The B2B Network facilitates community commerce amongst businesses hosted on the CRM.COM platform, enabling them to provide joint promotions against purchase customer events, fulfil orders and allow contacts to spend their wallet open balance within the network of businesses that have such an agreement in place.
Recommended Reading
In order to fully understand how the CRM.COM B2B Network operates, it’s highly recommended that you read the following manuals first before proceeding with this one:
THE BASICS
Before delving into the B2B Network, let’s get familiar with some fundamental terms commonly used in CRM.COM in relation to the B2B Network.
Business Owner
The Business Owner is the Business that extends its operations to other Businesses, inviting them to participate in its B2B Network. The Business Owner owns the contacts and engages in B2B co-operations with peer businesses to apply joined promotions or offer an aggregated product catalogue to its contacts.
Peer
A Peer is a Business that has been invited to join another Business’s B2B Network. Once accepted, the Peer is regarded as a B2B Merchant within the Business Owner's B2B Network and B2B Terms between the two are set. The B2B Merchant shares the same functionality and accessibility as a regular Merchant on the CRM.COM platform.
B2B Terms
In B2B terms, a common method of identifying a contact is agreed between the Business Owner and the Peer. This allows for unique identification of a contact when a purchase made at the Peer is also sent to the Business Owner.
Contact identification can be accomplished through one of the following methods: phone, email, wallet, or contact registry. It's important to note that the contact registry option is solely applicable and mandatory to be used by Businesses that share the same (Service Owner) contact registry.
B2B Spend
A business permits its contacts to spend the business wallet’s open money pocket (earned and redeemed from their purchases within that business or simply topped-up money) when making purchases at other businesses.
Refer to Appendix A for an example and diagram of a B2B Spend scenario.
'Guest' Contacts
In cases where a contact registered to Business A has made a purchase at a community Business B as an unregistered contact, then a contact by the name of ‘Guest [Business Name A]’ is created under Business B for the purpose of logging these purchases.
It should be noted that Guest contacts are never awarded.
B2B Settlement
This is the process whereby Business and Merchant accounts are debited or credited based on the agreement between them to fund and contribute to promotions and purchases. The settlement process can be configured to run at a set time interval from the Business Network settings.
B2B Commerce Pool
The B2B Commerce Pool model enables businesses to engage in community commerce by making their Commerce Pools accessible for other businesses to ‘join’ and use in their reward offers or wallet purchasing. Think of it as a community of businesses where a business can buy a pool of offerings (the commerce pool) from another business at better commercial terms to provide to its contacts. A business can award its contacts a commerce pool of another business; for example, a health insurance company awards a gym membership to its contacts.
Example
A bakery creates a Commerce Pool for products of type ‘bread’ and publishes the Commerce Pool. A florist ‘joins’ this Commerce Pool and creates an offer to award contacts a 5% cashback using the bakery’s Commerce Pool. A contact who purchases from the florist receives a 5% cashback, which can be spent when they purchase products classified as ‘bread’ from the bakery.
Refer to Appendix A for an example and diagram of this type of B2B Commerce Pool scenario.
Getting Started
Before we look at the setup of the B2B Network, let’s see an example of the most common type of B2B co-operation between two Businesses for rewards purposes, where a purchase created by the Peer business is also recorded and awarded by the Business Owner too.
Example
A Supermarket (Business Owner) approaches a Coffee Shop (B2B Merchant) for potential co-operation. The Coffee Shop accepts the co-operation invitation and sets up its own reward offers under the Supermarket’s environment using its (coffee) products (SKUs, brands, families, etc.). When a contact (known to both Businesses) purchases from one of the Coffee Shop venues, a purchase is created, and subsequently, the contact is awarded by the Coffee Shop. In addition, a second purchase is (automatically) submitted to the Supermarket, and the contact will also be awarded based on the reward offers created by the Coffee Shop in the Supermarket environment.
Note: There are variations to the scenario described above; for a complete set of scenarios, refer to Appendix A at the end of this document.
The B2B Network options are located on the sidebar menu under Business Network.
Creating & Managing the B2B Network
Sending an Invitation (by the Business Owner)
When a Business decides to create its own B2B Network, the first thing it must do is send out invitations to other Businesses to join its Network.
Navigate to Business Network > B2B > My B2B Invitations.
Invite Business
The Invite Business option allows the Business Owner to select and invite the Peers (businesses) they want to include in their B2B Network.
Once an invitation has been sent, the Business Owner will be able to see it and manage its progress. Notice that the state is ‘Pending’ and will remain so until the Peer accepts or rejects the invitation.
Possible invitation states are:
Pending - The Peer has not responded yet.
Approved - The Peer has accepted the invitation to be part of the B2B Network.
Rejected - The Peer does not wish to co-operate with the Business Owner.
Retracted - This state can be set by either the Business Owner or the Peer who no longer wishes to co-operate with the other party.
To re-invite a Peer, the Business Owner can select the ‘Reinstate’ option.
Invitations can be sent to any Business across the CRM.COM platform, irrespective of the Service Owner they belong to.
Responding to an Invitation (by the B2B Merchant)
A Peer can see their invites by navigating to Business Network > B2B > My B2B Invitations and responding by selecting either to accept or reject an invitation.
View and Manage Merchants (by a Business Owner)
Once a Peer has accepted the invitation of a Business Owner, the Peer becomes a Merchant on the Business Owner’s B2B Network. A Business Owner can manage their Merchants by navigating to Business Network > B2B > My B2B Merchants.
