Customer expectations for convenience, personalization, and service have changed dramatically. B to b buyers want the same streamlined experiences they have as consumers. How can b to b sellers raise the bar? Hi everyone. I'm Rob O'Regan, global content director with Foundry. Welcome to our webinar sponsored by Salesforce. For the next thirty minutes or so, we'll explore how organizations can modernize their b to b commerce offerings to deliver seamless omnichannel experiences. And we'll discuss how the cloud and AI provide the foundation for innovations in b to b commerce, search, and product discovery to help organizations deliver personalization at scale and jump start growth. Let's meet our two guests. First is Sergio Iacobucci, senior director of ecommerce marketing with Coveo. Welcome, Sergio. Please tell us a bit about Coveo and your role there. Yeah. Hi, everyone. Very excited to to chat today. So I head up all of the marketing for, the commerce line of business at Coveo globally, and I've been within the ecommerce world now for, just over ten years and seen it change dramatically. And I think it's a super, super interesting space. From a Coveo standpoint, we are an AI platform, and we major in search and product discovery when it comes to the commerce the commerce world, looking to help people discover the products within people's catalogs, and be that directly and functionally or via via some form of recommendations, and all of which is powered by our AI models that we build in house. Great to have you with us. We're also joined by Allison Herrick, senior product marketing manager with Salesforce. Hey, Allison. What can you tell us about the work you do at Salesforce? Hey, Rob. Hi, everybody. So excited to be here today. So, yeah, I am on the product marketing team for Salesforce Commerce Cloud. I have been with Salesforce for just over eight years. If anybody is familiar with some of the, OG days, I came from our Demandware acquisition. So, I have kind of been in the commerce space for quite some time. It's been really fun to see it transform. Currently, I am focused on our Salesforce commerce portfolio, so that includes our b two b, d two c, and order management solutions. Great. Great to have you here as well. So let's get started. We'll start with some context about the state of b two b commerce. Allison, what are you hearing from Salesforce customers are seeing out in the market? You know, I think there are a few different themes trending right now. B to b organizations' appetite for digital just in general is up. In fact, in our newest state of commerce report, B2B organizations surveyed expect fifty three percent of their revenue to come from digital channels in the next two years. So huge, huge jump. And with that increase in revenue share, I think we can expect more transformation, right? I mean, a few years ago, everyone was essentially forced to start selling online due to the pandemic. But now I think we'll see a lot of organizations do some deep inspection and ask themselves things like, how can I do more with less? How can I meet my customers on the channels they want to be met on and provide a seamless experience while I'm doing that? How can I reduce my technical debt and overhead? And, of course, how can I remain on the cutting edge and integrate AI into my digital strategy? I think these are all very top of mind things that we're hearing. Yeah. Great. So, Sergio, given that context, what are you hearing from Coveo customers about some of the challenges they're facing specific to product discovery and its impact on the buyer experience? Yeah. It it tends to be pretty unanimous, across across the board. So that I you know, we see three main areas in general. Firstly, and I think this is quite an obvious one, but it's a it's a hard one to solve, is getting the experience right. And, the reason that's such an important area is because customers come to, a b to b store with their expectations set super high, as if they were a b to c customer. So their expectations are really, really, really high, and, everyone need is trying to meet those expectations within the world of b two b, which has its challenges because, of the kind of second point, which is around the complexity of the of the business. So, b to b businesses have extremely complex product data. Quite a lot a lot of the time, they have different catalogs for different customers depending on what part of their catalog they can buy. There are also instances which is not uncommon where there are completely different catalogs for different prices because b to b, customers, pay different amounts for the same product. So, in some instances, businesses need to have a catalog per customer. There's obviously all of the customer data as well, which is building on this complexity. So sometimes it's kind of impossible for them to feel like they can get ahead of everything and actually meet that customer experience expectation and and turn all the data and information they have into into an advantage. That's really difficult. And then the final part is, to Allison's point, kind of the changes in channel processes, marrying up the concept of offline