It was mentioned awhile back that many sales organizations/professionals have a problem when customers self-serve on the Web and enter the sales process further along then they are used to. A “cookie -cutter” response and the resultant adjustments to this were described in Marketing Plans for Service Businesses , by Professor Malcolm McDonald

One-to-one communications and principles of relationship marketing,
then, demand a radically different sales process from that traditionally
practised in service organizations. This point is far from academic, as an
example will illustrate.

The company in question provides business-to-business financial services.
Its marketing managers relayed to us their early experience with a
website which was enabling them to reach new customers considerably
more cost-effectively than their traditional sales force. When the website
was first launched, potential customers were finding the company on the
Web, deciding the products were appropriate on the basis of the website,
and sending an email to ask to buy. So far, so good.

But stuck in the traditional model of the sales process, the company
would allocate the ‘lead’ to a salesperson, who would telephone and make
an appointment, perhaps three weeks hence. The customer would by now
probably have moved on to another online supplier who could sell the product
today, but those that remained were subjected to a sales pitch, complete
with glossy materials, which was totally unnecessary, the customer having
already decided to buy. Those that were not put off would proceed to be
registered as able to buy over the Web, but the company had lost the opportunity
to improve its margins by using the sales force more judiciously.

In time, the company realized its mistake, and changed its sales model
and reward systems to something close to our ‘interaction perspective’
model. Unlike those prospects which the company proactively identified
and contacted, which might indeed need ‘selling’ to, many new Web customers
were initiating the dialogue themselves, and simply required
the company to respond effectively and rapidly. The sales force were
increasingly freed up to concentrate on major clients and on relationship
building.
The changing nature of the sales process clearly raises questions for the
design of marketing communication, such as: Who initiates the dialogue,
and how do we measure the effectiveness of our attempts to do so across
multiple channels? How do we monitor the effectiveness not just of what
we say to customers but what they say back? And how about the role of
marketing communications as part of the value that is being delivered and
paid for, not just as part of the sales cost?

Thanks to Simon Backer for telling me about Professor McDonald this AM.