Why all customer-facing functions should be enabled to increase revenue

How much business are you losing due to the limitations of your enablement programme? The traditional sales focus has become too narrow for current B2B buying practices, but many companies have yet to prioritise a more effective end-to-end revenue enablement strategy, even though Gartner reports that those who do are 80% more likely to exceed their growth targets¹.

So, why is this change in scope of your enablement programme so important, and what could it help you achieve?

Whereas sales enablement focuses only on the sales team, revenue enablement aims to provide appropriate content, tools, technology, and training – the four main pillars of an enablement strategy – for every function that has customer touch points. 

The reason this is so important is that it provides end-to-end alignment of different functions within the context of the revenue outcomes defined in your business strategy. 

With over half of millennial B2B buyers wanting a rep-free buying experience², and the B2B purchase process typically starting with the buyer doing their own online research, it’s clear that a revenue enablement strategy should include sales, marketing, customer success, and digital functions at the very least. 

But to maximise revenue, it should extend even wider, with channel partners and customer success teams also receiving the necessary enablement, to ensure a truly customer-focused frictionless buying experience. 

Revenue enablement extends beyond creating a one-off sale and through aligning the full customer journey enables organisations to focus on delivering customer value, and the outcome the customer was buying with the purchase of your solution. 

The customer success, sales and marketing interlock drives adoption, potentially leading both to future sales with the satisfied customer and to good reviews that will give new customers the confidence to choose your business over the competition.

How to start your revenue enablement journey

To get started with a revenue enablement programme, it’s necessary to analyse the customer journeys that your buyers may choose.

First, identify existing touch points. Taking this one step further, also think about any channels that your buyers may prefer but which are currently unavailable to them. Over what timeframe and budget might these be feasible?

Next, look at which functions are involved for every touch point. Are they siloed? If they are, opportunities may be squandered, because siloed teams, platforms and technologies prevent connections being made between data-driven insights along the buyer’s journey³. 

Removing silos to create a single source of enablement support also produces a consistent buyer experience, regardless of which channels potential buyers use to research your products and services. It removes the problem of different touch points providing conflicting or confusing information and centres your business processes on the whole buying experience and the measurable outcomes that are achieved. Getting this right can make a massive difference to your bottom line, with Gartner noting that B2B buyers who get consistent information from a supplier are almost 3x more likely to complete their high quality purchase¹.   

Increasing alignment between functions is essential to avoid the poor performance that can arise when there are a multitude of touch points and different customer-facing functions have incompatible KPIs⁴.

A unified experience

Revenue enablement unites business functions through shared KPIs and the processes and technology required to meet them. Putting the customer journey at the heart of all enablement activities keeps everyone’s focus on tangible results. Meeting revenue, renewal and customer retention goals is not just the remit of the sales team. Every function that comes into contact with the customer has a part to play. 

Changing focus from sales enablement to revenue enablement can improve more than your revenue and customer satisfaction figures, as it also affects company culture. This is because the need for shared KPIs encourages better communication between teams – and encourages mutual understanding and respect for the role of different functions in achieving shared goals, which can improve employee motivation and engagement, and ultimately employee retention.  

With the prospect of increased revenue, customer satisfaction, improved efficiencies, and a positive effect on employee morale, moving to a revenue enablement model should be a top priority for all B2B businesses this year.

If you’d like help sorting out an effective revenue enablement strategy, drop us a message – our expert team would love to run through your options with you! 

REFERENCES

¹https://www.gartner.com/en/sales/trends/revenue-enablement-strategic-roadmap

²https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/evolve-sales-enablement-to-support-revenue-operations

³https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2022/09/20/the-snowball-effect-ways-to-create-a-revenue-enablement-framework/

⁴https://www.gartner.com/en/articles/what-shifting-to-revenue-enablement-can-do-for-your-organization