How "Contactless" Buyer Experiences Can Foster More Engagement

marketing

How “Contactless” Buyer Experiences Can Foster More Engagement

B2B transactions are changing. Fast.

B2B buyers have adopted new habits and preferences following the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to McKinsey research, 80% of buyers now go for virtual engagements.

Business buyers do not want to waste time ransacking their inboxes.

They don’t want to look for scattered emails from sales reps about potential purchases. Or try to figure out where they saved a webinar link or saw a product video.

Many B2B buyers now prefer a self-directed experience online and at their convenience.

They want a streamlined platform; one that enables them to quickly and conveniently access all relevant materials regarding a potential buy.

And that is where digital sales rooms come in.

What is a Digital Sales Room?

A digital sales room (DSR) is a single, centralized platform supporting buyers’ and sales reps’ collaboration. DSRs provide both parties easy access to relevant materials about a prospective deal.

Digital sales rooms offer a secure environment for sellers to develop segregated stories.

They enable personalized interactions geared towards supporting buyers throughout the value journey.

A digital sales room streamlines the seller and buyer experience via the centralized platform.

By providing access to content, stakeholders, and communications regarding prospective purchases, DSRs help drive effective buyer engagements.

Digital sales rooms create a robust environment to nurture conversations and collaborations with stakeholders as they circumnavigate the sales process (all at their own pace).

On top of that, a DSR provides a single location where buyers can return throughout their decision-making processes.

Why Are Digital Sales Rooms Becoming More Popular?

B2B buyer behavior is evolving.

Traditional in-person selling doesn’t cut it anymore.

McKinsey’s research found that up to 70% of business decision-makers wouldn’t mind having a self-directed platform for purchases over $50,000.

B2B buyers are increasingly purchasing remotely and researching products digitally.

Before a potential buyer interacts with a sales rep, they’ve already had whooping 27 interactions to gather information.

The B2B digital sales transformation means that sellers will want to interact with potential buyers as early as possible.

They can do this by adding a hyper-personalized touch to their B2B digital sales strategy.

DSRs are effective since they align with how a potential buyer interacts during the sales cycle.

According to a Gartner report, prospective buyers engage in the “looping” stage or when they’re actively visiting different channels a couple of times during their buyer journey.

A digital sales room creates a dedicated environment for potential buyers to find the content they need, simplifying the disintegrated experience.

Digital Sales Rooms Best Practices

 

Because today’s B2B buyers interact more with content before calling, they start their first conversation with more info than ever.

This preliminary knowledge on the side of the buyer likely means sales reps won’t need to answer basic questions about the nature of the product. Rather, the questions will be about how the product solves the particular pain point of the prospect.

Answering the buyer’s particular questions should be the number one priority for sellers.

As a B2B seller, you’ll want a team of sales reps to follow up on questions raised in conversations with prospective buyers.

Digital sales rooms provide an environment where buyers and sellers can continue with that conversation.

What’s more, sellers must ensure their DSRs only feature content relevant to stakeholders in the purchase process.

B2B sellers must also ensure the digital sales rooms are updated regularly with new content throughout the conversation.

In addition, you may leverage digital sales rooms to introduce a human to the virtual sales process via customized, video-based greeting, enticing prospects to hop in and start consuming your content proactively.

How Accent Technologies Can Help

Accent Technologies is an AI-driven sales enablement platform that allows you to centralize, manage and deliver content at the right time.

Here’s how Accent’s digital sales rooms help personalize buyer and seller experience.

For the Buyer’s Experience:

  • Accent offers private microsites where you can host content for prospective buyers to reference and return to throughout the sales cycle.
  • Our DSRs allow buyers to comment on materials, providing valuable insights to enable you to hyper-personalize your content as much as possible.
  • Prospective buyers get real-time notifications every time you update or add new content to keep conversations going on.
  • Facetime and WebCall integration enable your sales reps to hop on a call or schedule a meeting within short notice.

For the Seller Experience:

  • Accent offers an intuitive portal tracker to help you keep tabs on crucial KPIs like microsite visits, downloads, activity, and content management.
  • Access to valuable insights on who buyers are sharing your content with — potential buyers, supervisors, colleagues, etc.
  • A straightforward way to streamline and personalize content for everyone in the buying team and management.

Gartner Recommended Providers:

Apart from Accent Technologies, there are a few more DSR providers on the market. Below is a rundown of other Gartner-recommended providers:

  • Accent Technologies
  • Allego
  • Apparound
  • Bigtincan
  • Dealhub
  • envivo
  • Journey Sales
  • Pitcher
  • Salesforce
  • Showpad

Kickstart the Best Digital Sales Room Experience with Accent

The B2B sales digital transformation is here.

And the sooner you align your business to the new trend, the sooner you can provide a personalized buying experience to every customer.

Digital sales rooms enable sales reps to connect quickly with prospects and steer them in the right direction.

DSRs eliminate the back-and-forth of previous iterations of B2B sales. That way your sales rep can close more deals often, faster.

What’s more, DSRs allow sales reps to keep their content in content and maintain their story’s continuity. That way, they can be more confident in staying on message without losing momentum.

Your quest to get the best digital sales room experience starts by teaming up with the right DSR provider.

Are you ready to start your digital sales room experience? Schedule a demo today to see what Accent Technologies can do for your business.

By Accent Technologies

30th June 2022

Digital Sales Rooms the Accent Way

Buyers are bombarded with selling-oriented messages every day. So, how do you ensure a buying experience that can differentiate you from the rest of the market? 

The first step is to truly understand your buyer’s process, meet them where they’re at in their journey, and provide information and value that supports them in their buying jobs. So how do you execute this strategy?

Partner with a technology provider that can arm your reps with the tools for every step of the buyer’s journey. Especially digital sales rooms (or sales portals) that create an engaging, convenient, collaborative, and personalized buying experience. 

See a live demo with one of our solution consultants.