MARKET VIEW 32
Vishal Katta
B2B Customer Acquisition: The role of human engagement in a world of digital-first enterprise marketing
Customers can understand your proposition and, more importantly, differentiate between organisations and products. That's why they are in the market - to compare products and see which one suits their needs the most.
According to Gartner 44% of millennials prefer no sales rep interaction in a B2B purchase setting. As millennials mature into key decision-making positions, a digital-first buying posture will become the norm. With this in mind, how can enterprise sales organisations transform the sales and marketing process to adapt to shift?
I find this statement to be accurate as this is something we’re currently encountering in our market. There needs to be a shift in structure within sales and marketing processes. Millennials prefer digital platforms, and this will only increase over time. Because of that, the first thing organisations should do is make sure that they have well-structured content in terms of marketing available on digital platforms. This means that customers can understand your proposition and, more importantly, differentiate between organisations and products. That's why they are in the market - to compare products and see which one suits their needs the most.
Next, the sales team should be more digitally-focused. They should adopt a more consultative sales approach by providing customers with consulting guidance rather than simply selling a product.
To do this, the sales team needs to be equipped with digital tools, like LinkedIn Premium and Salesforce, to reach customers quickly and seamlessly. Also, because more and more people are going digital, we now have a good digital footprint and reliable digital data available to us. Accordingly, the sales team should use data analytics to understand customer pain points better in order to offer them a seamless experience in general.
The beauty of the digital world is that we have so much data available from different sources.
In what way can salespeople utilise the available data to create a better customer experience?
The beauty of the digital world is that we have so much data available from different sources. By consolidating the data that’s coming from multiple sources and channels, we can get a better understanding of customer behaviour. The data can come from a CRM system, an online system or some other source. We can use that data to create A.I. models that can predict the best customer options based on the segmentation, the behaviours and patterns they display. I think this can give a sound understanding to salespeople and help them decide where they want to focus more in a particular quarter or year.
By sharing the sales collateral with the customer prior and allowing them to ask questions throughout the meeting.
Do you think that enterprise sales teams should invest more in virtual selling interactions and if so, what can they do differently?
I think we need to listen to what our customers are saying. Right now, most of them prefer virtual interaction and remote culture. With that in mind, I believe sales teams need to adopt a hybrid model that combines both digital and in-person outreach.
When it comes to virtual selling, the focus should be on engaging the customer or the prospect as much as possible. This can be done in several ways. For example, by sharing the sales collateral with the customer prior and allowing them to ask questions throughout the meeting. Additionally, salespeople have a limited amount of time to impress and they should use that time to paint a bigger picture while putting things into context to excite the customers during that limited amount of time.
And finally, they should use digital channels that provide better sales productivity. Again, I think the answer here is a hybrid model that combines AI and human-to-human communication. For example, several companies are deploying chatbots to take care of basic, usual queries while a query that a chatbot is not able to answer gets diverted to an actual human being.
In recent years, many marketing teams have been organising round-table conferences, online events and webinars to connect the prospects with the sales team.
VISHAL KATTA
Disrupt Businesses Leveraging
Cloud Innovation & Strategy
In your opinion, what can marketing do to assist or encourage sales with procuring more market and industry knowledge?
I find that marketing teams are doing much better in this regard in today’s digital era. In recent years, many marketing teams have been organising round-table conferences, online events and webinars to connect the prospects with the sales team.
Some other ways in which marketing teams can assist with procuring that knowledge is by providing better access to analyst forums and white papers, so that the sales teams can participate more and gain more knowledge. Since we’re in a digital era, I think marketing teams need to be able to collect data from various sources, analyse it and bring more intelligence to the sales team around the competition and the possible opportunities.
A purpose-led organisation that is building a meaningful future through innovation, technology, and collective knowledge. We're #BuildingOnBelief. A part of the Tata group, India's largest multinational business group, TCS has over 600,000 of the world’s best-trained consultants in 46 countries. TCS' proactive stance on climate change and award-winning work with communities across the world have earned it a place in leading sustainability indices such as the MSCI Global Sustainability Index and the FTSE4Good Emerging Index
Get in touch
Share this page
+44 (0)1273 102811
