With CRM and B2B E-commerce, the Sum Is Greater Than the Parts
Because of that, the sales rep is better prepared to overcome any challenges in the sales process by providing the potential customer with all the information she needs to make a purchase decision. When CRM and e-commerce systems are integrated, the sales representative can smoothly take the customer through the next steps of the purchasing process, such as receiving an RFQ, responding to an RFQ, and submitting an order on behalf of the customer—all done in one system and documented for everyone to see.
The next step in the customer journey might involve the customer calling customer service with follow-up questions or issues. Once she calls the customer service team, the system can automatically pull out the customer information using a unique identifier like a name, a phone number, or an email address. The customer service representative immediately sees what the customer purchased and past interactions she had with the sales representative or a different customer service representative. The rep can intelligently attend to customer issues and solve them quickly. Again, the customer feels that the customer service rep is aware of the situation, that she does not need to tell her story again, and that the issue can be resolved to her satisfaction.
Drive Sales With an Efficient Work Environment
Integrated CRM and B2B e-commerce systems can bring enormous efficiency to your organization. Once the two systems are integrated, marketing, sales and customer service teams have easy access to all relevant information and can quickly accomplish their daily operations.
Marketing teams have access to all customer information, including their interests and purchasing behavior retrieved from the e-commerce platform. They can segment customers based on specific targeted criteria, launch targeted marketing campaigns with relevant offers, and accurately track the success of these campaigns. Marketing can also create campaigns to generate new leads for sales teams.
Sales teams can see the leads generated by marketing and have instant access to pipeline management. They can manage leads to interact with prospects, document all interactions, and convert opportunities to closed deals. Sales representatives can also respond to customer RFQs and expedite the purchasing process by leveraging the e-commerce capabilities of the integrated system.
In addition, customer service teams have all the tools they need to log customer issues and cases, interact with customers directly from the CRM, leverage email or phone system integrations, document every interaction, and schedule follow-up tasks to deliver superior customer service and experience.
Getting a perfect fit between your CRM and e-commerce systems is tricky. In most cases, having two systems from different vendors that are not tightly integrated makes it difficult to achieve these results, so you need to choose your vendor carefully.
Some older CRM platforms also struggle with compatibility. While most CRM vendors will tell you that installation of their tools is a snap, it’s better to interview your peers in the industry, as well as your software engineers, to find out which system provides an optimal fit.
Conclusion
With tightly and seamlessly integrated CRM and e-commerce systems, not only will you see increased sales, but your customers will be happier; your sales, marketing, and customer service teams will operate better together; and senior management will have better access to real-time information flows across your business.
Once you’ve tightly integrated your e-commerce system to your CRM platform, you’ll never want to go back. In fact, you won’t be able to: Your competitors will have the same tools, as the world moves further toward this data-heavy, internet-based sales model. As always, the future lies in increased efficiency and knowledge, and there’s no better way to achieve that today than with integrated CRM and e-commerce.
Yoav Kutner is an accomplished entrepreneur and leading expert in both B2B and B2C e-commerce. He is cofounder and CEO of Oro Inc., an open source business technology company serving B2B merchants. Kutner is also the cofounder and former CTO of the industry-leading e-commerce platform Magento, which was acquired by eBay for $180 million in 2011.