Working From Home
Hybrid, remote, or in person – regardless of what the future of work looks like, one thing is certain: reaching the right person remotely is going to get a lot tougher over the next few months.
Prosper - Working From Home
According to the Prosper Insights & Analytics August 2021 consumer survey, 14.8% of business purchasers who use to work away from home now work from home. This is down from more than one-quarter (25.6%) of workers who reported the same in Prosper Insights & Analytics April 2020 survey, showing more people are returning to work in offices. The August 2021 survey also found that 64% of employees don’t influence company purchasing decisions. Put these factors together through the lens of a B2B sales pro and we have what could make for a difficult time reaching prospects.
Prosper - Influence Company Purchases
I sat down with Leo Tenenblat, Chief Product Officer at Drift, a Revenue Acceleration platform for 50,000+ businesses like Okta and Gong, to discuss what an uncertain future of work means for the future of sales.
Gary Drenik: What do you think are the biggest challenges for sales teams post-pandemic?
Leo Tenenblat: I don’t think the challenges for sales teams have changed much from before the pandemic – their end goal is still to have conversations with prospects and close deals. What has changed is how we engage prospects in a digital-first environment.
For sales teams to win now, and moving forward, they need tools that connect them with more qualified buyers, faster. It involves unifying data across to understand which accounts have the highest intent and removing the friction between identification and starting a conversation.
Drenik: What are some of the lasting changes that will persist beyond our return to work in offices?
Tenenblat: During the pandemic, we saw chatbot engagement grow about 40% during “off hours,” outside of 9-5, as they spent more time after hours catching up on email and researching solutions to augment their workflow; this trend is here to stay.
For sales teams, engagement during off hours means one of two things: either be at the ready to greet a prospect or customer on your site 24/7/365– which simply isn’t feasible – or channel emerging technology, like AI, to do the work for you. Drift’s automated chatbots engage and qualify website visitors in real-time, asking questions about their organization and needs. One step further, these bots can schedule meetings right from the chat.
Drenik: How is B2B purchasing different today than before the pandemic? What is it borrowing from B2C?
Tenenblat: It’s an interesting question because this is what Drift was founded to do in 2015. Our founders, David Cancel and Elias Torres, saw a growing disconnect between B2B and B2C buying processes. While B2C prioritized a frictionless, customer-centric process, B2B was reliant on long-lead sales forms and impersonal email marketing campaigns.
Today, consumer behavior has shifted, and buyers are making more than 80% of their purchases online. Yet B2B businesses are still struggling to offer amazing online experiences to these digital-first customers. Brands need to fix that, or they’re going to lose out on valuable revenue. Especially now in a digital environment, there’s a race for your customer’s attention, and B2B organizations need tools to move quicker. To do this, marketing and sales organizations need to reorganize around the customer’s convenience–not their own.
Drenik: Where do you see the greatest area of need for teams to succeed during this transition?
Tenenblat: The greatest area of need is going to be challenging the status quo and our preconceived notions about how we engage with customers virtually.
Company websites have long been seen as static billboards for marketing messaging and brand-centric communications, but now we’ll have to rethink their role as a top-of-the-funnel storefront where prospects and customers alike can engage with the brand any time on their terms.
Drenik: How is this impacting sales and marketing at an organizational level?
Tenenblat: For decades, sales and marketing teams have spoken different languages and measured success with different metrics, despite the fact that they perform the same basic function: business development. Now, the dynamic is shifting as every executive must hold themselves accountable to revenue as the metric that matters; at Drift, we’re calling this the “Revenue Era.”
With this singular goal in mind, sales, marketing, and every department should be united in delivering lasting customer value across the entire buying process – from new business to renewal and expansion as well. Drift is building the tools to do it faster.
Drenik: Thank you, Leo, for taking the time to walk us through these shifts to how we work. With new factors like the Delta variant and labor shortages casting doubt on our return to work, this changing focus to revenue will be pivotal.
