What Modern B2B Buyers Expect—And How Omnichannel Delivers

Have you ever tried buying something from a company and felt like you had to restart the entire conversation every time you switched from email to phone to website?

Now imagine your customers—who are juggling complex purchases, tight timelines, and multiple internal stakeholders—having that same fragmented, clunky experience with your business.

Not ideal, right?

The same is true for your B2B customers. Today’s B2B buyers expect a seamless, Amazon-like experience—smooth, consistent, and painless across every channel. 

In other words, they expect a true omnichannel experience when doing business with you. Research from McKinsey found that a whopping 94% of B2B buyers say the new omnichannel model is as effective—or more effective—than the old-school in-person-only one. And the number of channels buyers use has doubled in just a few years.

But, even though buyers want omnichannel, many B2B sellers are still fumbling the handoff between channels. Why? Because they treat each channel like a silo instead of part of a larger, synchronized experience.

In this blog post, we’ll break down what omnichannel sales really means for B2B businesses, why it’s non-negotiable in today’s market, and how automation tools like CRMs and analytics platforms help you create a winning strategy. 

Whether you’re launching your first omnichannel effort or scaling an existing one, this guide will show you how to meet buyers where they are and turn opportunities into lasting success. 

Let’s dive in.

The Chaos of Today’s B2B Buyer Journey

Gone are the days when B2B sales meant boardroom meetings and signed contracts. Today’s buyers are online, mobile, and doing their homework before ever talking to a rep. 

They might browse your website, engage on LinkedIn, ask a question via email, and jump on a call—all in the same journey. 

To give them a truly omnichannel buying experience, every one of your channels need to track their behaviour and know exactly where they left off. 

Because your B2B customers don’t want to repeat themselves, face delays, or deal with inconsistent information. If your channels operate like silos—think multichannel, not omnichannel—you’re risking frustration, lost deals, and churn. 

In fact, 82% of B2B decision-makers will seek new suppliers if you can’t deliver seamless interactions. Omnichannel sales, powered by automation, is the solution to keep these valuable buyers engaged and loyal to your brand.

Omnichannel vs. Multichannel

Let’s clear up the confusion:

• Multichannel means you’re present on multiple channels—website, email, phone, social media—but they don’t talk to each other. It’s like having five sales reps working independently, each unaware of the others’ actions.
• Omnichannel integrates those channels into a unified experience, like one rep who knows everything the buyer has said, no matter the touchpoint. It’s a synchronized system that feels effortless to the customer.

The difference is critical. Multichannel is company-centric, forcing buyers to navigate your structure. Omnichannel is customer-centric, adapting to their needs. 

Automation is the key to bridging the gap, ensuring every channel works together to deliver a consistent, personalized experience.

Why Omnichannel Sales Are Non-Negotiable

Today’s B2B buyers aren’t just informed, they’re armed to the teeth with information, connections, and options. They research on LinkedIn while sipping their morning coffee, check competitor pricing before lunch, and expect your sales team to know exactly what was discussed in last week’s Zoom call.

Which means they expect to be able to move effortlessly between every one of those touchpoints without hitting a single snag. 

If your website doesn’t reflect the latest conversation they had with your rep, or your e-commerce portal is still showing last quarter’s pricing, you’re not just inconveniencing them—you’re practically sending them away to shop with your competitors.

That’s why omnichannel sales, powered by automation, isn’t a “nice-to-have.” It’s the minimum requirement these days to do business in this sphere.

First, it’s about meeting buyer expectations in a way that feels seamless and personal. Buyers want consistency—whether they’re talking to your sales rep, browsing your product catalog online, or chatting with your support team. 

Automation tools like CRMs pull every scrap of information—website visits, email exchanges, phone call notes—into a single, living customer profile. That means no matter where they are in their buying journey, they get the same polished, relevant experience every time.

Then there’s the growth factor. Omnichannel strategies make it easier for buyers to engage, evaluate, and purchase—no friction, no confusion. 

Automation kicks that into overdrive by streamlining the process so deals close faster, order values grow, and your operational costs stay lean. The result? More revenue in your pocket without adding extra headcount or ballooning overhead.

And don’t underestimate the competitive pressure. The companies that embraced omnichannel automation early are already moving faster, selling smarter, and capturing more market share. 

Fall behind now, and catching up won’t just be hard—it might be impossible. Automation keeps you nimble, able to pivot with the market, and ready to meet shifts in buyer behavior before they even become trends.

Why Most B2B Businesses Fail at Omnichannel 

The number one reason B2B companies fail at omnichannel? Lack of a complete customer view.

When you can’t see the full buyer journey—from first click to final contract—your communication becomes fragmented, your marketing gets fuzzy, and your sales reps are flying blind.

