What’s the status of your self-service?

Read on to see if it’s helping or hindering your company’s revenue growth and customer experience.

It’s official. Robust self-service in B2B e-commerce is a necessity today. That’s because it helps companies sell more and enjoy new revenue growth while elevating customer experience. But for many companies, self-service is still a big challenge. The complexity and configuration possibilities of their products and the level of intricacy around their buyers’ needs make it difficult. That’s where the latest software from e-commerce platforms like Salesforce and Oracle come in.  

Their CPQ (configure, price, quote) and Q2C (quote to cash) systems enable advanced self-service that makes it easier for customers to buy from your company. These tools are proving to be some of the best ways to drive more and new revenue. Because, when you put the buyer in the driver’s seat, they buy more and faster. Additionally, customer expectation is changing. Plus, buyers are busier than ever. So, self-service just works better for them. This is where the market is today. Because of that, B2B companies are flocking to e-comm systems that enable full self-service. 

On the flipside, if customers can’t fully configure your products and services online by themselves—and get real-time pricing—they’ll find your competitors that do provide self-service. If you’re the one company that still requires customers to talk to a human being to configure elaborate products and get accurate pricing, then you’re slowing business growth. And you’re leaving your lunch unattended for your competitors to eat. 

This article provides helpful insights, key questions to ask, and an e-commerce maturity model. They’ll help you see how your company stacks up in e-comm self-service and show you the first steps to take toward improving it.  

Four facts and a bit of healthy FOMO. 

If you’re not making purchasing simpler, you’re making sales and revenue growth harder. If you’re not making it easier for customers to buy from your B2B business via full self-service, then you’re undermining your own customer experience. Despite customer demand, most B2B companies today are still falling short in self-service.  

• 3/4 of B2B company leaders say their customers demand a digitized sales process. 1 

• 83% describe their online purchasing process as not “very easy” for buyers.1 

• 31% of B2B buyers say technical issues have prevented them from completing an online purchase.2 

•  13% of total B2B sales on average are lost to negative customer experiences with the sales process.1 

So, what’s the silver lining for your business, even if you’re lagging in self-service? The opportunity to beat your competitors to market with next-level e-comm self-service is wide open. 

Quickly assess your website’s self-service capability by asking yourself these questions. 

These are some of the capabilities, concerns, and missed opportunities you should look for in your B2B website. They’re things that could be holding back your business.  

1. Can your customers buy freely from your website? Can they get accurate pricing online with offers and discounts applied, in real time? Can they see correct inventory and access all product selection options without talking to a sales rep? Can your customers generate complex quotes, calculate shipping, and complete purchases themselves online?

2. Can your customers access all order tracking information on their own? Can they see their order status any time, including immediately post purchase? Or does it take hours for order tracking to become available? If so, your sales reps are likely chasing down order information and wasting time on WISMO (Where is my order?). It’s the number one call service centers get. Reps that are tracking orders aren’t selling. 

3. Can customers interact with and add to their orders? The more they can, the more they’ll spend. Self-service order changes increase both customer experience and lifetime value. Related, can your customers acquire loyalty points and do their rewards and status update in real time? 

4. Do you offer guided buying and selling online? Are you using your customer data intelligently? Are you telling your online customers everything they need to know? For example, when a customer spends $50,000 on a piece of machinery, they need to be aware of all additional parts, products, or services needed to make their machine fully functional and able to go to work for their business as quickly as possible.

5. Do regular customers, including those that buy the same thing every time, need to talk to your reps? If so, this is another way your e-commerce self-service capabilities are slowing company growth. When customers can’t buy right now, because it takes days to complete a complex purchase, they can change their minds or choose to spend their dollars elsewhere.

Where does your B2B company fall on the Total Commerce maturity model? 

Enhancing B2B self-service can seem overwhelming for good reason. It’s no small task to achieve and it’s intertwined with your business goals, budget, strategy, roadmap, and other factors. So you go about it methodically, starting with understanding where your company is currently at with self-service. Use the following e-commerce maturity model to identify your current level of self-service. Learn more about our Total Commerce Maturity Model.  

Basic B2B Self-Service: You’re getting little to no direct sales through your website. Your e-commerce channel provides an incomplete catalog and basic product information only. Buyers generally need to involve human sales reps to purchase from your company. 

Intermediate B2B Self-Service: You’re generating limited revenue through e-commerce. Buyers can purchase simple products through your company’s digital channel. However, customers generally need to have existing product knowledge to purchase through your website. 

Advanced B2B Self-Service: E-commerce is steadily contributing more to your overall revenue. Your full product offerings are available to buyers through your company’s digital channels. Customers can configure and purchase any product or service from you online.  

Customer-centric B2B Self-Service: Your company’s e-commerce experience includes personalization, smart product recommendations, guided selling, and dynamic pricing. You’re leveraging headless and composable architecture so that your e-comm is extensible and future proofed. 

If you’re not able to leapfrog to the customer-centric stage, approach it in phases. The most important thing for every B2B business today is that you’re moving toward self-service and incrementally advancing in the e-commerce maturity model. This is how you maximize customer experience and revenue growth today, and how you outplay competitors. 

Improving your self-service is one of the highest-ROI digital transformation projects your B2B company can undertake. 

B2B e-commerce self-service is no longer a tech matter, it’s a business matter because it directly impacts the bottom line. Investing in your company’s e-commerce maturity (by embracing the power of guided buying and guided selling, advanced configuration, and dynamic product recommendations) makes higher sales possible with a lighter lift for your company. Self-service also makes customers happier and feel more in control of their transactions. All of this enables your business to achieve revenue-boosting, customer-centric e-commerce that will scale as you grow. 

So, what’s the best way to start elevating your self-service and where do you begin?  

The starting point is different for every company and there is no one-size-fits-all solution or best practice. Basically, you can’t know what to do or where to start until you do a bit of a deep dive. And for that you need a trusted and objective mediator. Consider an SI (system integrator) that specializes in the relevant systems from Salesforce or Oracle, including CPQ, Q2C, RLM (revenue lifecycle management), and CRM (customer relationship management).  

For twenty years, Pierce Washington has specialized in this unique area of B2B e-commerce. Over time we’ve developed and perfected our proprietary e-commerce maturity model called Total Commerce. With it, our Advisory Services team (of phenomenal software architects) will help determine your optimal starting point toward full self-service. Together, we’ll identify what’s most important to do initially for your business. That can be anything from the easiest to the most mandatory steps first, like cleaning up your data. It can be the low-hanging fruit, for example making pricing available online or integrating customer data. Or it can be based on what will have the fastest impact on your bottom line. Whatever it is, we’ll work closely with you to evaluate your business, show you your options, and make sound recommendations based on your business goals. 

Contact Pierce Washington for a free e-commerce assessment.  

We’ll navigate your B2B website as a mystery-shopping, e-commerce expert and assess your customer buying experience. Then we’ll provide you with a custom assessment scorecard that will help you better understand how to elevate your self-service, improve customer experience, increase revenue growth. Contact us now. 

You might also like our blog on 2024 e-commerce trends.  

Glean essential insights to stay informed about the latest e-commerce tools and opportunities that are having game-changing impacts on bottom-lines worldwide. Read the full blog here.  

1 Deloitte Digital, Four B2B Commerce Trends That Separate Front Runners from the Pack, 2023 

2 BigCommerce, The Global B2B Buyer Behavior Report, 2024