple solution to communicate online with customers that connect with a complex ecosystem of eCommerce solutions. On the customer side, it is easy to use video-chat that helps to summarize consultation with a salesperson and buy products. A link to this video-chat can be obtained on a website, via email or in short messages and it works without any installation on mobile and desktop devices (thanks to Progressive Web Apps, which you can learn more about here).
It also enables a set of powerful sales tools – like product presentation, in-chat videos, access to order history, stock availability, and delivery management – that a salesperson can use while talking to the customer to answer all requests of the client and construct an offer adjusted to his needs. This process is very close to the actual product ordering in a brick-and-mortar store or warehouse.
Let’s take a look at this process step by step.
Sales consultation and shopping in Sales Meeting Hub
Sales Meeting Hub creates a very natural process that emulates a face-to-face sales conversation in which the client and sales representative meet on a virtual call. The sales representative presents a digital version of the product catalog and collects orders from the client.
Step 1: online site
The user visits the company’s online site and sees video-call as a recommended communication method. He requests a meeting at a certain time and, in return, receives a personal invitation, via text message or email, from the sales representative.
Step 2: video-chat
The customer and sales consultant enter the Sales Meeting Hub. They start a conversation, consult possible solutions, and pick the right products. Together, they construct an order list in a chat window. The salesperson can propose different product sets and variants, offer upgrades and discounts, and address any doubts from the customer. At the end of this step, both sides can confirm the order.
Step 3: order management
The order from the Sales Meeting Hub is handled by the company’s existing sales automation systems. The customer receives confirmation of the new order via email or text message and can check delivery details and track the order.
Construction of the Sales Meeting Hub
Perhaps the greatest feature of the Sales Meeting Hub is its construction, which allows us to leverage it with any existing B2B system, no matter if this is an ERP system, a Product Information Management system, or a fully-functioning eCommerce platform.
Our simple video-call is the start of not only a complete purchase; it can actually be part of complex trade conditions, discount possibilities, payment methods, or even loyalty programs.
How can B2B companies benefit from the Sales Meeting Hub?
Implementation of the Sales Meeting Hub is relatively simple; by adding it to existing infrastructure, B2B companies gain much more than just a video-chat feature.
The key benefit of the Sales Meeting Hub is an extension of traditional human to human interaction in the online sales process. Visual contact between partners helps them to build closer connections, better understand mutual needs, and make a satisfactory deal.
With an order list created together in the chat, the customer has full transparency of the shopping process and understanding of all possible options. At the same time, a chat window can be used to present additional details of the product or cross- and up-selling.
Companies gain an extra sales channel, which is an intermediary step between traditional and online sales. It can be a significant element of the onboarding process for new online customers and a strong encouragement to continue online shopping.
The Sales Meeting Hub can also be the first step for B2B companies that want to enter the path of digital transformation.
Download the PDF presentation (no contact details required) or contact us to see demo of Sales Meeting Hub >
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Sales Meeting Hub was created as a part of Divante Innovation Lab. See other modern products for eCommerce born out of the expertise and passion of our experts.
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