So how do you fix it? The secret sauce is integration—not just in your tech, but in your mindset. Here’s what top-performing B2B companies are doing to nail their omnichannel strategy:

1. Customer Centricity

Let’s be honest: most companies still build sales strategies around what’s convenient for them, not what’s useful for the customer.

That’s a fatal mistake. The best B2B businesses build omnichannel strategies from the outside in. They study real customer behavior, review buying journeys, conduct interviews, and analyze data logs to understand what buyers actually want at each stage.

One tech giant did exactly this and launched a pilot program with over 450 customers to test new experiences. The result? More sales, happier customers, and less churn.

Lesson learned: the better you understand your buyer’s journey, the smoother you can make it—and the more they’ll reward you with loyalty.

2. A Holistic Channel Strategy

Here’s a common trap: You launch an eCommerce portal, hire an inside sales team, build up your field reps, and... let them all fight it out.

Don’t do that. Chaos isn’t a strategy.

Instead, define the role of each channel clearly:

• Field sales = high-touch relationship building
• Inside sales = quicker consults and deal nurturing
• eCommerce = fast, repeatable self-service
• Distributors = market reach and local expertise

One specialty chemicals company did just that. They didn’t just add channels—they restructured their whole go-to-market strategy with three dedicated sales channels plus a support system that included:

• Lead generation using market data
• A digital upgrade to their online presence
• A customer service hub for fulfilment

The outcome? More touchpoints, better flexibility, and way more happy customers.

3. Proactively Manage Channel Conflict

We've all encountered the classic B2B channel conflict. Sales reps get twitchy when you roll out eCommerce. Distributors feel threatened. Everyone’s guarding their turf.

Sound familiar? But here’s the twist: companies who lean into the conflict come out stronger.

One industrial tech firm tackled this head-on. They mapped customer segments, analyzed purchasing behaviors, and even used war gaming to anticipate how partners and competitors would react to a new omnichannel approach.

The result? A smart segmentation strategy that matched the right channel with the right customer—without stepping on anyone’s toes ).

4. Digitally Powered Sales & Marketing

You can’t deliver a seamless experience with outdated spreadsheets and guesswork.

Top-performing B2B companies are investing in digitally-enabled selling—and the numbers back it up.

Take the case of an agricultural distributor. They pulled together data from multiple streams to:

• Generate lead lists personalszed for each rep
• Use analytics dashboards to track real-time performance
• Launch hyper-targeted digital campaigns to drive conversions

But the tech wasn’t the end game—it was the insight it delivered that helped them move faster, sell smarter, and scale efficiently.

Digital doesn’t replace your team. It amplifies their effectiveness.

5. Agile Cross-Functional Teams

If your marketing team is running in one direction, your sales team in another, and IT is off doing its own thing... you’ve got an alignment problem.

Modern omnichannel success depends on agile collaboration.

One travel company built a new B2B platform in just four months by assembling cross-functional agile teams—developers, designers, business managers, and sales leaders. Weekly sprints, rapid decision-making, and real-time demos kept the momentum alive.

The result? A functional platform that didn’t just “check the box,” but created a cohesive, cross-channel experience buyers actually used.

The Power of Automation in Omnichannel Sales

Coordinating multiple channels manually is a recipe for chaos. Leads get lost. Data gets duplicated or outdated. Buyers get frustrated because they have to explain themselves… again.

Business automation software—think CRMs, marketing automation platforms, analytics tools—solves this chaos and turns your sales operation into a smooth, responsive, and hyper-efficient machine.

1. Unified Customer View

It starts with the unified customer view. Platforms like Salesforce or HubSpot pull data from every interaction—web visits, emails, sales calls—into one cohesive profile. 

Which means your team instantly knows where a buyer left off, what they care about, and what’s been promised. The buyer never has to repeat themselves, and your reps always show up prepared. 

2. Streamlined Workflows

Next, streamlined workflows keep buyers moving without bottlenecks. A lead who clicks on your LinkedIn ad might automatically receive a personalised follow-up email, trigger a calendar invite for a discovery call, or get engaged by a chatbot—without anyone on your team lifting a finger. The process is continuous, smooth, and perfectly timed, keeping momentum high.

3. Reduced Errors

Then there’s error reduction. Automated processes standardize everything from pricing to follow-ups, cutting out costly mistakes. With automated lead scoring, your highest-value prospects rise to the top instantly, so your team spends less time chasing the wrong opportunities and more time closing the right ones.

4. Time and Cost Savings

Finally, the time and cost savings are staggering. Automation eats repetitive tasks for breakfast—data entry, order tracking, updating CRMs—and hands that time back to your team for high-value work like relationship building and strategic planning. Accenture estimates automation could unlock $3.7 trillion for U.S. companies in productivity gains by 2025. That’s not just efficiency—that’s an entire growth strategy in disguise.

