In an Amazon-driven world, customers of any B2B business now expect a seamless digital experience. These customers expect much of the same B2C functionality and personalization; they want instant access to ordering, order status, invoices, etc. Some even expect promotions, coupons, and rewards programs – all without having to call a sales rep or customer service agent.

As a business, you need a way to scale your sales without having to scale your sales team with it. You want to provide your customer with excellent customer service but also need to maintain your current staff.

Enter the Salesforce Commerce Cloud platform, integrated with Salesforce CRM. A Salesforce B2B Commerce solution allows you to create a site that can:

• Increase sales capacity with automation of order processes

• Reduce customer inquiry

• Provide order status and invoices

• Maintain customer contracted pricing

• Integrate with your ERP

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So here you are, ready to embark on bringing your dreams of a Salesforce B2B Commerce portal to life. If you choose to prepare, there are certain aspects you should think about. Here are 5 areas that you need to consider:

1. Data/Account Structure

Data will make or break any Salesforce Commerce Cloud implementation. When the data isn’t there, advanced site functionality will be nearly impossible to implement. Bad data can introduce over-engineering to solve what could have been addressed up front with careful examination of data and the business processes that put it there.

Example: One of the most important drivers of the implementation is a well-designed account structure. When it comes to data relationships such as pricing, shipping rules, localization, account groups, and targeted promotions; the account is the key.  Having a strong account structure will allow you to effortlessly administrate your site and assign your users all the permissions, price lists, and promotions they need to get the most out of your site.

2. Design Your Site for Your Customers

Distributors, invoicing users, purchase users, potential new customers… Who is your audience? Understanding who you are developing a site for and the needs of the user will allow you to create a painless ordering experience. If moving from a legacy or manual system, utilize user research and interviews with your customers to identify pain points that you can resolve with your new Salesforce B2B Commerce solution.

User adoption of your site depends on the interface. Solutions on which can vary from dashboard style to one-page ordering systems on the homepage, and even complex categorized product catalogs with specialized filters and search functionality to help users locate products with ease. Listening to the user will make sure that efforts are not wasted and the optimal tool for getting products into their carts and turned into sales and orders is built.

3. ROI Factors

What does success look like to your organization? Having a defined set of goals to solve for will help drive the implementation, i.e:

• Reduce the cost of sale

• Reduce the manual steps to create an order

• Reduce the workload on sales reps

• Reduce the cost of customer service with self service

• Increase sales by allowing smaller dealers/deals via ecosystem

Once you set the criteria for success, use it as your mission statement for the project. Inevitably as your B2B site continues to develop, folks will want to ‘add’ features. Use your mission statement to ensure you stay true to the goal. It’s easier to add functionality after a successful launch than trying to explain why launch is delayed.

4. Integration

Having clean data is one piece of the puzzle, but getting it out of siloed legacy systems and into your Salesforce Commerce Cloud environment is another. A solid integration plan where fields and data are mapped prior to project kickoff can have major benefits down the line. With the integration points setup, developers can work with real integration points and know exact response times from external systems, which greatly mitigates risk and allows for a more realistic UAT testing scenario – rather than creating sample test data on the fly and hooking up the integrations later.

5. Equip the Project with the Right People

Make sure to staff your project with the people who have a thorough understanding of the business process, the customer, and the expectations. Many projects have been burned because the right people were not involved. The folks that are in the weeds of your business everyday know closets have skeletons. They have opinions on how the process should be. Involving them early and often will reduce the risk of having to rework solutions. Also ensure your implementer understands more than just the software. Do they have industry experience?

Creating a seamless experience and the optimal tool for your customers takes proactive organization of your data, goals, and people. These tips will help you get the most out of Salesforce B2B Commerce, and our Team can help bring your solution to life.