Lets face it, Business to Business sales is a tight knit world. Your company is usually in a small, well defined industry with a finite number of potential customers. Your customer base, too, has a small number of vendors that they’ve worked with for years and intimately trust (usually). Communication in this small network is very clearly defined.
- You, the sales person, have a sales proposal.
- You call me, your customers, for chat/meeting/lunch/golf?
- We discuss/haggle.
- I sign.
- You hand off to implementation.
- Repeat 3 months later.
The customer can also start the dance with a sales opportunity, but regardless the steps are still the same. Most of this interaction is done over the phone and through email. Both customers and vendors are comfortable with these forms of communication. Used together, email and phone can blend to the perfect ratio of interruption and discretion. We have customer communication pretty much figured out, that is as long as nothing changes.
Its Wednesday, so that must mean things have changed, again. It may sound hyperbolic, but change happens. As a tech analyst in the B2B market, I will say that we seem to have a slower rate of adoption than the consumer markets. Traditional business modes seem to hold on much longer, presumably due to the insular nature of how our industries operate. Eventually, however, the forces that mold the consumer world find their way into the B2B community. I have seen a slow but inevitable adoption of new communication technology in B2B companies in the last few years. Instant Messaging, Blogs, Social Networks, Microblogging. If your customers are using these tools in their business, then you should really pay attention. There may be a new mode of communication forming right before our eyes. The first one there may win the hearts and minds of your B2B industry.
In future posts I will be discussing some of the new ways you can connect with your customers. We will look at when and how to use Instant Messaging appropriately. Next we will take a look at how LinkedIn can help you connect, reconnect, and stay connected to your customer’s colleagues. Lastly, we can dive into web conferencing which is an older idea getting a new lease on life.