As part of the ritual of examining local commerce and SMB Saas strategies, Localogy goes right to the source: SMBs themselves. How do they feel about marketing and operational software? What features do they want? And how has their hunger changed in a post-pandemic world? This is all a moving target.
Localogy’s Modern Commerce Monitor (MCM) answers these and other questions across the SMB SaaS product set, which we preview in this Benchmark Bytes series. And we recently entered a new chapter of this series, with highlights from the latest wave (8.0) of Modern Commerce Monitor.
After examining SMB satisfaction levels with in-person software sales, we drill down this week into those who aren’t satisfied. For those who aren’t happy with the experience, what went wrong? How did the sales representative rub them the wrong way? This can be a key finding for software vendors.
Data Dive
– To recap last week’s findings, SMBs are largely happy with in-person software sales interactions
– The largest group of respondents (28 percent) reported the highest level of satisfaction (“extremely satisfied”)
– The second most popular sentiment (27 percent) was “neutral.”
– Next on the list was “slightly satisfied” (21 percent).
– “Very Satisfied” was the next highest survey response at 14 percent.
– The lowest response was “not at all satisfied,” which was reported by 9 percent of respondents.
– To pick things up this week with that last bullet, the key question is why?
– The top answer by far was that the salesperson in question wasn’t well prepared.
– This sentiment was felt by 77 percent of respondents, 52 percentage points more than the next-highest answer.
– This sentiment has also grown considerably, up from 49 percent in Wave 7 and 35 percent in Wave 6.
– The second most popular sentiment (25 percent) was that the salesperson didn’t seem knowledgeable
– This figure is down considerably from 51 percent in Wave 7, and 56 percent in Wave 6.
– Third on the list at 14 percent is that “the salesperson didn’t listen to me.
– This result has also plummeted from previous waves.
– Other results on the list include overly aggressive salespeople (11 percent), unresponsive reps (11 percent), a lack of understanding about the SMBs’ business (11 percent), and a seeming disinterest in solving the SMBs’ issues (9 percent).
– Altogether the dominant reason for SMB dissatisfaction with in-person software sales reps comes down to a lack of effort.
– When combining the top two reasons for dissatisfaction – ill-prepared and under-educated – they both stem from a similar lack of effort by a given salesperson.
– Given the dominance of this particular sentiment, all signs point to this being the top thing that sales reps (and sales organizations more broadly) should work on. Tweaking this could have an outsized impact…
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Long-Tail Opportunity
Stepping back, SMB online marketing – as well as operational and fintech tools – continues to grow rapidly. SMB SaaS startups and online service providers are correspondingly thriving as it continues to grow as a leading subsector of the broader SaaS universe. There’s a long-tail opportunity at play.
Meanwhile, new SMB SaaS users could represent permanent adopters – a concept that accelerated in the Covid era as SMBs were forced into digital transformation. This sent them into the arms of SaaS providers (where many have stayed) to accomplish a range of marketing and operational functions.
We’ll return in the next installment to go deeper into Localogy original survey research. That will include SMB goals and success factors. Let us know what additional insights jump out at you from the above data, and stay tuned for more breakdowns in our Benchmark Bytes series.
