Your technical content is a powerful resource for your sales team. However, historically, many aftermarket manufacturing sales teams have been limited in using technical content to fuel sales.
This is often due to the cumbersome format of parts catalogs. Information is difficult to search, outdated, and inaccurate. Using technology, you can turn your technical content into a valuable sales resource. Find out how.
1. Offer Precise Online Information
When technical content is only published in a physical format, you run the risk of the information you share with customers becoming outdated the moment you mail a catalog to their location. Not only that, but unstructured technical data is difficult to search for both sales teams and customers.
By turning your technical content into an online database, you can provide customers with up-to-date, precise information. This is a powerful way to turn technical content into a new sales resource.
Through a digital platform, customers can use customized search options and navigation tools to look up parts quickly and precisely. This also allows users to view important details about parts and assemblies, finding the answers they need.
Key Benefits of an Online, Searchable Database
- You will become the trusted source for accurate information when customers are researching their next purchase.
- You can provide customers with the convenience of self-service. They no longer need to wait around for office hours to find the answers they need.
- Your customers will enjoy access to up-to-date information.
2. Use an Online Storefront to Support Customers Around the Clock
Beyond simply making it easy for customers to research the parts and technical data they need, to close the loop, make sure to offer customers the ability to purchase products right then and there.
Integrating your data with inventory and pricing allows you to turn your technical resources into an online storefront that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This will lessen the workload for your parts sales team while offering your customers the added convenience of shopping for parts at the exact moment they need them.
Key Benefits of an Online Storefront
- Customers can make purchases around the clock, lowering costly downtime. This will increase long-term loyalty as customers’ profits increase by shopping via your online store.
- Customers can handle purchases quickly. Rather than waiting on a salesperson, a customer can place a parts order within minutes.
- Sales teams will be freed up to focus on more complex customer needs rather than spending time fulfilling small, monotonous orders. This can help increase large sale tickets.
3. Boost Order Sizes Through Personalized Recommendations
When you shop online, you have likely noticed that most eCommerce platforms provide you with personalized recommendations as you browse. For example, Amazon often provides suggestions for add-on purchases based on your previous search history.
Personalized recommendations can be based on saved shopping carts, component assemblies, and suggested similar items. By offering a personalized recommendation, you can encourage customers to place more than one order with your business.
Key Benefits of Personalized Recommendations
- When you recommend parts a customer already needs, you’ll make the shopping process more efficient for your customers.
- Through targeted suggestions, you can increase total order sizes, capturing more of the market share.
See Technical Content in Action with Atlas Copco Construction
Atlas Copco Construction (ACC) implemented Documoto and the Parts Online portal to turn their technical content into a new sales stream. By doing so, ACC’s online parts sales have increased by 64%, largely due to the enthusiastic adoption of the online storefront by the company’s largest dealers. While more orders often mean more work for administration staff and warehouse personnel with Documoto, ACC actually saw a 50% to 60% decline in the administrative workload.
Try the Documoto Storefront
Documoto Storefront is a cloud-based SaaS that allows equipment manufacturers to turn technical content into a sales resource. With several licensing options to match your business requirements, only pay for what you need. Documoto gives you the ability to scale as your online business grows, helping you tap into new sales channels using your technical content. Request a demo today.
