Corning Optical Communications is changing the way it interacts with its business customers. The manufacturer of fiber-optic cable plans to enable online self-service for those customers that prefer do their own research rather than speak with sales or customer service representatives.
Corning is examining how it can leverage some of the best practices and practical applications of technology in “the business-to-consumer world in the business-to-business space to gain some kind of market share or differentiate ourselves from our competitors,” Kevin Vanbeurden, manager, global digital strategy and marketing at Corning Optical Communications, a unit of Corning Inc., said last week in a webinar hosted by B2BecNews.
Corning Optical Communications will shift from a sales channel-based view of its customers to an online self-service model that provides product information the way clients want to get it similar to Amazon.com Inc.’s business-to-consumer approach, Vanbeurden told webinar attendees.
“Amazon is clearly the leader and we think about what they are doing,” Vanbeurden said. “Let’s face it: B2C e-commerce through Amazon is just easy.” Corning Optical is following that lead “to provide the best customer experience possible,” he added.
To that end, Corning Optical is working with Siteworx, a web design and marketing firm that sponsored the webinar. Vanbeurden didn’t provide details about what Corning Optical has planned. But the concept dovetails with a recent Forrester Research Inc. report about how B2B websites should reflect B2B buyer preferences by letting customers serve themselves, bypassing sales reps until most of the research has been done.
In Forrester’s 2015 report “Death of a (B2B) Salesman,” a survey of B2B companies showed more than half (53%) preferred to do their own research online rather than interacting with a sales rep. The report, based on a Forrester/Internet Retailer survey in conjunction with Vertical Web Media, the publisher of B2BecNews and Internet Retailer, was repeated last year and the shift to online research was even more pronounced: 64% of 236 respondents prefer to go it alone, said Andy Hoar, vice president and principal analyst covering B2B e-commerce at Forrester, and the report’s author, in the webinar.
Two years ago 74% of respondents said buying on a website was more convenient than buying from a sales rep, Hoar said. For those customers who know what they want, there’s an online sales payoff, he added.
The 2015 Forrester report noted that 93% of B2B buyers preferred to buy online when they’ve decided what to buy. And with the follow-up survey in 2016 showing more respondents (65% versus 59% in 2015) preferring online research as the primary source of information rather than a sales rep, there’s a trend toward more self-service, Hoar said.
Because many orders traditionally handled by sales reps are re-orders, or simple transactions, many reps are relegated to order-taker status. That, combined with the growth of self service, reiterates Hoar’s 2015 report title and his prediction that 1 million sales jobs will be displaced by 2020.
Sales reps aren’t all going away, but there will be a swing away from order-takers and growth in sales consultants, those who become high-quality, high-value product specialists, Hoar said on the webinar. “But not as many are going to be needed, so a bunch of volume is going to transition to portals,” he said.
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