4 Ways to Master Omnichannel Selling

salespeople and marketing teams to monitor. "Because B2B sales cycles are longer, buyers want to do their own research and only talk to a salesperson when they're ready to buy. But that decision to talk to sales is still a big hurdle. A community gives the buyer an opportunity to raise [her] hand and express interest in a way that's less intimidating," says Scott Hirsch, who recently left GetSatisfaction, where he was vice president of product marketing. One of its customers, wireless solutions provider Aerohive, has topic sections devoted to educating prospective buyers and differentiating its product from the competition. "Some of the most viewed conversations in their community feature actual customers discussing the relative benefit of their products over key competitors. This is community engagement that actually drives sales," Hirsch emphasizes. "It's also a way to engage buyers earlier in the sales cycle. Giving them exposure to other customers` posts is also some of the best content marketing you can do."

Big data analytics platform HP Vertica also uses GetSatisfaction, and tried to expand its focus to include not just knowledge but "conversation around the hot topic of big data. This is content marketing in its purest form," Hirsch states. "As a result of hosting these conversations, the brand reaps the rewards of great content that influences buyers and indexes very well in search engines. The company and the customers win."

The most sophisticated companies connect what their customers are doing in the user community channel to other places where they might be able to reach them. "It's a great way for the sales rep to play a consultative role," Hirsch says. "Sales teams can monitor community conversations and make themselves passively available to lightly reach out, and say, 'Hey, are you interested in talking about your issue one-on-one?'" GetSatisfaction also integrates with Salesforce.com, allowing salespeople to use information gleaned from community boards to inform their sales process. During a renewal, for example, a sales rep can look at how a buyer has engaged and offer upsells or cross-sells. By having ownership over the community channel, companies can guide the direction of the community while still having the authenticity that comes from a community, not a voice from above.

Lesson 4: Report on the Omnichannel Customer, Not the Channel

When it comes to reporting about the relationship with a customer, most companies still report by channel. "People always think of calling history, email history, chat history. It' not. It's communications history," Killory says. "Put it into silos only if you want to measure the effectiveness of one channel."

Companies not only need to look at sales and marketing effectiveness holistically, but they also need to see their customer's journey as a whole. "The ability to recognize the buyer across channels is hard to do," Ramos says. "It's judged by the buyer's experience, not yours. If [the buyer feels], 'This company knows me,' it means the company recognizes where I am in the process of being a customer, the company is engaging with me afterwards, knows my issues, and it's working to make my life better. The other thing that's implied is that the experience is consistent and seamless."

In B2B marketing and selling, though, that's complicated by the fact that there are often multiple buyers. "An automobile and a virtualization cloud solution are both highly considered, high-end products. But there are multiple decision-makers when you're buying a virtualization cloud solution," Ramos says. "This is where omnichannel becomes interesting. If there are multiple people involved, you need to know what their roles are and how they change over the course of the buying process. There's a complicated set of touches and interactions there," Ramos offers. "B2B is more complicated than the B2C [business-to-consumer] side of the house."

Currently, B2C businesses tend to be more sophisticated in how they market and sell across channels. That's made B2B businesses realize the gaps in their own business, and technology has followed to help connect to prospects better. "When you first think of omnichannel, folks over-index on the consumer lens and the role of digital, and that makes a ton of sense," Angelos observes. "There's so much to learn from these channels, across the selling models." B2C and B2B businesses alike share the same challenge. Getting closer to the customer and understanding what he or she wants isn't just a best practice, it's key to survival.

"If you're not focusing on the ultimate user, you're going to be disintermediated by someone else," Ramos spells out. "Knowing the customers better, serving them better, and engaging them better is going to be what creates competitive advantage in the next twenty years. The competitive advantage will come from customer relationships."

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Associate Editor Sarah Sluis can be reached at ssluis@infotoday.com.

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