By Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and Founder of StoreConnect
In the 16th Century, Nicolaus Copernicus challenged the long-held view that the Earth was the center of the universe. He knew he would get opposition from scientists and religious scholars, so he waited until the year of his death to publish. It would still take more than a century and further evidence from Galileo and Newton to help convince the naysayers.
We have a similar situation in business in the 21st Century. Everyone talks about being customer-centric, but the facts speak for themselves. In their “State of the Connected Customer 2022” report, Salesforce found that while 75% of companies think they are customers centric, only 30% of customers agree with them.
As business owners, we look for scale by introducing digital solutions, but we then give up control of our data as these solutions start to treat our customers more and more like numbers.
Far from being customer-centric, we are more and more isolated from a single source of real-time truth about our customers and their needs and wants.
Finally, after years of so-called solutions – we can see a real change occurring with E-Commerce 3.0 where all the customer information, intelligence and truth sit in one platform and within the financial reach of SMBs.
The average small business owner can now hold all the data on their customer in their own system and access it at a moment’s notice. In other words, they know the customer, they can communicate with the customer, and they can listen to the customer and put all the intelligence from these activities in one place, just like their multibillion-dollar competitors.
From the customer’s viewpoint, they immediately experience a company that knows who they are, knows their needs and wants and who is easy to do business with. The customer gets what they need with a minimum of fuss, and they are informed and kept up to date all the way along the process from order to fulfilment.
Small businesses can save a lot of money and time, because their team are no longer spending time trying to bring disparate data from different sources together, or fixing issues when computers fail to talk to each other.
How can this impact B2B Sales?
Imagine over the weekend a customer orders a spare part for a machine they recently purchased.
First thing on Monday, the salesperson can get a red flag alert. They can call and ask proactively if something untoward has happened. They might find out for instance that the product manuals specify the wrong grade oil for that machine.
This same purchase will contribute to trend data from all other purchases allowing the marketing team invaluable insights into patterns of demand which can help them target their marketing spend.
Small business owners have fewer resources than large enterprises. They need E-Commerce 3.0 solutions that deliver a single source of truth without the bespoke price tag.
CONCLUSION
Any business owner knows that having the right information about the right customer at the right time allows you to provide world-class personal service to the customer. And being treated personally is the key to feeling valued.
If a customer feels understood, feels valued, and feels serviced, then they will feel like they are the center of your universe.
And that will make you a star in their eyes.
And that is about as much heavenly bodies analogy as the reader can probably stand. So,let’s come back down to earth and start thinking about how we can put the customer front and center in our business using E-Commerce 3.0.
Author’s Bio
Mikel Lindsaar, CEO and founder of StoreConnect, is an experienced technology entrepreneur whose mission is to infuse small and medium-sized businesses with the power to be successful in eCommerce 3.0 and scale to meet growing demand. Small businesses can’t waste time setting up their business on a platform only to repeat the process by changing platforms when they want to scale, nor do they want to waste time figuring out how to integrate multiple platforms. StoreConnect (built on the World’s Number 1 CRM, Salesforce) gives clients a complete, powerful, configurable eCommerce and CRM solution where they can manage their website, online and in-store sales, provide amazing customer service, run all their digital marketing campaigns, and have up-to-date detailed metrics, reporting and full understanding of their customer. They were awarded Salesforce’s 2021 International Partner Innovation Award of the year for the Retail sector and are changing the ease with which small businesses are run ─ with a manageable price tag. StoreConnect is Time. Well spent. Visit getStoreConnect.com.
