Digital supply chain & B2B2C relationships: The future of the consumer goods and trade industry is increasingly emerging online.
The consumer goods and retail sector sells products as quickly as perhaps no other industry. In such saturated markets, it is difficult to stand out. But customers know exactly where they can get the best product for their money today. You are anything but overwhelmed. Now it is up to you to draw attention to yourself through excellent brand experiences, customized customer journeys, digital supply chains and the maintenance of your B2B and B2C customer relationships.
Perfectly aligned stores and online shops, personalization and excellent customer service will help you. Turn customers into fans and ensure that the choice falls on your product despite saturated markets.
Promote engagement & seamless communication
Price pressure and new trends don’t make it easy for consumer goods and retail companies these days. But the sale of consumer goods is also increasingly taking place online. Food can be delivered contactless and medicines can be ordered at home. But an online shop is far from enough – the relationship with your B2B customers must also be maintained. Ensure greater satisfaction for all parties involved with digital supply chains, loyalty programs, promotions and personalization!
B2B – business-to-business
ERP & CRM: All players, supply chains, productions and stocks at a glance
Are you a producer, dealer, seller and supplier at the same time and work in different systems? Data silos and long communication channels between departments are history! Link your ERP system and all in-house solutions for everything to do with the supply chain with your CRM system and let all systems float in sync. With a digital supply chain, all employees and departments work on one platform. In this way, you can monitor the various flows of goods and deliveries through to shipping with a 360-degree view.
Give your actors a portal in which they can act independently. Whether a portal for the suppliers, in which all relevant documents and information can be viewed, or a portal for your customers including a B2B online shop. The possibilities are endless!
Task and field service planning digital, mobile and intuitive
In the Action Plans in Salesforce, your sales team can see which tasks currently have to be completed. The tasks are clearly presented and can then be processed one after the other. If a task is to be completed during a particular visit, such as checking the planograms, this can also be recorded directly in the action plans. Of course, these are also available on the move. A portable to-do list for your entire sales team: clear, intuitive, available anytime, anywhere.
These tasks are automatically passed on to the field staff by the key account managers, including a reminder function. External and internal staff are linked with one another and work on the same customer database.
Automatic route planning for your sales team
With Salesforce Maps, your sales team not only automatically has the fastest route at hand. Dealers for certain regions can be narrowed down and found more quickly using filter functions. Thanks to the link to the respective account, you immediately have all the information ready – still in Salesforce Maps.
The fastest route is calculated automatically, but can be customized by your sales staff at any time. So when they look at the route in Salesforce in the morning, they can make intuitive adjustments, such as planning a location for the lunch break. The route is updated accordingly.
Personal contact & digital comparison
Even if a lot is digital, you should not do without contact to store managers. During visits, the “visits”, planograms are used to compare how many products are still available and whether they have been correctly positioned on the shelves. These visits can also be tracked using the mobile app.
With the help of the aforementioned planograms and thanks to the AI-supported Einstein Analytics tool, the location and quantity of your products in the store can be identified quickly and easily. To do this, first add an image that shows the expected presentation as a best case. Your sales representatives also take pictures in the store and upload them to the Salesforce Mobile App. Einstein Analytics does the rest. Possible incorrect placements or reorders can still be discussed during the respective visit.
Offers, price lists and discounts: select with a click for optimal pricing
Negotiating with your subcontractors, distributors and dealers can be complicated and nerve-wracking. With the help of digital solutions and AI, this is over now! With the help of various product catalogs and price books, your pricing can be flexibly adjusted. Enter the respective conditions of your key accounts and customers – these will be automatically included when creating the offer. This saves you from having to prepare a time-consuming offer. Are there different product dependencies or ranges? No problem, your employees will be shown the corresponding products when they make a selection. This minimizes the error rate and allows you to create offers easily and intuitively. Thanks to the automatic approval process, notifications and reminders are sent to the respective person for approval.
Use case for B2B
BarthHaas success story
The digital supply chain: With Salesforce, purchasing, sales, marketing and service were digitized and linked to the existing systems to form a uniform solution. In addition, supplier management is now digitally mapped with the grower portal. This means that both employees and growers can work independently in the portal. The planter portal is also available as a mobile app, with access to all data in real time – anytime, anywhere.
B2C – business-to-consumer
Your customers want more, expect more, demand more – do it
Promote the participation of your B2C customers in your company. To do this, collect consumer data and create a 360-degree view of your consumers. Then personalize the various touchpoints with your company.
Deliver personalized communications at scale with real-time offers, including coupons and new product innovations.
