You invested in an e-commerce site or customer portal.
It works. But customers still call their sales representatives or email customer service to place routine orders.
Your sales team says customers prefer it that way.
Maybe that is what the numbers show. It does not mean customers have rejected e-commerce.
Before you blame the platform or the buyer, look at what your representatives believe they will lose when customers start ordering online.
The Site Is Live. So Why Aren’t Customers Using It?
A working e-commerce site does not automatically change customer behavior.
Your customers already know how to place an order. They have a representative they trust, an email address saved in their contacts, or someone in customer service who knows their account.
The process may be inefficient, but it is familiar.
Someone has to show the customer why the new process is better. Usually, that person is not in marketing. It is the salesperson or customer service representative who already has the relationship.
They can show the customer how to see account pricing, repeat an order, check order history, or place an order after hours.
But that conversation only happens when the person having it believes the site helps the customer and supports their role.
When the site appears to threaten the commission, the account, or the relationship, the representative keeps handling orders manually.
The dashboard shows weak adoption. It shows the outcome. It does not tell you why it happened.
Before You Blame Sales, Check the Customer Experience
Sometimes your website is the problem.
Customers will not adopt inaccurate pricing, incomplete product information, poor search, confusing navigation, or a painful checkout process. They will not keep using a portal that turns a two-minute email into a fifteen-minute scavenger hunt.
Ask several established customers to complete common tasks while your team observes. Find where they struggle. Make sure the experience works for the transactions you want customers to complete online.
Then move on.
When the site works and established customers still stay offline, stop looking only at the technology.
Look at what your sales team is rewarded to do and what they believe online ordering will take away from them.
Your Sales Team Is Protecting More Than a Commission Check
Start with the obvious conflict.
A sales representative manages a customer account. Orders from that account count toward the representative’s quota, commission, or performance.
Then the company launches an e-commerce site and asks the rep to encourage the customer to order online.
Often, the sales-credit rules are unclear. Or worse, online orders visibly cut the rep’s income. Either way, the safe move is to keep the customer offline.
Leadership is effectively saying:
- Grow your accounts.
- Promote online ordering.
- Lose commission or sales credit when customers use it.
That is backwards.
But money is not the whole issue.
A good salesperson may also believe that moving the customer online will reduce access to the account. Fewer calls could mean fewer chances to hear about an upcoming project, a service problem, a changing requirement, or a competitor trying to get in.
The rep may worry that the company will eventually treat the customer as an online account rather than their account. They may fear losing responsibility for the customer, visibility into changing needs, and opportunities to expand the business.
Those concerns are not irrational. Some are legitimate.
You can weaken a relationship by pushing every interaction online and assuming convenience will replace human attention. A routine order may reveal a change in demand. A question about availability may point to a larger problem.
The answer is not to force every interaction onto the website.
It is to decide which interactions need a salesperson and which do not.
Key takeaway
When e-commerce threatens a representative’s income, account ownership, or customer access, resistance is predictable. Align the incentives, preserve responsibility for the account, and use the time saved online to grow the relationship.
Stop Making the Website Compete With the Rep
Another launch meeting will not fix this. Neither will a reminder that management supports e-commerce.
A few talking points cannot overcome a system that makes online ordering look like a loss.
The fix has three parts.
Protect the Representative’s Stake in the Account
A representative should not be financially penalized when a customer from that representative’s account orders through the channel the company wants the customer to use.
The exact credit rules will vary. The principle should not.
The representative also needs to know that moving routine transactions online does not mean giving up responsibility for the customer.
Current industry research supports that approach.
In The State of E-Commerce in North American Wholesale Distribution, Distribution Strategy Group surveyed 896 respondents from distributors and manufacturers.
The report found that 53.1% ranked field sales representatives as the most effective driver of e-commerce demand. Field sales was ranked first two and a half times more frequently than any other channel. In total, 85.6% placed field sales among their three most effective drivers.
