Why Sales Enablement is Important to Your Customer-centric Strategy

For decades, businesses worldwide have adopted a customer-centric strategy that places their buyer at the forefront of the purchasing process. In fact, you likely shop at these establishments every day: from food service to retail locations, thousands of organizations strive to ensure the customer knows they are “always right.”

Still, the B2B world has always operated a bit differently compared to these direct-to-consumer operations. Since most teams could rely on their innovative products to speak for themselves, the need for a customer-centric sales enablement strategy was never a top priority.

Today, however, this reality is beginning to shift. As time moves on, customer centricity will be more important to B2B companies than ever before — and those who fail to jump on the wagon may be left behind forever.

So, what is responsible for this shift, and why is it so important for you to include customer-centricity in your commercial enablement strategy?

Clients Want Sellers they Can Trust

Though offering a great solution remains one of the most crucial aspects of a successful sales outcome, it is no longer the only factor buyers take into consideration. Today, 86% of general shoppers are more likely to purchase a solution from a company they trust. Not only that, but they’re actually willing to pay more. And that means salespeople are more critical than ever. They’re the face of the company to B2B customers.

This development is something that can be incredibly useful for companies who alter their approach early on, and catastrophic for those who do not.

So, what’s behind this shift? Likely, it’s due to the saturation seeping into the market — something not solely exclusive to B2C industries. There is more competition than ever to fight against, prompting companies to focus their efforts towards differentiating themselves from the crowd.

However, many sales enablement leaders fail to realize that a focus on being customer-centric goes well beyond their internal silo. It goes to the customer, where there are dozens — if not hundreds — of options to choose from. With all that choice, making a purchase can become stressful for today’s buyers. In fact, many executives in today’s B2B company’s don’t even realize Instead of wasting hours researching each individual product, clients would rather turn to one brand they recognize and trust. This means that, if your business is still focused on nothing other than its product, you could be overlooked.

As such, customer centricity has turned into one of the most effective methods for helping organizations stand out and connect with their clients on another level. Paired with a sales enablement strategy designed for business impact, teams are starting to figure out the actions to take to prioritize long-term growth.

Sales Enablement Strategy and Customer Centricity Go Hand-in-hand

Clearly defining your commercial enablement goals is crucial for a few reasons, from ensuring you have the right tools on-hand to power your team’s efforts to develop a mission statement that sets you up for growth. However, it’s also increasingly important for forming customer-centric attitudes that place your organization at the forefront of the market.

If you’ve already begun creating a sales enablement vision for your company, you can simply add customer-centric strategies and approaches to round out your plan. For example, role-play like the customer was at the meeting. Have each team member share a briefing about the customers your company serves. See what they come up with. By focusing on the customer, enablement leaders have the opportunity to identify strategies, tools, processes, and more that allow your business to connect with customers and increase the value provided to them.

As you create programs and training to help sales teams thrive, include new measures that promote customer-centric methods and values across your organization.