North American Association of Sales Engineers
A Peek into B2B Sales in 2023
(by Adam Joyce) –
With increasing economic uncertainty and the seemingly permanent changes to professional interactions driven by the pandemic, B2B sales will continue to evolve in 2023. The new B2B sales landscape will be characterized by 3 key objectives:
- A Focus on Improving the Buyer Experience
- An Increase in Digital Touchpoints
- A Concentration on Customer Success
A Focus on the Buyer Experience
With buyer access to an unlimited inventory of information online, how will suppliers standout in an overcrowded digital landscape? By creating unique, memorable buyer experiences.
In 2023 and beyond, more B2B organizations will start to adopt new technologies and strategies to make buying more engaging, effortless, and simply more fun. Consider Virtual Reality purchasing, Metaverse sales meetings, and AI chatbots as the leading communication channels for businesses and their customers.
Organizations that deliver creative, immersive buyer experiences will win.
An Increase in Digital Touchpoints
Buyers in tomorrow’s B2B marketplace will continue down a digitally driven purchasing path, and suppliers must be prepared to meet the customer where they are in the online world. This means B2B sales organizations must increase the number of digital channels they have a presence in. These channels could include everything from videos, blog posts and newsletters to forums, e-books, and emerging social channels.
Content will continue to be king!
A Concentration on Customer Success
With potential economic turbulence ahead, B2B sales organizations will cut costs by placing additional emphasis on current customer retention and growth in these accounts rather than new customer acquisition in achieving revenue targets.
Just as Jeff Bezos and Amazon coined the phrase “a relentless focus on customer service,” B2B sales teams must adopt this same mentality with a digital-first strategy. Both low-touch and high-touch success models will be delivered via emerging technologies. Similar to buyer experiences, expect data-driven personalized touchpoints, Virtual Reality collaborations, and AI communications to play key roles in 2023 customer service business units.
While there is a lot of unknown ahead, one thing is for certain: B2B sales will change in 2023. Businesses will explore new technologies and expand into new online channels to ensure they are engaging the customers through their preferred digital marketplaces.
Adam is on the NAASE Advisory Board, and can be found at https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcjoyce/
** Unrelated NAASE Note: Please check out the following ranking from Feedspot, on the Top Sales Engineering websites/ blogs-