Ever since the emergence of ecommerce, channel conflict has been a problem, especially in sectors such as The IT Industry, which are traditionally driven by large customer service & sales teams. IT businesses have often been wary of adopting online commerce as they feel it doesn’t provide the same level of personalised service, and relationship building, they’ve always been able to offer their customers through other channels. Rightly or wrongly, it’s seen as a direct threat to staff income (maybe even jobs) and that doesn’t sit well, but modern ecommerce platforms, like tradeit, are built specifically to help offline and online sales come together. Account Management When it comes to Sales & Customer Service, businesses are always looking to identify ways to help staff do their jobs more efficiently, resulting in greater engagement with customers. With the tradeit platform, they use the functionality of the website to manage their customers (handling quotes, pushing orders through the system, and having a view of all customer activity in one place) freeing up more of their time to chase and acquire new business. They can even use the system when speaking to customers on the phone in real time and change individual prices on the fly (on top of any existing pricing structures that maybe in place with that customer) to try and close business. That includes seeing their margins when adjusting pricing, with configurable buffers put in place to make sure they don’t give away too much. Online Quotation Management When there is price negotiation that can take place beyond the formulas configured for your customers within an E-Commerce platform, then your sales team are going to be imperative. By using tradeit they can make their customer engagement quicker and more seamless. Customers can request quotes for multiple products, or the salesperson can login as the customer then create a quote for them (adjusting the pricing of each SKU as they see fit) before pushing it, via email and through the customer's My account, to them. The customer can then access it online and place the order. This is a great way for salespeople to still manage their accounts but keep order processing in the customer's hands, freeing up their time. It also provides them and their customers with an online record of all quotes. Internal Collaboration The data that organisations can glean from their ecommerce site is worth its weight in gold. Information about what their users search for, what they look at, what they buy, when they buy it etc… can all be easily obtained from a website. By sharing this information with either channel partners, or internal sales & marketing teams, it can be used as a collaborative tool rather than a source of conflict. Any data that is generated through the site can be utililised by the sales team to shape their future engagement with customers, making these conversations more relevant. Abandoned basked information is a great example, providing data of a customer with genuine interest, that didn’t convert allowing your sales to get them to, or conduct invaluable market research as to why they didn’t. In Conclusion A powerful ecommerce platform like tradeit can serve as an intelligent assistant to any sales or customer services team and avoid the likelihood of channel conflict. That way, customers should receive a great experience when dealing with you, regardless of which channel or touchpoint. Red Technology deliver class-leading ecommerce solutions for the IT industry via the tradeit ecommerce platform and range of complimentary services. For more information or to arrange a remote introduction call 01865 880800 or visit https://www.redtechnology.com/it Organisations in the IT and Technology Industry are turning to Red Technology and tradeit, for the design build and consultancy of their E-Commerce websites, enabling them to engage with their customers online, meeting their customer demands, offering the best possible user experience and servicing them more efficiently. This includes training, and support services to aid the delivery of world-class ecommerce solutions. It's this combined offering of comprehensive services, a class-leading platform, and a proven implementation methodology that allows Red to deliver exceptional ecommerce solutions. The right E-Commerce platform will bring online and offline sales together adding significant value BUSINESS BRIEFING technologyreseller.co.uk 37
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