sales the offline sales channel calling up to place an order versus the the ecommerce channel is actually quite difficult. But the hybrid sales approach, of having both is really, really worth doing. So in general, people that adopt that approach see if see fifty percent more revenue if they have an ecommerce channel and and the the standard sales channel, versus having a single channel. And I think then all in all, it kind of amounts to some nervousness, and that nervousness is because the, you know, average amount a customer will spend in a single transaction is around fifty k as a as a minimum. So fifteen thou fifty thousand dollars. So you need that foundation in place to make sure everyone feels comfortable to start making those changes and and, meet the needs of the customers and and and, get ahead of all of these complex challenges. Yeah. That's a really good segue into the next part of the discussion about AI and the promise it brings to b to b commerce. Allison, what gets you excited about how AI can improve the, b to b customer experience? Yeah. I love this question. It's a fun one. Also, in our state of commerce report, we found that AI is the number one priority for organizations that we surveyed, which really no no surprise there. Organizations and companies are looking at how they can use AI to not just personalized experiences, right, but drive internal efficiencies, so that they can produce and deliver those personalized experiences for for their end customers. So some of the most common use cases we're seeing that resonates with customers is leveraging AI to do things like write product descriptions. This is something we offer at Salesforce Commerce Cloud generative product descriptions and even, you know, going as far as return insights. So taking feedback left on reviews from items purchased and using that to inform a more accurate product description. The great thing about this type of use case that I just gave her that example is that it can scale across teams. So in commerce or for commerce teams, maybe it's writing product communications or even service communications. So, you know, when I think about it, when companies can harness the power of AI, they can work more efficiently, they can save hours in their day, and they can ultimately give their customers a more tailored and personalized experience. Another thing I'm really excited about is our Einstein Copilot for shoppers and buyers. This feature leverages AI so customers can, you you know, essentially open a chat window and use plain language prompts, text, and unstructured data to search for products and get help faster. There's just so many possibilities with AI. It's fun. But with all of these AI advancements, you know, Sergio kind of started to touch on this too, this nervousness, and comes the question of trust. And so, I just wanna also call out, you know, the Einstein trust layer that Salesforce provides helps keep your data secure and protected. So that's a nice cherry on top. You can work with Salesforce. You can work with great partners in the AI space like Coveo and be, rest assured that your data is trusted and secured. Great. Yeah those are some great examples and obviously that that trust pieces is critical in the commerce space. Sergio, what can you tell us about how Coveo is looking at AI, including generative AI and the capabilities it unlocks for product discovery? Yeah. So, you know, AI has always been the way in which, a business can scale, processing all of the data that I kinda mentioned before and all of the complexity around that, take into consideration the outcomes the business wants, and then mashing that altogether into a great customer experience and good business outcomes. So AI has always been at the at the heart of that. It's the only way. It's, you know, a big caveat of belief that's the only way way to actually scale that. When it comes to gen gen AI, at the moment, people are trying to claim it and use it absolutely everywhere. And, at Coveo, we believe that it really has its place, and it's really valuable in certain elements of of the customer journey and not so valuable in in others. There are smarter, quicker, cheaper ways to use AI rather than going down the route of Gen AI. So from Coveo standpoint, we've been building AI models for about ten years, and we work hand in hand with the customers that we have to to make sure that the models work for the businesses and industries that we're in. And they power, things like our semantic search and our AI recommendations. And and they essentially, what that's there to do is to ensure that people can find the right products in as few clicks as possible so that they don't witness any frustration when they're trying to find the products that they need, which is especially important for b two b when a transaction just needs to get done and there's a lot less of the inspiration required within within the space. When it comes to generative answering, very much like Alison just said, you know, it's it's super interesting in terms of that space and how depending on what the data is that you that we have on a customer that we work with, that will level up what