Article

How to integrate digital for a great multichannel experience

Blending digital channels into a company's overall multichannel approach requires changes beyond the sales force.

July 5, 2012

By Thomas Baumgartner, Homayoun Hatami, and Jon Vander Ark.

Creating a smooth transition from online to offline sales remains a challenge for many companies. The head of sales at a major consumer electronics company found that the majority of shoppers for large TVs did their research on Amazon before going to a store to see the products in the flesh. He also learned—to his dismay—that more than a third walked straight out again because what they saw on the shelf did not match the product numbers, features, and prices they had seen online. He responded by investing in online content creation capabilities—his company would supply consistent, up-to-date, and clear content for resellers across online and offline channels. This was challenging because he had to convince big-box retailers that providing better content to Amazon and other online stores would not simply boost sales on those sites. The sales team negotiated with retailers such as Best Buy to put signs up with a number customers could text to receive additional product information on their cell phones—the same information they would have seen on Amazon. Sales online and offline shot up rapidly and the first TV line sold with the new approach became Best Buy's biggest seller, exceeding forecasts fourfold.

The TV supplier is not unique. In our research we found that many consumer packaged goods companies invest heavily in content for their increasingly important online distributors. They are dedicating teams of 10 to 15 people from marketing and sales to optimizing their sales across all geographies and categories on Amazon.

Blending digital channels into a company's overall multichannel approach requires changes beyond the sales force. In most of our interviews, sales leaders told us that embracing these new channels changed how the sales force interacted with product development, marketing, distributors, and customer services. In fact, the proliferation of touch points with customers means that boundaries are increasingly blurring within organizations. Companies that are thriving in the digital age are those that are able to figure out creative ways to pull together the best resources from across the organization. To achieve that level of cross-company collaboration, the world's best sales organizations have often taken "sales beyond sales" by making each component see itself as contributing to the customer experience, be it product design, sales, customer service and even operations (for example, the internal IT department). This is the only way they can coordinate the customer experience across multiple channels.

For all the benefits a lighting company saw from investing in the online channel, it also found that customers preferred to keep certain aspects of the purchasing process offline. When developing a request for proposal, for example, customers still wanted to work over the phone or in person with the distributor or supplier. To make its online and offline multichannel setup work, the company expanded the role of the corporate digital marketing team. They worked with the sales team to design the hosted distributor sites, added an inside sales team to handle the leads coming out of the digital channel, refocused their sales staff on teaming with distributors to solve complex customer needs, and beefed up their technology and analytical capabilities to run their entire digital operations.

Once customer projects were completed, the digital marketing team sent follow-up e- mails encouraging customers to post case studies on the company's Web site. The team then e-mailed these stories and related images to other customers and cross-posted to key lighting and design community sites. The e-mails also led back to the offline sales force, with phone numbers for specific salespeople who were trained to talk about the applications and related projects. In some markets, junior salespeople took turns monitoring community sites—answering questions, adding links to positive postings about their products, and announcing new models—activities that would have been done traditionally in marketing, and all of which contributed to that 15 percent boost in sales.

Digital channels continue to push the boundaries of selling, and, with the evolution of new technologies, sales leaders will have even more opportunities to find and attract prospects with customized offers. This may also mean relinquishing some control of the brand. Some executives will follow the lighting company's lead and build online ecosystems that connect dealers with customers, and create social as well as technological platforms on which communities can thrive. Any sales leader with the ambition to be at the cutting edge of digital sales will certainly need to obsess about optimization, and be willing to take some risks and try new ideas such as Tesco's innovative supermarket-in-a-subway-station approach in South Korea.

Social media is not just fashionable, it also has enormous potential. American Express's Facebook campaign even helped independent retailers as well as its own revenues. The best companies integrate these digital channels seamlessly into their sales setup. It is increasingly common for customers to browse an online store catalog, go to a store to see the product "in the flesh", compare a couple of alternatives using their smartphone while they are in the shop, and then make an informed buying decision.

Adapted with permission of the publisher, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., from "SALES GROWTH: Five Proven Strategies from the World's Sales Leaders" by Thomas Baumgartner, Homayoun Hatami, and Jon Vander Ark. Copyright (c) 2012 by McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved. (Photo by Jonathan Baker-Bates.)