Avoiding internal and external channel conflict with ecommerce

Avoid omni-channel confusion

With the rise of omni-channel retailing there is an intentional move towards a single customer view and standardised experience across all channels. Most importantly this should create a great experience for customers across any touchpoint, but internally can create a slight blurring of the lines for awarding sales/commissions to internal teams.

The introduction of omni-channel retail services like Click & Collect, Click & Reserve or Endless Aisle in stores mean multiple touchpoints for the same customer, often running via the same system (their ecommerce platform), but who gets credited with the sale – the store or the ecommerce team? Not only that, research shows that those services which drive customers to stores result in an average of an additional £27 spend per visit – so which team’s sales figures is that on? In cases like these, how do you manage the process and assign the sale or part of the sale to a specific department/team/store? As the use of Click & Collect, Endless Aisle and other omni-channel services grows the potential for confusion and conflict will only grow.

There is no right and wrong way of handling this and each organisation will be different, but ensuring that guidelines are clear for all can avoid any potential conflict down the line. Some companies may not differentiate between where sales have originated and treat sales as a whole but other companies, particularly with a large sales force or a number of retail stores, will treat every individual or store separately and measure their performance against targets for commission/bonus payments.

Office Outlet
As a retailer with over 90 stores, Office Outlet offer a swathe of services aimed at merging their online and offline channels. One of these services is Endless Aisle functionality where store staff are armed with tablet devices and can place online orders for customers from the shop floor. Despite these orders using their ecommerce platform and being processed by their ecommerce team, they are accredited to the store's sales. This is clear to all staff and ensures store associates are proactive in using the functionality.

Hotel Chocolat
As a successful omni-channel retailer, leading chocolatier and cocoa grower Hotel Chocolat adopt a policy of trying to drive people to stores, so any online order that is collected from one of their retail shops is assigned to the store in question, rather than their ecommerce team. This makes it easy to manage and is clearly relayed to staff. Whilst Click & Collect is in its infancy this probably isn’t too much of a problem but as the uptake of those services grows it may cause conflict down the line, so is definitely something that needs defining for such retailers.

Collaborate internally (share data)

The data that organisations can glean from their ecommerce site is worth its weight in gold. Information about what their users search for, what they look at, what they buy, when they buy it etc… can all be easily obtained from a website. By sharing this information with either channel partners, or internal sales and marketing teams it can be used as a collaborative tool rather than a source of conflict.

For instance, in a pureplay ecommerce business, users who abandon their basket before processing an order will most likely receive an email asking or incentivising them to complete it. By using ecommerce in a multichannel environment this information could be passed across to a sales team to follow up. This effectively provides the sales team with a warm lead and knowledge of what the user is interested in, providing a great opportunity to up- and cross-sell when contacting them. This may be more effective than even the most sophisticated of ecommerce platforms and is something they would not be privy to without the information provided by the website data. This collaborative approach is another great way of avoiding channel conflict.

Online quotation management

Particularly relevant when trying to avoid internal channel conflict is the concept of an online quotation system as part of the ecommerce website. This allows customers the ability to fill an online basket with products before submitting it for a quotation and can either operate independently of or as part of a full ecommerce basket solution. tradeit's call centre tools (see below) can also be used to generate quotes on a customer's behalf. The salesperson can login as the customer then create a quote for them (adjusting the pricing of each SKU as they see fit - they can even see the margin on each item as they adjust the pricing) before pushing it via email and through the customer's My account to them. The customer can then access it online and place the order. This is a great way for salespeople to still manage their accounts but keep order processing in the customer's hands, freeing up their time. It also provides them and their customers with an online record of all quotes. Salespeople can have access limited to only their accounts as part of the call centre configuration

Hardware.com
Hardware.com is a global provider of technical solutions for enterprise, mid-market and managed service providers who have harnessed the power of an online quotation system to avoid channel conflict. By allowing users to submit a quote request online, their internal sales team can pick up any requests and then submit pricing back to the customer online. The customer can then either convert the quote to an order by checking out or reject it entirely – the length of time a quote is valid for can also be defined.

This means that there is less processing of information by the sales person, as both customer and product details are completed online, with a lot less wasted time on the phone, but they are still in control of their pricing, margins and customer relationship management. It also means that at any stage in the cycle, the salesperson has the option of picking up the phone to discuss a customer’s request with them. It is an ideal marriage of the online and offline worlds for B2B ecommerce.

Find out more about our B2B Ecommerce solutions

Call Centre (Single Customer View)

By using an ecommerce platform that includes a Call Centre/MOTO engine, it allows companies to obtain a single view of their customer’s online and offline activity meaning they can gain even greater knowledge about how their customers choose to order with them and via which channels. This helps in the spread of information and sharing of data within an organisation. Whether it is directly online, via email, mail or over the phone, using the call centre functionality as part of their ecommerce offering enables organisations to replicate everything their end users see, create a consistent experience across all channels, provide them with a far superior level of customer service and avoid internal channel conflict.

We also have some B2B customers who use the Call Centre/MOTO tools within tradeit proactively. By assigning account managers to each user they use the functionality of the website to manage their customers (handling quotes, pushing orders through the system and having a view of all activity in one place) freeing up more of their time to chase and acquire new business. They can even use the system when speaking to customers on the phone in real time and change individual prices on the fly (on top of any existing pricing structures that maybe in place with that customer) to try and close business.

Do it anyway

This last option is not really a way of avoiding channel conflict and is more likely to create it to be honest. However, some manufacturers may not be concerned enough about their channel partners or the internal conflicts that a new ecommerce channel could potentially create, so may launch one anyway. There is a groundswell of opinion that ecommerce is changing the landscape for these businesses and that it will become inevitable sooner rather than later, so they may as well launch it now and try and get ahead of their competitors.

Conversely, some resellers may also not be concerned about a manufacturer going direct to market, particularly if they only sell a niche range or only sell at RRP. They may think that their long-established channel, customer relationships and ability to discount will not be affected by the manufacturer selling direct, particularly if the manufacturer is actively driving business to them as well.

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