can be done with GenAI. So, obviously, we always have all of the product data, but where it really comes into its own is when we've indexed all of the content as well. And I actually think that the b to b space has a really interesting opportunity to kind of leapfrog that of the b to c space when it comes to the utilization of GenAI. Because in b to b, you're forced a lot of the time to make a lot of content and documents. And those can be safety sheets, spec sheets, how how these things should be used, be it certain types of chemicals all the way through to components and parts. And so all of that information is there for people to explore manually. But, actually, when it comes to generative AI, that's when it gets really interesting when somebody has a question on, you know, what kind of sealant can I use in a food situation where it's gonna be x y zed? And the response can spit out grounded in the content that is indexed for that customer, and in the realm of of the product set that are that is available, the right answer for them. And I think that's also interesting for the sales team members as well who might wanna use that same system to help support them during during a sales call with a customer to help them place an order. So Gen AI, I think, will help both elements there, and it will be it will be, a super interesting time for to see this change the way people shop. Absolutely. It'll be, very interesting to see how that how that plays out. Allison, anything else you'd like to share about the value of the the Salesforce Coveo partnership from a customer perspective? Oh, absolutely. Coveo is such a great partner of ours. And you heard the examples Sergio just gave. So, really, with Salesforce and Coveo at the helm of your customer experience strategy, you can't go wrong. Right? We we work really hard. We have a great partnership, in order to deliver relevant personalized customer experiences at scale. Sergio gave some really great examples already, but, just to share a couple more. I mean, I assume we have quite a few manufacturers on the line, maybe some consumer packaged goods, maybe some medical device or HLS companies. Whoever you are, I think you know all too well that finding the right replacement part or, you know, whatever that product or SKU may be can be pretty tedious. So, Sergio was just kind of talking through this a little bit. Coveo together with b two b commerce eases that burden. It eases that manual effort, works really hard to serve you that relevant personalized result quickly and on the channels you wanna use so that your customers can find what they're looking for faster and more efficiently, and your products are more discoverable and accessible. Got it. So, Sergio, what's the best way for b two b organizations to get started with your solutions? Yeah. Gavin, to Allison, thank you for that because that's a really great way of summarizing every, everything that we do together. So thank you very much. I think the the best way to to kind of get involved and and establish potential next steps is to just speak to us. I'm just gonna be super honest. We only wanna work with the businesses where we think we're gonna drive a lot of value, because that works best for for both parties. So the first thing would be to to reach out to us and, you know, have a conversation, and it'll be very exploratory and open, to genuinely see if there's a good fit. If there is, or if it's if there's kind of a next kind of step required to see what it's like to use Coveo, then we have something that's called the AI experience pilot, which is, a simple five step process to witnessing the power that Coveo can bring to the b to b ecommerce store without the need to have everything fully implemented. It's a lightweight way of seeing what we do. And I think this is a great place to start because you can see how Kuvea could index the products, how it can show the the products of a virus search with maybe some more obscure, terms or terms that we're detecting people are actually using on your site. So, yeah, it's a great way for us to use your real site data, your real product, catalog to showcase how Coveo could could drive that search. Great. So we've we've talked about lots of exciting capabilities that are current currently available for b to b sellers through the the Salesforce and Coveo offerings. Like to look out a little further as we start to wrap up here. What does the future hold for Gen AI and b to b commerce? Allison, you wanna go first on that one? Sure. Happy to. You know, we've kind of been talking about it this whole time, but generative AI is really transforming the market. I mean, Sergio kind of talked about this a little bit earlier too. This idea of the consumerization of b two b, and it's accelerating fast. So generative AI helps deliver those fast, rich, and consumer like experiences to b two b buyers and users in their day to day lives. With sixty four percent of respondents in our State of Commerce report saying that meeting customer expectations is harder than ever. I think now is time is the time to really look at your digital strategy. Right? You're trying to achieve this virtual cycle of acquiring, engaging, and converting, and then retaining customers on several different channels and touch points, and it's hard to bring it all together. AI can help you do that in the right way, right? To Sergio's point, AI can make you more efficient. It can set you apart from competitors. So I'd say make sure you have a point of view and really suss out what you want your business to look like. And here's a tip. I think it should always, always, always involve the customer at the center of everything you do. