Business to business (B2B) ecommerce automation will help you outperform your competitors.
A report from Mckinsey found leading digital B2B companies had better revenue growth, operating profits and returns for shareholders. Their revenue was likely to increase five times more than their competitors.
B2B ecommerce automation is one of the ways you can build customer loyalty with excellent around the clock support.
How B2B ecommerce automation can transform your business
Customer pain points will affect your sales and retention rates. These might include managing high order volumes, inventory management issues, and increasing customer service expectations.
Many B2B operations use multiple systems to manage marketing, sales, order processing, and shipping, for example. This means data is fragmented and can be duplicated or inconsistent. Information might be difficult to find, and it could become out of date. You risk showing customers inaccurate inventory details, taking too long to process their orders, or sending deliveries to the wrong place.
When you integrate your business systems with your Cloudfy ecommerce platform data transfer can be automated. You will have accurate and consistent near real-time information that will make all your operations more efficient and secure.
Combined with machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) you can streamline, simplify, and automate multiple processes. Your professionals and experts then have more time to add value for customers.
The benefits of B2B ecommerce automation
Automating repetitive processes will reduce your order costs and allow you to re-focus staff priorities to deliver high quality customer experiences.
The integration that powers automation can include your ERP, customer relationship (CRM), and product information (PIM) systems. When you have a complete view of your business and up-to-date information on sales and customers you can improve decision-making.
Automated order processing, contract negotiation, and reordering will allow you to save money and scale your business more easily. Marketers can create, deliver, and test campaigns based on current buying behavior, and respond more quickly to trends and preferences. Automated prompts and scripts can improve customer support and after sales services with personalized messages based on ordering behavior.
B2B ecommerce automation tools for your business
There’s automation potential across your business. Here are just some of the possibilities:
Invoicing and collections – you can invoice customers directly from your ERP, triggered by rules generated in your Cloudfy ecommerce portal. Alternatively, integration with your payment gateway can allow customers to pay immediately during checkout, improving your cashflow.
Complex orders – with hundreds of possible product variations and configurations, manually generating specifications and accurate pricing is time consuming. Worse still, errors can creep in which could be costly or even cause orders to be canceled. Cloudfy’s powerful Configure Price Quote (CPQ) builder provides your customers with a behavior-guided automated process. They can only select features and combinations you can deliver so they will receive accurate prices in near real-time.
Returns management – handling returns is a cost to your business. With Cloudfy you can automate returns management authorization (RMA) to save time and money. Workflow rules can be set easily to control how a return is handled and processed. Instructions can be automatically returned to your integrated warehouse management system (WMS) or ERP.
Notifications – you can free up time for your customer service team when you offer automated notifications. This might include back in stock messages or delivery updates.
Order approvals – the B2B buying journey is complex and can often involve up to nine people. You can simplify your customer’s procurement workflow with multi-level authorization (MLA) tools. Buyers, managers and stakeholders can all be added. Orders will only be placed when they have been approved by all the relevant people.
Subscriptions – automatic ordering through a subscription service can save your customers time and make sure they always have essential supplies. It’s also an ideal way to maintain a steady cashflow for your business. You can set the frequency of orders manually or automatically. You can also specify the length of the subscription and the lead time you need to meet requested delivery dates.
Mobile ordering – simplifying mobile reordering with Cloudfy’s mobile ordering app allows customers to place their orders easily, wherever they are. With real-time stock visibility, custom catalogs, and barcode scanning you’ll improve customer engagement and reduce your administration costs. Customers can even compose their orders offline, ready to submit at a later time.
Book a free Cloudfy demonstration to find out more about the benefits of B2B ecommerce automation for your business.