Make your customers want to interact with your company! A reaction, for example via chatbots, must always be possible – whether to a newsletter, a post on social media, or questions about discount campaigns in your online shop. Because nothing is worse than frustrating calls in the queue.
Turn customers into fans and keep them loyal to you in the long term
End users are your most important asset. Turn them into fans and create long-term customer loyalty. Regardless of whether you are already an established brand or are just starting out. An excellent brand experience is everything in the digital age. This ranges from the right product placement to targeted discount or loyalty campaigns via a seamless shopping experience. How do you do it? With digital solutions and a strategy that focuses on the consumer.
It is essential that your departments work together. Ideas for marketing campaigns or the generation of purchasing personas should not only be controlled by the marketing team. Your on-site employees can share all important findings and key figures via a portal. So everyone works in one system and can work together on a seamless shopping experience.
This is how you master the challenge of creating a perfect shopping experience
Regardless of whether your customers are in the physical store or in the online shop, one thing is certain: you need to ensure unique customer experiences. The first step has been taken with the merging of digital and physical consumer goods sales. In combination with the Perfect Store concept, which is essential for consumer goods and retail companies, you can take the first step – with the help of Salesforce. A perfect store in the sense of the Perfect Store concept means the coordination of product, price, location, promotion, people and process, also known as the “6 Ps”, in order to lead customers to exactly where they want them to be the highest chance of getting them to buy. Of course, this also applies to your online shop!
The important thing is: Marketing, sales and category management must work together on one platform and the same data. What helps here is the additional use of AI technologies.
Flexibility and transparency in payment, shipping and returns
The pandemic has changed consumer behavior. The online mail order business of consumer goods started slowly and is no longer a short-term trend phenomenon for a long time. The offer of an online shop for B2B and B2C customers is an important new channel in the industry. An elementary aspect are flexible shipping and payment options that are adapted to the variable needs of your customers. Whether payment on account, in installments or with PayPal – the right payment options are decisive for whether the order is placed or not.
The shipping options have also been changed. Contactless delivery or shipping to different packing stations are a must these days. Most important: cheap or free delivery! You can store all of these options directly in your online shop. The customer’s choice is saved directly in the CRM system. On the basis of this documentation you can draw conclusions by means of reporting and adapt and / or expand your offer.
Knowledge is power – and knowledge about your customers is the key to market leadership
More is really more here! The more data you have about your customers, consumers, the better. With the help of Salesforce, marketers can determine the best consumer segments and, based on that, find other segments with similar characteristics. In this way you not only get to know your target group better, but also explore new segments.
Then standardize the consumer data obtained. Create a unified view and then target custom audience segments with ease. Long-term customer loyalty thanks to a personalized approach and thorough preliminary research is the result.
Use case for B2C
Terra Canis success story
Automated email campaigns along the customer lifecycle: a new way for Terra Canis to communicate specifically with consumers. With different customer journeys, adapted to the respective countries, the expansion into further markets is supported – including time savings thanks to automation with the Salesforce solution Pardot.
Service
Digital and clear for excellent customer service
All service, warranty or complaint inquiries are sent to a system via the desired channels such as e-mail, telephone, website or social media. With an automatic sorting and assignment logic, which acts according to your regulations, the cases are forwarded directly to the right employee.
The 360-degree view of the customer is crucial in solving the case! You can see directly which orders have been placed, who is the contact person, the preferred channels, or the relationships between the dealers. Based on this, you can respond more specifically to customers and solve service cases faster!
Hand in work: a portal for self-service and much more
Is there a problem with delivery, in production, or does your customer need help? With a self-service portal, your stakeholders can independently submit service or warranty inquiries. These are imported directly into Salesforce and assigned to the respective employee.
With helpful FAQs, the ability to view the status of the respective case, as well as the view of all information and orders, your customers only need one thing: the service portal.
You can also add a B2B online shop to the service portal. You can find out more about this in the application example “Online shop B2B”.
Always know how B2B and B2C customers think of your company through surveys
The satisfaction of your customers is the most important asset. This is the only way to achieve repeat purchases and customer loyalty. You should therefore give both B2B and B2C customers the opportunity to carry out a satisfaction survey directly after placing an order or an order. To increase the completion rate, you can reward surveys on products, services or promotions with the help of your loyalty program. In this way you generate more insights and your consumers will be happy about a discount code or a goodie.
Much more important than collecting this data is its evaluation. The answers are played directly in Salesforce and can be evaluated in numerous variants with various filter options – for example as a list, or visualized in your real-time dashboard.
