Your B2B ecommerce site has already made a difference to your business model. Now it’s time to think about the next steps.
Integrating ecommerce with your back office operations can increase efficiency, free up your employees’ time to grow your business and improve customer service.
Here are just five of the benefits that can be delivered for your business with a fully integrated approach to B2B ecommerce.
Efficiency
In a worldwide market you need to be ready for round-the-clock business. When you enable buyers to place orders online, you don’t need to operate your customer service center 24/7.
Integration of ecommerce with major business systems like Microsoft Dynamics NAV, Sage and SAP Business One will allow you to embed automation at the heart of your business and dramatically improve your efficiency.
Many purpose-built B2B ecommerce platforms, like Cloudfy, now offer out-of-the box integration with these major business systems. When customization is needed there are also powerful application programming interfaces (APIs).
Real time
Amazon will tell us that our chosen product is in stock and ready for immediate dispatch. This has set expectations for B2B buyers too.
When they research online they will buy from the supplier that tells them exactly what they can have, at what price and when it will be delivered. Overnight updates across your business systems won’t deliver this level of information. Integration with your inventory management system is the solution.
Not only will you attract more customers online and build long-term, loyal relationships with them, your business processes will be more cost-effective too.
Personalization
Many B2B businesses have extensive product lines and large catalogs covering multiple sectors.
With dynamic personalization visitors to your site can see online content tailored to their own requirements, streamlining and simplifying their online experience. You can transform a visit to your site from an information gathering exercise into a dialogue with your buyers that will significantly improve your conversion rates.
Machine learning and artificial intelligence can be integrated with your ecommerce portal to guide new visitors through your catalog, based on previous similar inquiries.
By integrating your customer data and ordering systems you can also deliver a whole new, tailored experience to your existing customers. Registered buyers can take a completely different journey when they log in, specific to their sector and their own buying history.
Sales team
Automating simple administrative tasks online you can free your sales professionals to add more value, close more deals, improve customer service and develop new business opportunities.
Several people are probably involved in the B2B decision-making chain. Multiple conversations might be needed before they make their purchase choice. Your sales team can be on hand as their trusted advisor to discuss concerns and queries and to focus on the benefits for each customer.
With fully integrated B2B ecommerce everyone can see the same information at the same time. Your customers can start their research online, speak to a sales representative for more details, go back to your site to place their order and finalize the details with your customer service team.
Fulfillment
Manually rekeying payment and shipment information for orders placed on your ecommerce site is an avoidable administrative overhead. It slows down the process and can easily introduce errors that will affect customer satisfaction.
Integrating your enterprise (ERP) systems and fulfillment processes will give your customers even more scope for self-service. They will be able to split shipments and arrange delivery to multiple destinations, track progress or cancel orders directly from your ecommerce site.
Talk with one of our experts to explore the potential of fully integrated B2B ecommerce for your business.
