Business-to-Business Internet Marketing, Fourth Edition - Lifecycle ...

Executing E-fulfillment 161
information requests, however, no system could solve the requirement
that something physical needed to be sent to the prospect.
Then the Internet came along, and e-fulfillment was born. Although
fulfilling an inquiry electronically is not appropriate in every situation,
it does go a long way toward making an instant, nonphysical response.
In fact, the Internet presents the b-to-b marketer with the unique ability
to instantly fulfill inquiries online—no paper required! It scales beautifully,
so hundreds, thousands, or even millions of inquiries can be handled
electronically.
The Internet has changed the world of order fulfillment as well.
Now e-commerce users can instantly acknowledge orders via e-mail.
Order processing can be automated or outsourced to an online fulfillment
service. Customers can track their own shipments online and make
inquiries electronically. In addition, if the product being fulfilled is information
or software, a customer’s order can actually be “shipped”
online. One far-reaching example is the travel industry. Online fulfillment
has already changed the way airlines do business by allowing them
to take large-scale advantage of electronic ticketing.
In this chapter, we will explore the growing area of e-fulfillment.
You will discover how you can use e-fulfillment to dramatically reduce
your costs, increase your efficiency, and improve prospect and customer
satisfaction.
Traditional Fulfillment: An Aging Process
If your product or service is sold through any kind of sales channel, you
deal with inquiries. Although most b-to-b marketers have a process for
inquiry handling, it differs significantly from company to company.
Inquiries come in from a variety of sources—advertising, direct mail,
trade shows, public relations, and the like—but until the company determines
the quality of the inquiry, it should not be considered a lead. A
classic case in point is the reader service number that appears at the
bottom of ads in many trade publications. The original purpose of the
reader service number was for the publication to prove to the advertiser
that the ad was working—in effect, to protect ad revenues.
You know the way it works: The publication assigns a reader service
number to your ad. The reader circles that number, along with