6 Challenges to Modern Selling and How to Overcome them

The customer journey has changed. Buyers today overwhelmingly prefer using digital buying tools in researching and evaluating purchases.

In their daily life as consumers, buyers are accustomed to fast, convenient, seamless experiences which carry over in their expectations in their business lives. They also want a modern experience, a trend accelerated by millennial’s moving into the ranks of decision-makers.

What are the main challenges to Modern Selling Today?

1. Customers want personalisation: Consumers have become accustomed to increased personalisation in their purchasing experiences. In fact, 80% of customers say they are more likely to do business with a company if it offers personalised experiences¹
2. Customers are shifting how they buy…and that may last: The Covid 19 pandemic seen a seismic shift in how consumers make purchases.  The trend of purchasing products and services online is one that is set to continue. Research has shown that 65% of customers intend to continue their changed buying behaviors after the pandemic²
3. The B2B buying journey has changed: Many of today’s consumers are millennial’s who have grown up in an era of digital technology from a young age. Using digital tools to research purchase decisions is the most common way in which purchase decisions are made. In fact, today’s B2B buyers report spending exceedingly little time with sales reps. Only 17% of the total purchase journey is spent in such interactions³
4. Marketing and Customer Experience tools are disconnected: Many organisations fail to take advantage of data they already have with 43% of companies reporting a fragmented approach with inconsistent integration between marketing and customer experience technologies⁴
5. Difficult to Measure ROI: With disconnected sales and marketing systems, organisations today find it hard to measure the ROI on marketing campaigns and to allocate budget to where its going to impact on sales the most.
6. Disengaged and inefficient sales teams: Sellers today don’t know what opportunities to focus on and struggle with multiple sales tools. It can also be hard to capture, store and effectively leverage customer data.

How can organisations overcome these challenges?

There are multiple sales and marketing solutions on the market to help you manage the customer journey.  However, the challenge lies in being able to connect your systems to allow you to use data to make insights-based decisions.

That’s where Microsoft Business Applications can help.  The solutions within the Dynamics 365 suite of tools can enable an organisation to Activate Digital Selling to provide a seamless digital buying experience.

Using Dynamics Microsoft Business Applications, customers can Activate Digital Selling with an insights-based, collaborative sales engagement solution and get insights from customer, marketing, and sales data to make informed decisions and accelerate revenue outcomes.

Using the Dynamics 365 suite, customers can address today’s modern selling challenges by offering solution benefits including:

• Identify and connect with the right buyers. Focus on top opportunities to increase win rates.
• Manage clients from a single dashboard and get the insights you need in real time. Innovate across your business with better visibility into cash flow.
• Leverage familiar tools and complete tasks from Outlook.
• Empower a mobile workforce.
• Expand the services you offer through a connected suite of Microsoft solutions, including Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Power BI.
• Guide sellers with prescriptive actions and workflows.

In Summary

The customer journey has changed.  Organisations that better understand their customers, stay connected and adapt to rapid changes in this new selling environment will be better able to compete into the future.  Solutions such as Microsoft Dynamics 365 provide the platform to allow organisations to better manage and connect their sales and marketing teams as well as providing the basis to allow better customer insights-based decision making.

Activate Digital Selling Bundle Offer:  Codec are offering a bundle offer to get started on your Activate Digital Selling journey to enable sales teams to take advantage of the benefits of digital selling.  The bundle, priced at €6,000 includes 6 x consulting days with senior resource as well as trial licenses for 30 days to allow your organisation to identify gaps, test solution offerings and have a blueprint for future success.

To find out more click here.

Webinar: Using Data to Understand Your Customers & Uncover Sales Leads

To find out more about how today’s sales environment has changed and the technologies that can drive sales leads, register for our webinar: “Using Data to Understand Your Customers & Uncover Sales Leads” on Thursday, 31^st March at 10am.  To register, click here.

About Codec

As Ireland’s largest and most successful Microsoft Gold Dynamics Partner, Codec have delivered numerous Dynamics 365 implementations for companies in Ireland over the past 10 years.  We have more specialisations and expertise than any other partner on the market.  If you are considering Microsoft Dynamics 365 there is no other partner to speak to.

Contact Us if you wish to talk about how Dynamics 365 can work for your business and help modernise your selling methods.

1. Epsilon Research
2. McKinsey
3. Gartner
4. Forrester