As B2B consumer packaged goods (CPG) brands face a shift in the e-commerce business environment, they must secure cost advantage in order to offer customers a unique and personalized experience.Because today’s customer experience is no longer limited to a shopping cart but instead to the entire set of a platform’s capabilities, they must be offered multi-channel, personalized interaction.Common challenges faced by the CPG e-commerce industryA persistent e-commerce challenge that B2B CPG brands face is the ordering process.While large industrial retailers have the financial muscle to implement automation in ordering, smaller customers often can’t afford the high costs of automation, which is crucial to transaction proficiency and a smooth customer experience.Another challenge is that most customer interaction still happens over phone, mail, online chat, etc.This means customer executives are deeply involved in the transaction process – they must register complaints and guide customers, which makes self-service impossible.Salesforce effectively solves these issues, making self-service and a smooth customer experience possible.
Here is why Salesforce is the right B2B e-commerce platform for CPG brands.Salesforce B2B Commerce – a proven e-commerce solutionOffering effective B2B engagement and transaction efficiency is crucial for the CPG industry to succeed in an ever-evolving e-commerce landscape.Salesforce offers 360-degree customer experience management – from product introduction to ticketing to handling customer complaints.It does this through its commerce cloud for B2B players (CloudCraze – built 100% native on Salesforce).Legacy platforms for B2B interactions are not scalable or future-proof.
This helps increase revenue by cross-selling and upselling.Powerful features combined in a single platformThe Salesforce-backed online platform features an e-catalog, allowing for easy searches based on either direct product searches or those based on categories.Customers can then view important information such as pictures of the product, SKU, packaging, description, and ingredients.They can filter products based on characteristics, effectively narrowing their search down to the right product(s).At the checkout section, customers can request a delivery date, provide additional shipping instructions, and view the net price calculation.
Customers can also easily reorder products by accessing their history.Easy-to-use with useful functionality for B2B companies, Salesforce is a robust solution that can completely integrate with an AP through a middleware.Besides ordering, agents can use Salesforce’s partner community to control access for suppliers, customers, and distributors to the platform.
Fully secure, Salesforce only allows authenticated users.With e-ordering through Salesforce’s B2B Commerce Cloud, retailers can improve transaction efficiency and offer 24/7 service.With self-service, interactions such as questions on an invoice, feedback, new product introduction, samples, and complaint-handling become structured.By allowing self-service, CPG B2B can become more efficient and customer-focused.
It also offers great convenience to customers since customer executives are available for interaction only during a limited part of the day.Salesforce can also be fully localized for B2B interactions in foreign countries – it supports 30+ languages and currencies.Since it’s a single database, anyone accessing the application is looking at the same record at the same time.