The report also found that successful distributors give representatives credit for online revenue generated by their accounts.
Once online orders stop looking like lost income or lost ownership, representatives have a reason to help customers use the site.
Move the Right Transactions Online
Not every interaction belongs on a website.
A complex application, unusual product requirement, urgent problem, or important account decision may require an experienced person.
But routine reorders, order-status checks, invoice retrieval, order-history reviews, and straightforward after-hours orders often do not.
Moving those transactions online does not reduce service. It gives the customer another useful way to do business with you.
This is the same principle behind competing effectively with the large B2B e-commerce companies.
You do not win by choosing between digital convenience and human expertise. You win by using each where it adds the most value.
Replace Routine Contact With Growth Contact
A representative taking the same reorder every month may feel like relationship building.
It is often order administration.
Routine contact still has value. It keeps the representative present and can surface small signals about the account. But it should not be the primary way the representative proves value or grows the relationship.
The customer already knows what to buy. The representative receives the order, enters it, and confirms what the customer already decided.
Now compare that with a representative who reviews purchasing patterns, notices a change, calls to understand what is happening, and uncovers a new project or unmet need.
Both involve customer contact.
Only one grows the relationship.
When routine transactions move online, representatives should use the recovered time deliberately. They should spot product opportunities in the customer’s purchasing history, discuss upcoming projects or changes in demand, and uncover service risks before they cost you the account.
That is enough to change the value of the conversation.
Salespeople should also tell you where the online experience is failing. They hear complaints, questions, and workarounds that never appear in an analytics report.
This is not about making fewer customer contacts. It is about making better ones.
The website handles transactions that do not require expertise. The salesperson uses expertise to deepen the account.
Routine orders crowd out the work that makes a salesperson hard to replace: understanding the customer’s operation, anticipating needs, solving problems, and finding growth.
Measure the change by account, not just by total cart revenue.
Track which customers moved routine reorders online and which tried the site but returned to phone or email. Then look at what the representative did with the recovered time.
Did it lead to better account planning, new product opportunities, and more useful customer conversations? Or did it simply lead to fewer calls?
Total online revenue will not answer that.
Turn the Conflict Into an Advantage
Your sales representatives know which customers place the same orders repeatedly. They know which accounts call after hours. They know where product selection becomes complicated and where it does not.
They also know what the dashboard cannot tell you: which customer is frustrated, which account is changing, and which competitor is trying to get in.
That knowledge makes them essential to your e-commerce strategy.
Customers increasingly expect to research products, check information, reorder, and move forward without contacting a representative every time.
Giving them that ability does not eliminate the relationship. It respects their time.
A company that forces every routine interaction through a salesperson is not necessarily providing better service. It may simply be making itself harder to buy from.
The goal is not to replace the representative with a shopping cart.
The goal is to let the customer use the shopping cart when it is the easiest option and reach a knowledgeable person when judgment and experience matter.
If your e-commerce investment is underperforming, first make sure the customer experience works. Then protect the representative’s stake in the account, move the right transactions online, and hold the salesperson accountable for using the recovered time to grow the relationship.
Your people will follow the system you give them.
Change that system, and the sales team that appeared to be killing your e-commerce site may become your strongest e-commerce advantage.
Ready to Find What Is Holding Back Your Growth?
Weak e-commerce adoption is rarely an isolated website problem. It may involve your customer experience, sales incentives, account strategy, marketing, and internal processes.
Book a Strategy Call to identify the problems that matter most and determine what to fix first.
Not ready for a conversation? Take the Hidden Pipeline Assessment to see where buyers may be struggling to find, trust, or choose your company.
Meet Bob DeStefano
Bob DeStefano is the President of SVM Industrial Marketing. For more than 30 years, he has helped manufacturers and distributors get found, trusted, and chosen by the right buyers.
- 30+ years helping manufacturers and distributors
- University of Innovative Distribution faculty member
- Author of The Hidden Pipeline
