What is sales enablement in the B2C industry?
Sales enablement is a term used to describe the tools and content you provide your staff to help them sell better. The tools you use should make it easy for staff to sell and impress your customers because they have all the knowledge they need when interacting with them.
We hear a lot about sales enablement in the B2B industry, but we never hear about it in the B2C industry. Why is that?
It’s because most sales enablement platforms are designed explicitly for B2B sales employees who sit at a desk and make most of their sales over the phone, by email or online. This means their needs are quite different from those who make sales in the B2C industry. They’ve got time to mull over what they’re going to say, and they can take a few hours out of their day to carry out sales training.
What is sales enablement in the B2C industry?
Sales enablement in the B2C industry differs because most sales associates in this industry are working with customers on a day-to-day basis. They haven’t got time to read through hours of training; they need something that’s quick, easy to use and slick.
It’s about providing your employees with easy-to-find information “in the moment “at the time of need. Think of it like Google for your business. If your sales associates are with a customer in-store and the customer wants to know your returns policy for a particular item, but your employee doesn’t know the answer. They should have the tools available to quickly look it up so they can give the customer the answer they’re looking for.
What are the benefits of using sales enablement tools in the B2C industry?
#1 Your sales associates will appear more professional
Have you ever been into a store and nobody seemed to know what they were doing? You ask a question, and you can’t get an answer, and you leave feeling incredibly infuriated and wish you’d have just looked it up online. That’s because most shop floor sales associates don’t have the knowledge they need on hand.
They have so much information to remember but no easy place to find it. When you equip your staff with sales enablement tools, they can look up any business-related information and always have the knowledge your customers desperately want. This makes your customer service appear 10x more professional, and your sales will improve as a result. Considering 89% of consumers are more likely to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience, it’s something you should definitely consider.
#2 Staff will be well-trained to exceed customer expectations
Part of sales enablement is providing regular training so your staff are ready to sell and exceed customer expectations. As we mentioned earlier, your staff haven’t got hours of spare time to brush up on their knowledge, so you need to provide short microlearning courses that they can complete when they’ve a bit of downtime in the store.
The benefit of providing regular training that’s easily accessible is that your staff will always be educated about your latest product or service offerings. No more training every quarter that’s forgotten about the moment they leave the presentation.
#3 Your sales associates will feel more confident and will be happier as a result
How would you feel if you got chucked into the sea without a lifejacket? We’re going to guess pretty miserable and scared. That’s how your B2C sales staff feel when you put them in front of customers without the knowledge they need to excel. It makes them feel nervous and shy because they know that they will get asked things they don’t have the answer to.
By providing sales enablement tools for your B2C retail team, you can bolster their confidence by giving them the support they need whilst serving customers daily. The more they can help customers and provide exceptional service, the more positive feedback they’ll receive from customers and the more confident they’ll feel. This is amazing because high confidence equals more sales. No one wants to buy from a miserable sales rep, would you?
What types of B2C sales enablement tools are there?
Knowledge tools for sales execution
Sales enablement for B2C frontline teams means having instant access to sales know-how in the flow of work. Your sales team should have searchable access to your latest offers, product info, activities, procedures, how-tos, ops manuals and videos. It’s no good having the information they need locked away in a back office, no one will have the time to find it, let alone read it. We recommend having a searchable knowledge base that B2C sales associates can access on a mobile or tablet device.
What’s the benefit?
Keeping the information within easy reach helps employees to better serve your customers, and through repetition of getting the information up throughout the day, it will help the information to embed in their memory.
It’s also a great way to ensure that all of your employees are relaying the correct information to customers. A lot of the time in B2C companies, one member of staff will say something different to a customer and this leaves a bad impression. This can be catastrophic for sales as it takes just one bad impression for customers to stop doing business with you. Did you know roughly 61% of customers say they would switch to a new brand after one bad experience?
Comms tools for sales effectiveness
Your B2C frontline sales team are busy with customers, so getting them to listen to your important updates can be tricky. A great sales enablement tool should have communication features which make it easy for you to reach staff.
They should allow staff to catch up on sales news and notifications should be used to quickly alert them of what’s going on within your business. Let’s say, for example, you’ve had a product recall, and you need to let your shop floor sales associates know. Email is never going to do the job fast enough, you need a sales enablement tool that will cut through the noise and send a notification that’s delivered straight to their mobile.
What’s the benefit?
It means your sales associates are always up to date with the latest company news and announcements, which is essential for running an efficient sales team. Nobody can say, ‘I wasn’t told that’ which can be detrimental to your processes and slow your sales down. You’ll now have digital tracking and analytics which easily shows you who your news or notifications have been read by so you can nudge those who haven’t.
Learning tools for sales readiness
For confident B2C sales staff who are ready to sell, they’ve got to be adequately trained. When they’re equipped with the knowledge they need to sell, their confidence will rise dramatically. In fact, did you know that 51% of top-performing sales associates see themselves as an expert in their field? This is proof that your sales staff need to be confident that they are knowledgeable about the products or services they are selling.
A great sales enablement tool should make it easy for your sales associates to learn. You shouldn’t wait for quarterly presentations as a way to train your sales staff because as soon as your sales associates leave, they forget the information.
You should be giving your employees access to micro-learning courses which they can easily access every day. Even if they’ve got a few minutes here and there in between customers, it means they can fit learning in flexibly throughout the day.
What’s the benefit?
Microlearning makes it easy for your employees to learn on a daily basis which can drastically improve knowledge retention. In fact, research suggests that microlearning increases employee focus and encourages long-term retention by 80%.
Providing employees with daily learning also makes it a lot easier to operate more proactively to business changes. You don’t have to wait weeks before you roll out your new training initiative. You can publish new microlearning courses in a matter of minutes.
Want a B2C frontline sales tool that can do it all?
Discover Ocasta Engage, the frontline sales enablement app which gives your sales team the know-how to sell and provide the best customer experience daily. It’s deployed by Next, Tesco and Virgin Media O2, who use it to improve their customer service and improve sales. Whether your business is big or small, Engage could be the missing tool that you need to transform your store’s performance.
Get tips and advice to improve sales in your B2C business
Join our fortnightly newsletter for industry insights to help you succeed with your sales.
