The Importance of AI-Powered Search in B2B Ecommerce

 

Lisa Grayston, GM of Ecommerce at Coveo, opens the webinar by emphasizing how critical search is for creating high-quality B2B ecommerce experiences. Search is so much more than a tool for finding information – it's a window into user intent that lets you deliver accurate and relevant results based on the context of a search across an increasingly complex B2B buying journey.

 

B2B buyers, trained on B2C platforms like Amazon and Google, expect the same seamless, personalized experiences they get when searching for information at home. B2B retailers need powerful search capabilities to meet these buyers’ high expectations.

 

 

Coveo's AI-powered search platform can enable B2B companies to level up their search functionality. Our powerful ML models allow buyers to find the most relevant products and content across complex catalogs and large catalogs.

 

By marrying products with associated content, Coveo helps guide buyers from research to purchase, reducing friction and increasing conversions. As B2B businesses strive to optimize margins, drive operational efficiency, and boost customer satisfaction, implementing an intelligent search solution like Coveo is no longer a "nice-to-have" feature. It's a must-have capability that allows you to stay competitive in a B2B commerce ecosystem comprised of buying groups with multiple users, an absolute glut of touchpoints and channels, and rising competition from the commerce giants like Amazon and Walmart, which launched a B2B ecommerce website in 2022.

 

Challenges of the B2B Buying Journey

 

The B2B buying journey presents unique challenges compared with B2C ecommerce. These challenges represent roadblocks that can hinder the effectiveness of search and the overall customer experience. Here's a short list of some of the challenges B2B ecommerce presents, from a search perspective:

• High volume of products – Millions of SKUs, each with thousands of variations and a wealth of related content, make it difficult for buyers to find what they need quickly.
• Reliance on manual rules – Many B2B companies struggle with a heavy reliance on manual rules for their search functionality. This is time-consuming, resource-intensive, and makes it nearly impossible to keep up with the dynamic nature of B2B ecommerce.
• Getting management’s buy in – Convincing management to invest in AI-powered search can be an uphill battle. It’s often difficult to find the right time to make the case for implementation. It's important to clarify the potential return from this investment and make it clear that AI-powered search is the only way to meet buyers’ high expectations.
• Buyer frustration – Often, the B2B ecommerce search experience doesn't yield the answers buyers need. The friction that exists between subpar or non-optimal search experiences often results in extensive support calls and back-and-forth between the customer and the B2B company which can lead to lost sales (e.g., the item is incorrect, they don't have enough information to make a purchase, etc.).

 

Just like B2C shoppers, B2B buyers expect a seamless ecommerce buying experience. They want to find the right product, purchase that product, and receive it quickly. That's what AI-powered search can facilitate.

 

 

Key Value Drivers of Coveo AI Search

 

Lisa Dahl, Senior Business Value Advisor at Coveo, provides a comprehensive overview of key value drivers that Coveo's AI-powered search platform delivers for B2B ecommerce companies. Dahl reviews core areas where Coveo can have a significant impact on business outcomes including:

• Increased conversion rates – Since AI and machine learning enhance search relevance, people tend to buy more. We've seen a 3-15% increase in our clients' conversions, an uplift driven by a more intuitive and personalized search experience that helps B2B buyers find the right products faster..
• Increased average order value – AI-powered search and recommendations show buyers complementary and alternative products. These results are always tailored to the buyer's needs and contribute to a 1-5% increase in order value, on average..
• Optimized margins per order – Coveo helps B2B companies optimize margins per order by boosting products with higher margins without sacrificing relevance. That means you can drive more profitable growth..
• Improved operational efficiency– Coveo delivers value around operational efficiency by reducing the cost to serve both online and offline orders. We see, on average, a 20-40% reduction in support cases related to online ordering. Enhanced search and personalization capabilities also drive a shift from offline to online channels, reducing the cost of processing offline orders.
• Automation reduces manual effort – Coveo significantly reduces the manual effort required for search management. With intelligent automation and AI, B2B companies can reallocate 50-80% of the time previously spent on manual search management tasks towards more strategic initiatives.

 

 Making The Case for AI-Powered Search

 

Building a strong business case for AI-powered search is the best way for B2B ecommerce leaders to secure buy-in and investment from key stakeholders.

 

Dahl explains that the first step is to understand your current reality and identify the areas where AI-powered search can drive the most significant improvements. In terms of creating a rationale for implementing an AI-powered relevance platform like Coveo, we've got you covered there.

 

We work closely with clients to establish a baseline, define uplift assumptions, and model different scenarios based on your company's unique needs and goals. We've also developed an ROI calculator to help B2B ecommerce companies estimate the potential return on investment they can expect from Coveo.

 

It's a user-friendly tool that allows businesses to input key metrics (e.g., total sessions, online revenue, conversion rate, size of their product catalog, etc.) Using this information combined with our extensive experience with B2B clients across various industries, we can help you estimate the potential value that AI-powered search can create for your organization.

 

The full webinar dives deeper into the key value drivers and best practices for implementing AI-powered search in your B2B ecommerce strategy. Don't miss this opportunity to learn how Coveo can help you build a compelling business case for AI search and drive measurable results.