As part of our “Being-Serviced” B2B Customer series, this article explores how to deliver online pre-sales capabilities. The “Being-Serviced” customer has matured beyond self-service and now expects proactive servicing, even before they engage with sales directly. Understanding this shift within your industry and channel relationships is critical.
Pre-sales includes all activities carried out before a customer is acquired—focusing on education, relevant information, and digital experiences that influence decision-making. In B2B eCommerce, these capabilities must extend beyond your own website to include channel partners. Buyers expect to be serviced, not sold to.
Most individuals dislike being “sold to.” Instead, pre-sales content should provide information in ways that help buyers feel supported in their decision-making. Done well, this experience compels them to take the next step with confidence.
Typically, buyers arrive online to:
To influence buying decisions early, organizations must service these needs with relevant information and experiences that guide buyers toward engaging your sales team or channel partners.
Collaborate with sales and channel partners to understand how customers explore products. Segment offerings by category, application, industry, compliance, or geography. Tools like guided selling and configurators can help buyers navigate complex solutions. Align navigation, search, and product data accordingly.
Search is often the most-used feature on your site. Optimize site search and ensure alignment with taxonomy and backend systems. Results should be skimmable, filterable, and accurate. For deeper insight, see our article on Search Intent in B2B eCommerce.
Capture insights non-intrusively—progressively building profiles through activity tracking, personalization, or marketing automation. Knowing where visitors entered, what they viewed, and what they ignored enables more relevant servicing when they return.
Personalization delivers the right information at the right time. Customization adds user control. Modern pre-sales blends both—anticipating needs (like auto-generating profiles of interest) while still allowing buyers to adapt their experience.
Consistency across your channels—and those of your partners—is essential. Ensure information is synchronized across marketplaces, distributor sites, and partner portals. Where possible, integrate your data directly into partner sites rather than duplicating content manually.
Cross-reference customer pain points with solutions. Use FAQs, wikis, and peer forums to provide answers and direct buyers to partners or support. Highlight competitor replacement opportunities when you consistently outperform alternatives.
Communicate differentiation with ROI calculators, product comparisons, certifications, reviews, and case studies. Encourage peer reviews and share positive executive summaries. Provide sales enablement tools to channel partners to make selling easier.
Differentiation is often about ease of doing business. Even with complex configurations, customers expect experiences that match consumer-grade simplicity. B2B distributors who prioritize this will win against competitors with stronger products but weaker digital journeys.
Go beyond simple email nurtures. Combine marketing automation with analytics and predictive tools to proactively service prospects. Use content marketing and social channels to bring buyers back to your site with relevant offers and updates.
As you evaluate pre-sales, ask:
Always put yourself in the buyer’s shoes. Service their decision-making process rather than simply trying to sell to them.
Pre-sales servicing is a strategic advantage for manufacturers and distributors. By combining segmentation, search optimization, personalization, omni-channel integration, and content strategy, you can influence decisions before sales even begin.
Want to make your pre-sales servicing a true differentiator? Let’s talk.