Experience the power of digital transformation in sales for Technical Support

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ibc research is finding that it is undeniable b2b technology buyers are now digital first and in fact it's not just digital first it's digital always we have been tracking the buying behavior of technology buyers for several years and what we found is not only has there been an uptick over the years of more and more tech buyers saying they're going to use more e-commerce all the way through the entire buying journey instead of turning to an actual human salesperson but there was a huge jump just year over year last year 61 of b2b tech buyers said that yes they would use e-commerce all the way through the entire buying process and this year it's 74 and millennials are 78 so it is undeniable it is a fact that we are definitely into this digital first era for buyers what does that mean to sales it means that there is a shrinking role for field sales now with that said humans are still vitally important so that human connection is not going away but there's an evolution to how and when it gets delivered and take a look at this data it really shows the rise of virtual sales and this is that digitized human connection coming into play so overall across all the buying journey stages from the time that they're exploring to evaluating to purchasing it is primarily digital 40 at the beginning of the stages uh 37 in the middle and 36 at the end but look at the nuances of the virtual selling versus the self-service self-service by far outweighs everything else you have 23 percent of buyers and exploration stage who are going to be 100 uh self-service or primarily self-service um 17 though want digital interaction with sales and then that field sales person comes in around 13 of the time if you look over onto the purchase phase at the very end where historically we like to make an assumption that that's where really there is the huge uptick of that direct human connection that direct human connection is still the lowest 17 would be actually connecting with the human sales person and while that's higher than the other stages it's still lower than that digital virtual sales interaction and that digital self-service we also take a look at well how is this playing out across generations we knew that millennials were born with a mouse in their hand so they're very naturally digital first and baby boomers have been slowly dragging dragged along into this next era but really over the last year that that window has closed we are now on parity across the various generations that are in the workforce and in fact baby boomers ing to this data have a tendency to be a little bit more on the digital side than even some of their other counterparts so in the exploration stage 44 of baby boomers said they're going to use digital self-service and digital sales versus 13 would more primarily use an in-person salesperson and then when you look over onto the purchase stage you've got 38 of baby boomers that are primarily digital and 15 with that human sales connection so across the board all the generations are definitely digital first now i talked about how humans are definitely not going away they're very important and we dug a little bit deeper into really where does that human connection matter most and the top three reasons that we found that b2b tech buyers want to engage with the human is a to get answers quickly that was number one uh with the total response of 49 just under 50 um b to finalize a services agreement and c to finalize complex tech purchases and you can see here some of the generational differences are a little bit starker baby boomers have a tendency with some of that complexity or some that sense of immediacy of getting information wanting to turn towards a human versus other digital needs now we do this is telling us that we do are do live in a world where live humans are no longer really the primary imperative for more of that traditional sales processes to get things done so we just saw where the highest preference is to use humans is to get answers quickly and finalize some of those more complex services agreements or purchases and to solve some of those complex technical and business issues but the myth here it's really still on the low side but the mid tier where you have uh baby boomers who probably have a tendency to use humans a little bit more millennials in this space but the collaboration the sharing ideas the building the relationships the renewing contracts for more standardized kind of services and products and even to see a demo b tech buyers is saying yeah i don't really actually need to have a human in that case and then the lowest preference for incorporating human connection is for customer references proof points and even to purchase standard technology these are all classically historically have been done by a human and now we're seeing that this trend is really that complex transactions the complex issues are more for the humans to come in and they can start to augment these sales processes with digital means either virtual sales or even the self-service for some of the other lower complex transactional things that need to occur so the preference for the digitized human connection we are seeing 72 percent of b2b tech buyers are more frequently using things like chat or messaging service where there's a human behind it it could be an automated ai based human or it could be a live human but there's that sense that there's a human behind this technology 72 percent are more likely to use chat messaging service to get additional information on products or services 69 will use it to actually get pricing and 71 percent of millennial buyers are more frequently to use chat and messaging to contact a human salesperson or an agent and then we were taking a look at the use of social networking and communities 75 percent of millennials are actually using that to get more information about a vendor about products about the service so gen x and millennials have fully embraced this next era that we're in there is a cautionary note though that one size does not fit all we have found in our research that more of your baby boomer buyers still have that preference to lean towards that human connection versus using particularly social kind of means 22 percent of baby boomers have said no i'm not going to use any social networks or community at all through my process even though they had more dramatically shifted towards embracing digitized virtual sales methodologies and digitized self-service methodologies so it's really important to make sure that you're driving down to that persona level to really craft and contextualize the right kind of engagement the right time right place depending on the buyer so critical guidance knowing all this information is there's three key imperatives to really establish virtual sales first is to understand that our engagement with customers now is really orchestrated across a number of different channels we have done a great job over the years of really establishing and optimizing individual channels but those channels are now in silos the customers clearly want multiple different ways to receive information and a mixology between digital and virtual sales as well as a human being as well too the second thing to take note is that the game has changed for how marketing and sales are working today together and collaborating it's really a new team sport we have played a game of football for several years where marketing would come on the field they would do their things they'd grab a lead they plop it over to sales and sales would come onto the field and take it from there and that is absolutely not the world we're in with virtual sales really rising to the top and more of that field sales rule being specialized and coming in at a certain period of time and that need for digital always that's really where marketing comes in to really help to establish that foundation and that digital customer experience so all teams are going to be on the field at the same time maneuvering through and delivering that orchestrated engagement and the right kind of engagement at the right time and then lastly it's really important that there's a foundation of strong connected data no more human glued band-aid band-aids and bubble gum that is not going to enable success for really setting up shop to do digital self-service and your virtual sales the data has to be connected from marketing and sales automation systems drive that little level of intelligence