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 the conditions under which SMBs are inclined to buy software on their own (versus interacting with sales reps) we now look at the opposite. Why and when do SMBs prefer to have live interactions with software salespeople? The answers can help SMB SaaS vendors plan accordingly.
Data Dive
– To recap previous findings, among SMBs who prefer automated sales processes, the top condition was if the product isn’t too complicated.
– They also expressed comfort in buying without the help of live sales reps as long as they have the option to do so if questions arise.
– Switching gears to this week’s featured data point, what conditions compel SMBs to conversely want to have live sales interactions?
– Similar to the above sentiment, the most popular SMB preference (71 percent) is to have a sales rep to turn to if there are questions or if something goes wrong in the onboarding process.
– Rated almost as high, 67 percent of SMB respondents “just prefer dealing with people versus machines.”
– Similarly, 59 percent claim that automated systems are difficult or frustrating to work with.
– 47 percent of SMB respondents meanwhile say that they don’t trust automated systems to get things right.
– Following closely behind, 46 percent of SMBs prefer to work with human sales reps because that allows them to negotiate for a better deal.
– Besides that last answer which carries some practicality, most of these SMB sentiments are a “gut thing” representing mistrust with emerging tech such as AI.
– These sentiments are fairly deep-rooted, meaning they aren’t likely to be swayed.
– Rather, generational shifts will be the biggest factor in changing such attitudes, as digital natives phase into the ranks of SMB proprietorship.
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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.
