The speed of your sales cycle is one of the most influential factors that can significantly affect your wholesale business's growth and success. Although the actual cycle can be complicated, a simplified outline can help you better understand how an efficient B2B sales portal can speed up your sales cycle.
Your sales cycle begins with your customers selecting the merchandise they are interested in, progresses to the ordering stage, and eventually ends with you getting paid. Of course, a variety of other elements are involved, including but not limited to order processing, order fulfillment, inventory control, and invoicing. In addition, sales reps are often tasked with answering pre-sales questions, such as availability and product specs, as well as post-sale inquiries regarding shipping and payment. Without an efficient sales portal that streamlines the order process, your sales cycle is destined to be filled with time-consuming or repetitive tasks, inaccuracies in data entry, and a variety of complications that will inevitably slow it down.
An effective B2B eCommerce platform is crucial for the efficiency of your sales cycle and includes the following components:
A B2B customer portal gives your wholesale customers a professional ordering experience with "anytime" access to a variety of online tools in order to make doing business with you a breeze. Customers have access to real-time inventory and information about product availability; they can enter their orders online and look up pending orders, order history, payment history, and shipment tracking information without ever speaking with a sales or customer service representative. If your customers need to call, your sales reps will have immediate access to the specific details to provide faster and more accurate assistance.
A sales rep portal improves the efficiency of your sales and customer service representatives. Your reps can easily access all the information they need from anywhere. Since your sales team will be able to look up specific customer details and information about your products, place orders for customers online, check on stock and shipping information, and even set up new customers, they will have the ability to answer questions and assist customers in a much more efficient manner. Improving your team's efficiency not only provides your customers with a more pleasant experience but also opens up time for your reps to build new sales and create stronger relationships with existing customers.
An efficient B2B eCommerce platform will integrate seamlessly with your warehouse, improving warehouse communication. Since effective communication is key in every aspect of a successful business, warehouse integration is essential. Additionally, warehouse integration eliminates the need for expensive and time-consuming data entry, enabling you to transmit orders to the warehouse electronically and view real-time shipment and tracking information.
QuickBooks integration is the most influential characteristic of an efficient eCommerce platform in increasing the speed of your sales cycle. QuickBooks integration not only improves the accuracy of order processing and tracking by eliminating the need for manual data entry, but it makes the process much faster as well. When orders are placed on the portal, they are automatically created in QuickBooks. Since orders can be imported to QuickBooks as sales orders, invoices, or even sales receipts, your team will no longer need to take the time to enter orders manually, and they can spend their valuable time on more critical tasks.
By eliminating the need for time-consuming or repetitive manual data entry with the use of an automated B2B sales portal, you will not only be able to avoid costly mistakes, but you will also save your sales and customer service representatives valuable time that they can then spend demonstrating a much more efficient approach to assisting customers, building relationships with new clients, or improving existing relationships.