about what your customer is doing where are they at in their buying and decision making process what do they need so you can execute the right channel and also drive automation in that process as well too thank you very much for your time today and now i have the pleasure to have a discussion with james salmon from glory global hi james it's great to be able to speak to you today uh can we start off by you telling us a little bit more about glory global and your role at the company yeah of course great to meet you laurie um i'm jane salmon and i'm the customer experience business process owner at glory um in my room i'm responsible for the customer experience applications and the processes that our global sales and marketing teams use to deliver great customer experiences for our business we are a global company and we are increasingly diversifying into non-cash market streams the role i do encompasses a number of different areas from deploying the cx applications to new markets as well as driving continuous improvement to our existing processes and technology landscape to improve those user experiences for our sales teams and to drive those improved customer experiences off the back of it well it sounds like you're right in the middle and the thick of things with this digital transformation you're experiencing but tell me a little bit more exactly where you're at um and where do you see that you're going i took on this role maybe 18 months ago and i um quickly discovered that um whilst we delivered some you know great best-in-class applications to our business we had some real challenges laurie with um um adoption user adoption and and making sure these um you know systems were talking to each other and that data was talking to each other um and what i found was that i had to sit down and talk to everyone to understand where are the pain points what are the things we need to change um and come up with a road map to get to the point where our sales teams trusted the technology wanted to use the technology and were able to do that in an efficient and um and a way that delivered as much automation as possible that was the start of our journey how are you all so gauging that these new channels are meeting your customers needs and paying off from that customer's experience side of the house oh it's it's a complete uh i have to say lori that we are seeing a changing landscape in a number of ways we're we're an acquisitive company we're bringing on new um business streams um and we're constantly trying to evaluate how that's meeting our customers needs you know customer first and and quality of products are really the hallmarks of our business and we're taking that um into these other other business streams so that we can make sure they're meeting our our customers needs because they're the priority and it's it's making sure that we're able to continue to meet the customer customer demand after we've sold um our solutions to them so that we can then keep them on that retention cycle of the service journey and then hopefully down the line look at selling other other solutions and services as well but in the end you're right it's all about making sure we've got that customer connection that sales to customer connection and we need the technology to ensure that our reps are able to do their administration efficiently and effectively but also that we're able to equip them with the knowledge and information that they need to sell um you know it goes both ways the reps have got to do their job but they also need the information so they can keep that customer happy and we try and wrap around that digital experience for our for our sellers to enable them to uh meet our customers needs really exciting times but a very challenging experience where you know customers don't care about your sales stages they they you know in the end they start off you know as a lead coming all the way through to a prospect and as a customer but that journey they don't recognize as a customer they don't care about where they sit on our scale they care about what we can bring to them and we've had to be more adaptive with our sales people and help them to understand that you know it's not always a straight line and there's a lot of going around in circles and going backwards at times before you can hopefully get these over the line get deals over the line but what we have to put first is that customer and we have to support our sellers in that journey fantastic the other thing that i heard you really call out too was the the value of that connected data across your marketing and your sales automation platforms it really sounds like it's upping the game in the level of intelligence that your sales folks have in order to be able to deliver that customer experience that your customers are expecting definitely i you know um i really passionately believe in a data-driven environment and we're really able to equip our um sales and managers and our our sellers with great insights and information into prospects and customers and i've really tried to deliver a powerful business intelligence stack to complement the crm and cpq applications that we've got to ensure that our sellers are able to get have all the knowledge they need about the customers before they pick up the call they need that customer 360. and it's something that the the oracle stack has really enabled us to achieve um and automate wherever we can and so now that you've gone through some of these initial phases of of your journey what advice would you give others who are just at the either the same stage that you are or just getting started with implementing virtual selling absolutely you know i think it's difficult to to sit there and pretend you know what other businesses are going through there are some common themes of course we've all been hit by the the pandemic and had to adapt and um to that situation you know we as a business we used to go into physical exhibitions we were used to um going out to see our customers and we had to adapt um to to a digital environment um hosting um virtual customer events and we're now doing that on a regular basis and it's almost the um the opportunity was there because we could do the physical trade shows that we had to invest in digital that we had to invest in um reaching our customers and our prospects in a different way and i think you know the re the regions that we operate in we we've done a great job of um of engaging with those customers remotely through these virtual exhibitions as well as trying to um diversify our our digital selling with ascertaining new prospects through our digital automation which is we're able to connect with our crm with automated lead assignments and through that process i think we've been able to um really improve uh just the volume of leads coming through but also the quality of leads coming through and so if any business wants to um get more leads better leads then of course digital selling is is really an opportunity to go after um and you don't have to see it as um an obstacle against what you liked doing before whether those were the physical trade shows and and face-to-face meetings but it's something that can complement your existing strategies and um and using the platforms to communicate was as important to us as it was using our platforms to try and upsell or to try and um acquire new prospects and new business that is great so we talked about a lot uh ongoing in your transformation if you could sum up in one phrase how glory has helped your sellers get back to selling what would it be i think i think what it is for me is equipping our sellers with the tools to minimize administration yet enable them with the knowledge and information to prioritize their inbound leads maximize customer contact time and deliver great customer experiences to drive profitable sustainable business growth for me it's all about um ensuring our sellers can um maximize the time of the customers because in the end um without those interactions we won't be able to drive the pipeline we won't be able to you know win the business and and deliver solutions to enable our customers to be successful as well james it's been such a pleasure to speak with you today i can't thank you enough for sharing stories from the front line of your digital transformation it sounds like you're on the right track and all the best to you thank you lori it continues to be a journey but it's one that we're embracing um throws its um challenges in front of us but challenges we're always trying to overcome good to speak to you lori