To succeed in 2021 and beyond, enterprises are buckling up and offering customers a more modern digital commerce experience. Reports reveal that 2021 is expected to see the global digital commerce market reaching $4.9 trillion in sales, which means that the digital commerce profitability is all set for massive growth and transformation as predicted before the COVID-19 hit the world.
There’s no denying that the global pandemic resulted in an immediate impact on the buyer behavior that hastened the digital transformation for businesses globally. Statistics reveal that COVID-19 pushed $107 billion in digital commerce sales in the US alone, registering a staggering 169% jump in digital commerce purchases. One can say that the pandemic was the sole driving force that shifted online buying behavior and surged the consumption of mobile and digital media.
More than competitive pricing & discounts on products, buyers prefer seamless customer experience and 8 in 10 are willing to spend more for it. Put simply, offering exceptional customer experience is no more an option, it’s rather a must-have. No wonder, online businesses focused on offering top-rated customer experience are bagging higher profit successfully.
So, what should businesses do to offer a world-class digital commerce experience to customers? Here are some quick and effective strategies e-tailers should leverage to make their customer experience par excellence.
- Focus on omnichannel customer engagement
In the world of enterprise sales, the savvy and self-guided buyer’s expectation of “everything available, everything quick, everything easy” is fast becoming a reality. The key to achieving this is a customer-focussed and well-balanced omnichannel that’s fronted by a mind-blowing online experience because it enables the buyer to choose their path to your products/services.
Since the customers are looking for more than just a digital shopping cart, an integrated enterprise digital commerce needs advanced configuration and bundling, pricing and discounting, and collaboration features that are usually supported by most Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ) engines. A self-service storefront integrated with CPQ (for collaborating with the Sales team), order management (for fulfillment), billing systems (for invoicing), and with tax, payment gateways, and address validations is the need of the hour for retailers aiming for omnichannel success.
- Provide accurate quotes in real-time
Are you aware that 80% of online buyers prefer an automated quoting process? In such a scenario, using CPQ software can make all the difference. It enables the customers to get accurate quotes in real-time without having to wait for the sales rep to communicate the price change and allows the sales rep to focus on bagging more deals instead of spending crucial hours manually updating and managing quotes.
Having a CPQ integrated self-service storefront enables easy management of the complete revenue-generating processes, comprising prices, products, services, and automated quote creation all in one place. Moreover, it offers the additional benefit of margin-based discounting thresholds resulting inaccurate pricing. Having a digital commerce store integrated with CPQ software helps strengthen the operational efficiency, curtail the order cycle time and streamline the quote-to-cash and lead-to-cash processes.
- Add cross-sell and up-sell options
Here is a relevant UI UX design case study of an appliance manufacturing company in Switzerland that wants to revamp its website into a digital commerce platform that wants to enhance customer experiences in terms of customizing their purchases. Have a read-through to learn how Forsys provided the best solution for this company!
A study suggests that approximately 60% of clients who’ve committed to a sale also make a last-minute purchase when offered options. In simple words, if you don’t inform your customer about the benefit of a product update or an additional purchase, the customer won’t be aware of it.
A digital commerce store that includes upselling and cross-selling in their sales playbook witnesses guaranteed revenue growth. The best part is both are easily achievable with a CPQ tool. Wondering how? It leverages available sales data and contextual intelligence to automatically generate cross-sell and upsell suggestions.
- Automate the purchase order approval process
Nowadays, customers are looking for instant gratification, and automating the purchase order process digitizes the complete procurement process leveraging a series of online purchase orders and other documents. All these are tracked in a centralized system encompassing an audit trail referring to who is responsible for what actions on the document. Also, it allows the digital commerce store to upload additional documents related to vendors and purchase orders like terms, previous contracts, and payment schedules.
Using automated purchase order approval becomes easier with a CPQ platform as it manages pricing requests automatically and streamlines the source-to-pay processes.
Conclusion
The global pandemic has pushed the digital commerce customer experience into the spotlight, making it the top priority for businesses globally. Since achieving desired goals with a digital commerce store is a tough nut to crack, understanding the latest trends is key to build brand loyalty, attract new customers, and bag repeat business. So, what are you waiting for? Connect with us now to get a free consultation on how our digital commerce services can help ensure that your customer experience game is on-point.