Field service and field service with tablet
Is something defective in the store or do your salespeople need a new display? With a digital field service solution, you simplify not only entering the service case for your customers, but also the internal distribution to your field service technicians.
The tasks and routes can be planned in accordance with your sales representatives. This saves you time and money. With the support of artificial intelligence, the routes and tasks are calculated even more efficiently.
Once the to-do list has been created, your field staff will receive the deployment plan on their mobile device, including the repair plan and all the information they need. From the acceptance of the damage to the repair and acceptance of the new product, your employees can document everything in a photo. So you can easily settle additional costs and everything is documented.
Make returns as easy and intuitive as possible
Regardless of whether the purchase was made through retailers, your online shop or the physical store: a simple return is essential for customers nowadays. Give them the opportunity to view all the necessary information in their customer account or via the FAQ section on your website and to initiate a return directly there.
Does the returns management take place through your salespeople and dealers? No problem. The seamless transfer of the returns orders can be processed via a portal. In this way, you give your partners the opportunity to carry out returns easily and intuitively themselves.
Use case for B2B
Terra Canis success story
Automated email campaigns along the customer lifecycle: a new way for Terra Canis to communicate specifically with consumers. With different customer journeys, adapted to the respective countries, the expansion into further markets is supported – including time savings thanks to automation with the Salesforce solution Pardot.
Marketing & online presence
Easily process bulk orders and orders via an online shop
Analog order forms are a thing of the past! Offer your B2B customers an online shop where they can place orders themselves. Various price lists or discount campaigns can be stored in the system and the respective customer can only select the pricing that is intended for him / her – depending on the status and type. So you can present campaigns and / or different product series in the shop and create more opportunities for upselling. Thanks to the customer account, various delivery and shipping options can be stored and the desired address can be selected from the drop-down menu.
The online shop can reduce your personnel expenses and support your sales staff and key account managers. Personal contact should not be lost, so your employees on site can also place the order together with customers.
Connect with shoppers anytime, anywhere
Whether food, furniture or hygiene products: As a consumer goods manufacturer, an online shop is now an important channel through which you can come into direct contact with your consumers.
Convenient shopping via mobile device: responsive design, data-driven mobile UX and payment via one-touch. This is how you make shopping as easy as possible for consumers! You can also avoid abandoned shopping carts with the support of Best Parctises and checkout optimization.
Use the reach of social media and network your online shop with, for example, Instagram or Facebook. Equip your customer service reps with the best possible tools so that they have real-time access to open orders and can help customers with problems.
Changed purchasing behavior also results in a changed customer journey
Seamless communication in difficult times is extremely important for both your B2B and B2C customers. Customers want to be accompanied by you along the entire customer journey and informed about all updates.
Use several channels for this purpose: online shop, (own) stores, social media, e-mail, etc. Also think of an omnichannel strategy for linking these channels. Then provide information across all channels and along the entire customer lifecycle. Send, for example, updates on orders via newsletter and SMS. Loyalty programs, for example in the form of digital customer cards, are also an effective way of retaining customers at certain touchpoints along the customer journey.
Discount campaigns for your partners, subcontractors, suppliers
Promotions and discount campaigns can be configured individually in the system for your B2B customers according to individual products and / or product categories.
It goes without saying that you decide which locations, dealers and shops you would like to give access to these discount campaigns. Via newsletter marketing, exactly the parties you have decided on are contacted and informed. Alternatively, promotions can also be discussed directly and personally in the respective visits. Last but not least, you can also control targeted campaigns in your B2B online shop and thus draw attention to promotions.
Listen & find out more about the mood of your customers
The opinions, experiences and feedback of the end users can be a sustainable competitive advantage for you. Social listening allows your marketing team to see what is being said about your business on social media. With comments, postings and mentions, you can find out whether end users are satisfied and can get in touch with them if necessary.
Sentiment analyzes, on the other hand, provide information on questions such as “Do customers like your company, your products, your service?” Sentiment means the feeling or the sensation – in this case of your customers. With the help of artificial intelligence, you can better assess their mood. Social media serve one field of application. Thanks to AI, positive comments can be recognized as an upselling opportunity for further products. More effective customer communication and, in the course of this, long-term customer loyalty through intelligent, smooth service are the result.
The use case for marketing
19grams success story
Developing new customers, marketing promotions and maintaining existing customers: systematic customer contact and marketing automation for more sales. Thanks to the link between Salesforce Pardot, the Sales Cloud and the ERP system, marketing and sales can work together better and more efficiently and thus respond specifically to customer needs. With a sustainable and constant increase in sales as a result.