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. So, Sergio, what does your crystal ball tell you about the the future of GenAI and its impact on b to b commerce? Yeah. I I I hold strong on this idea that I think GenAI is gonna impact the b to b space, more than it will impact the b to c space, at least for the next couple of years. So I'm I'm really interested to see how that changes how how people shop in in b two b. And I think for me, you you know, that that's all well and good, and it is super exciting. But, everyone needs to make sure that they're exploring Gen AI properly, that they have a true strategy around it, and that they are focusing on where it's genuinely gonna drive value. There's lots of shiny objects out there that are called Gen AI and even sometimes when they're not Gen AI. And that that doesn't make any sense to me. It's it's, you know, you've got AI and you've got Gen AI, and they are very much within the same family, obviously, but you need to make sure you're utilizing it in the right way. So having your strategy in place, is is extremely important. So I'm not gonna repeat what Allison said. I think she summed it up really, really well. And, yeah, I just I'm excited for b two b using this technology. I think it's gonna be gonna be game changing, and it's gonna change the way people shop. Yeah. Lots to look forward to there. No doubt. Would love to get some closing thoughts or key takeaways from each of you. Sergio, we'll start with you. Yeah. You know, I think if if anyone listening today feels like they don't have a good, general, not just Gen AI, but AI strategy in in place at the moment, and a good place to start is around your search and your product discovery. It's one of the areas in which AI models can be productionized well, efficiently, at relatively good cost, and definitely in a value driving way, then that is something to explore straight away. If you feel like you've kind of got yourself at a really good place now and it's about exploring what's next, then I think it's a good time to take count on, you know, what kinds of models are you using, what technology is behind that, how are you using it throughout the business, not just on the direct commerce channel, but as I mentioned before, like, maybe for the sales team members or even further than that, maybe for the customer support teams as well. And then, yes, having a strategy around what is the future. What is the future for Gen AI, and how is it gonna change your business, is is the next most important step. But you can explore those last two points, I think, in tandem. You know? Can I get make sure that my great base level AI is throughout the business and then explore Gen AI? You can do those at the same at the same time. So, yeah, if you feel like you have all the in house power to to do that, then you can use resources that, businesses like ourselves and and others and all the way up to to to, Amazon and Google and everyone else and Facebook put out there to to make that possible. Or you can essentially outsource that AI innovation and staying ahead of the game to a provider like, Coveo in this instance as an AI platform. Yeah. Okay. That's great guidance. Thank you. Allison, your closing thoughts, please. Yeah. I think Sergio, said it nicely. I think I'd just add that, you know, most customers we speak to agree that revenue growth productivity and integrating AI to save time and deliver exceptional customer experiences are the top three must dos right now. So when you're looking at ways that you can drive growth and introduce new AI features that enhance your customer experience, I think I'd just say to remember that you can start small. Right? Definitely have a plan, have a strategy, but you can always start small and grow bigger as you need to. Embedded commerce can help you activate commerce and sales service and marketing channels so you can stay lean on resources, create that single source of truth for your customer interactions, and then choosing a great partner like Coveo on top of it to enhance and extend your experience will absolutely help you deliver on the promise of personalization. So I think definitely have a point of view, definitely have a strategy, but know that there are ways to get started quickly to start driving that revenue growth and harnessing the true value of AI across your business. Great. That that's a great point to end on. Sergio and Allison, thanks so much for your time and insights today. Thanks for having us. Thank you. And thank you for joining us. For more information, check out the additional resources on this page. Foundry and Salesforce, I'm Rob O'Regan. Be well, everyone.