While
there has been substantial attention paid to consumer e-commerce (Black
Friday numbers, for example), the state of both practice and
understanding for online business-to-business commerce is less
developed. There are some good reasons for this: B2B prices are often
more complex than merely buttons in a shopping cart application, sales
representatives still play a role in education and facilitation, and
hybrids of call center, online, in-person, and even fax orders are hard
to disentangle. For all of these obstacles, however, fundamental
questions remain regarding for B2B e-commerce.
A current study
attempts to answer some of these questions. Beginning with 100 sites and
expanding to 250 later this year, I am collecting basic statistics for
web/mobile presences. Preliminary results are in, with the caveat that
the short list does not allow industry-level analysis given insufficient
sample sizes. 16 industries are included, which means there are some
apples (Deloitte) to oranges (Bobcat) to grapes (Dolby) comparisons
implicit in the results.
Just glancing at the front pages of
these sites, it’s apparent that the customer is not always the primary
audience: some sites clearly addressed investors most prominently, while
in other cases, recruiting appeared to be a higher priority. My
colleague Ralph Oliva asked how often a customer value proposition is
evident, and on this admittedly subjective yardstick, only 40% of sites
successfully articulated why someone should buy from the company.
Finally, commerce was rarely an option, outside the firewall: site
logins were common, and I obviously could not see order, tracking, or
content registration functionality behind the curtain. The one exception
to the lack of e-commerce on B2B sites was branded merchandise: hats,
sweatshirts, and jackets, along with die-cast model tractors and such,
were widely available.
Social media activity was common: 75 sites
linked to Twitter, and 93% of those feeds were current. Oracle
displayed a staggering 70 distinct Twitter presences; I did not attempt
to analyze the content on each of these relative to the others. Facebook
and Twitter often featured identical content, the differences in
audience notwithstanding. LinkedIn was also commonly employed, whether
for sales or recruiting I did not analyze.
Especially as
audiences use mobile devices for more of their access, many sites appear
to be outdated. One company had a page copyrighted 1999, with the
“Download Internet Explorer” logo still live. PDF product catalogs
(sometimes separated into small page groupings, but often a massive
single download) were common; web-native and mobile-native catalogs were
the decided exception. Data sheets for chemical exposure and other
risks were frequently available for download; this seems to be
particularly low-hanging fruit to pick. Only 65 of the 100 sites were
mobile-friendly, while only 12 offered smartphone apps, some of which
were extremely well executed.
In sum, innovation was rare, basic
execution (such as site loading time) was often uneven, and navigation
often confused rather than enlightened. The good news is that there is
so much upside, at so little cost. The bad news is needing to know where
to start. When asked to summarize the top areas of opportunity, I can
offer 3 Cs.
*Content
Many B2B purchases are complex, such as
semiconductors, medical devices, or industrial adhesives for special
purposes. In such instances of considered purchases, companies that
better inform the customer will be at an advantage. I observed wide
variation in the richness and depth of documentation; “contact your
representative” was unfortunately the default solution on a large number
of sites. The often-absent customer value proposition and/or branding
can be considered as another content area.
Opportunities to
improve this state of affairs abound. Only 21% of sites sampled offered a
corporate blog, for example, a channel that interfaces nicely with
social media, with trade shows, and with formal content such as white
papers or customer case studies. An even richer opportunity lies with
the use of online video. While 85% of sites offered some form of video,
gauzy corporate overviews were often the first option. In contract, the
really effective uses of video were rare: points of view, such as
Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” (with 25 million YouTube views); precise
training and instruction (look at Yaskawa); and head-to-head product
comparison (Bobcat stands out here), to name only three. Timken got
almost 500,000 views for an instructional video about automobile wheel
bearings. Haas Automation has a fine video library in support of their
machine tools and associated processes. These are the exceptional few;
most companies have substantial room for improvement, at low cost and
free distribution (compared to the days of pressing DVDs). Social media,
cheap in direct expense, does require dedicated headcount, but most
companies in the sample had room for improvement in richness, relevance,
and engagement.
*Configurators
While in some cases it makes
sense to talk to a live salesperson or technician, there are still many
opportunities to provide detailed configuration information and perhaps
pricing. Such tools were used effectively at Texas Instruments, MRC
Global (in an app), Kennametal, and NXP. There’s no reason they couldn’t
be used at more businesses. Some configurators are deployed as lead
generation tools rather than as customer information repositories: after
doing all the work to select and option a Bobcat tractor, for instance,
I had to contact a dealer for the actual price.
*Customer contact
The
final C provided many examples of good, bad, and ugly options. A simple
example lies with e-mail. According to the Direct Marketing
Association, commercial opt-in e-mail generated $36.70 of sales per $1
of investment in 2014; it was the ROI champ, far outpacing Internet
search (about $22.00), direct mail catalogs ($7.27), and internet
display ads ($19.21). How many sites asked for my e-mail address to send
me newsletters, product updates, point of view pieces, or other
messages? Only 40 of 100. (Similarly, only 40 of 100 connected trade
show information to the online presence.)
Contact information was
often presented from the inside out: here’s how we are organized (by
geographies, by industries, by dealerships, etc) and it’s up to you the
customer to figure us out. A smaller number of sites organized contact
by customer tasks: “How can we help you?” is a user-friendly way of
organizing different product lines, industry solutions, or support
functions from the outside in. These rubrics were, unfortunately, in the
minority. Many sites offered multiple navigational paths, often on the
same page (which can be good practice): Oracle’s pull-down menus were
quite complicated and incredibly information-dense, but seemed to get
the job done; Oracle’s direct competitor SAP opted for a very different,
leaner user experience model. Simplest of all in this industry was
Salesforce.
The other number that jumped out with regard to
contact concerned live chat. With millennials often eschewing the
telephone as a voice tool, “talk to a rep” often sounds unappealing, and
“e-mail us for a quote” may take too long. Given these demographic
trends, along with the reality that B2B customer support often occurs on
customer premises or on noisy shop floors where voice communication is
distracting or impossible, it was surprising to see only 13 of 100 sites
offer a chat function.
There were many other surprises (such as
how often basic execution failed: broken links, outdated posts, and
improper server configurations were not uncommon), and the larger data
set will deliver further insights. Some of my potential research
questions concern proximity to B2B/C sites, especially Amazon and eBay:
are companies that overlap these channels more likely to adopt similar
site functionality, or should industrial distributors seek to look as
little like Amazon as possible? (I saw both approaches in the sample.)
Further work also needs to be done to compare like companies or
divisions: how can the B2B universe best be segmented so that insights
can cross domains at the same time that differences (in purchase
frequency, in service/product hybridization, or in end use of the
product) are recognized? Finally, getting insight into what’s behind the
firewall would be revealing if it is feasible. Until then, I hope these
preliminary results offer food for thought and I will be happy to share
the entire presentation of findings upon request.
Monday, February 29, 2016
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