When you bring it all together—unified data, seamless workflows, error-free execution, and massive productivity gains—you’re not just selling across multiple channels. You’re delivering a sales experience so fluid, so consistent, and so buyer-friendly that it becomes a competitive weapon in its own right.

Benefits That Will Transform Your Business

When you marry omnichannel sales with automation, you’re not just making incremental improvements—you’re rewiring your business for growth, efficiency, and resilience. 

Suddenly, every interaction with a buyer feels intentional, connected, and effortless. And in B2B, where trust and relationships matter just as much as price and product, that’s a game-changer.

1. Enhanced Buyer Experience

Let’s start with the buyer experience. Imagine a customer who moves from browsing your catalog online to speaking with a sales rep, then placing a follow-up order through your e-commerce portal. With automation, every touchpoint picks up exactly where the last one left off. 

They don’t need to repeat themselves. They don’t need to guess whether the discount they saw yesterday still applies today. Instead, every channel delivers a consistent, personalized interaction that makes them feel like they’re your most important customer. That feeling builds loyalty—and loyalty builds lifetime value.

2. Increased Revenue

With the right automation tools in place, your systems can trigger timely cross-sell and upsell opportunities based on real-time buyer behavior. 

If a customer orders a specific product, your platform can instantly suggest complementary items, much like a knowledgeable sales rep would—but it happens automatically, 24/7. 

This reduces friction, shortens buying cycles, and nudges order values higher without adding extra workload to your team.

3. Reduced Churn

In B2B, churn is the silent killer. Studies show that 82% of buyers will switch suppliers if their expectations aren’t met. Automation helps you hold onto your customers by ensuring the experience is seamless and consistent. Abandoned cart? They get a timely follow-up. Lapsed account? They receive a personalized re-engagement offer. 

These small, automated touches add up to stronger relationships and fewer lost accounts.

4. Improved Efficiency

Automation takes repetitive, time-sucking tasks like manual data entry, lead tracking, and basic order updates off your plate entirely. Your team is freed up to focus on what actually drives sales: building relationships, solving customer problems, and closing deals.

5. Scalability

Whether you’re onboarding twice as many customers next quarter or breaking into a new global market, your automated systems adapt without adding complexity. The same infrastructure that serves 100 customers can serve 1,000, without collapsing under the weight of new data or processes.

6. Better Decision-Making

Automation sharpens your decision-making. With real-time analytics, you can see exactly which channels are delivering the highest ROI, which campaigns are underperforming, and which buyers are ready for outreach. 

That means no more flying blind. If a sales channel starts to slow, you can pivot instantly, reallocating resources to where they’ll have the biggest impact.

7. Innovation

And finally, the often-overlooked benefit: innovation. When your people aren’t bogged down in the mechanics of sales, they have space to think creatively—to explore new markets, test digital campaigns, or experiment with fresh go-to-market strategies. That’s how you stay ahead of the competition, not just keep pace with them.

Real-World Example: Omnichannel in Action

Take an agricultural input distributor that was struggling with fragmented sales channels. Every division had its own spreadsheets, its own leads, and its own view of the customer. Communication lagged. Opportunities slipped through the cracks.

Then they implemented a CRM to unify their customer data and introduced automation to streamline lead generation and campaign execution. Overnight, sales reps began receiving personalised lead lists built from live data streams—lists that told them exactly which prospects to target and with which offers. Conversion rates climbed.

Live dashboards tracked performance across every channel in real time, making it easy to spot what was working and double down—while quietly shelving what wasn’t. Automated marketing campaigns delivered hyper-relevant content across email, social media, and the company’s e-commerce platform, ensuring that each buyer saw the right message in the right place at the right time.

The results? Higher sales, lower costs, and a measurable increase in buyer satisfaction. 

It was proof that when omnichannel and automation work together, they don’t just solve problems—they unlock opportunities.

Conclusion

Think about the B2B brands that make buying from them almost too easy. The ones that greet you with familiarity on every channel, anticipate your needs, and remove every ounce of friction from the process. They’ve cracked the omnichannel code—and they’ve done it with automation at the core.

If your business is still juggling disconnected systems, you’re not just slowing yourself down—you’re bleeding opportunity. 

Omnichannel sales, powered by automation, is your ticket to faster growth, lower costs, and happier customers. From creating a unified customer view to streamlining workflows and fostering innovation, automation transforms your sales process into a competitive advantage.

Don’t let disconnected channels cost you another deal. Take the first step today—and start delivering the kind of seamless buying experience B2B buyers now expect as standard.