Click on the ellipses (…) and select Edit to view the B2B settings for a Merchant.
Commercial Terms
Only the Business Owner can set the Commercial Terms between the two parties. Refer to the Business Network manual to learn how to configure Commercial Terms for a Merchant.
B2B Terms
Only the Business Owner has permission to set the contact identification method that will be used for identifying contacts through purchase events. Bear in mind that whatever identification method is selected (phone, email or wallet), then the businesses front end systems (POS) should be configured to submit purchases to CRM.COM using this identification method as input. Note also that in these B2B scenarios, the contact often exists in both businesses, and CRM.COM applies resolution rules on how to apply rewards.
View Business Owners (by the B2B Merchant)
A Business can see its Peers (i.e. Business Owners to whom they are B2B Merchants) by navigating to Business Network > B2B > My B2B Peers.
The Business can masquerade as the B2B Merchant of the Business Owner in order to set up the offers and product catalogue available to the contacts of the Business Owner.
After masquerading, ensure that Live Mode is enabled by switching off the toggle at the bottom of the sidebar menu.
When a B2B Merchant user has masqueraded as the Business Owner, they can:
See their Venues by navigating to Business Network > My Venues. Note that in this B2B model, venues include both the venues and the merchants of the business.
See their products as configured in their Business, which can be used for B2B commerce (offers and product aggregation). Note that only products that are configured by the business as Accessible across B2B Network can be used (ROADMAPPED)
It should be noted that anything set up whilst masqueraded as a B2B Merchant of your Peer Business applies only to that Peer Business.
To switch back to the Business - select your logged-in user name at the top right-hand corner of the screen, and select Switch to… .
B2B Network Settings
The B2B Network settings vary depending on whether a user is signed in as the Business Owner or the B2B Merchant who has masqueraded as the Business Owner. Navigate to Settings > Business Network to manage the B2B Network settings.
B2B Settings for a Business Owner
See the options available in the Community Commerce section.
These are the B2B Network settings available for the Business Owner to configure.
B2B Spend
Enabling this option allows contacts who have accumulated an open wallet balance from your business (e.g. due to awards) to spend it when purchasing from other businesses on the CRM.COM platform.
Example using the Supermarket and Coffee Shop scenario described at the start of this document.
- The Supermarket enables the B2B Spend feature on the back-end system.
- James downloads the Supermarket app and accumulates awards and business pocket open balance in his wallet during his weekly supermarket shopping.
- James goes to the Coffee Shop to get a coffee and informs the cashier that he will pay using his wallet funds. He signs in to the Supermarket app and generates an OTP, which he gives to the cashier.
- James spends his Supermarket open wallet balance to pay for his coffee at the Coffee Shop.
Notes:
a) In this example, James may or may not be a registered contact of the Coffee Shop, but he uses his Supermarket app for spend requests.
b) James will also be able to spend/pay at the Coffee Shop using his CRM.COM Pocket Wallet balance.
B2B Settlement
The B2B Settlement configuration set up by the Business Owner applies to all of the Merchants (whether normal Merchants or B2B Merchants) co-operating with the Business Owner.
This process handles the charges and payouts for Businesses Owners and Merchants / B2B Merchants based on debit or credit events (e.g. for awards and spends) transacted in CRM.COM. Any charges and/or rebates are settled using the respective organisation's Account.
B2B Settlement
To set up a B2B Settlement, start by enabling the B2B Settlement. Then, configure the frequency and timing for when the settlement process will occur. Keep in mind that regardless of the chosen time for the settlement, only transactions posted up until midnight of the previous day will be processed.
Settlement Fee
To charge Merchants / B2B Merchants a fee per debit or credit settlement transaction, enable the Settlement Fee and set:
Whether the fee will be applied as an amount or percentage per settlement transaction.
The Debit Fee (e.g. due to awards).
The Credit Fee (e.g. due to spending).
Explicit Fees per Organisation - Define any specific fees per Merchant in this section; any default fees set up above will be overridden for these Merchants.
Settlement Rules
Refer to the Business Network manual for Settlement Rules configuration.
B2B Settings for a B2B Merchant
B2B Settlement
This setting is for a B2B Merchant in a masqueraded mode (via B2B > My B2B Peers). Note that the B2B Merchant can set different settings for any Business Owner they are a Peer to.
After masquerading, navigate to Settings > Business Network > B2B Settlement.
These are the fees that the B2B Merchant will be charging for transactions generated by the Merchants configured on its own Business Network.
Enable the B2B Settlement.
If Merchants will be charged a fee per debit or credit settlement transaction, then enable the Settlement Fee and set:
Whether the fee will be applied as an amount or percentage per settlement transaction.
The Debit Fee (e.g. due to awards).
The Credit Fee (e.g. due to spending).
It should be noted that such fees will be charged when the settlement evaluation is performed as defined by the Business Owner (that is, the Business that the B2B Merchant is a part of).
Rewards Resolution
The B2B Merchant can also navigate to Settings > Rewards > Generic > Resolution to configure the resolution setting.
Restrict purchase submission to other organisations that my business is a B2B Merchant to? - Set this to ‘no’ if purchases submitted for contacts of your own business should be forwarded to other organisations that your business is a B2B Merchant of. This implies that your contacts may also be awarded by offers from your peers for purchases performed at your business.
B2B Reports
B2B Spend Analysis
A report with consolidated information relating to spending at B2B Peers, including the number of visiting Contacts, number of spends performed and total amount spent.
Appendix
Purchase & B2B Merchant
Two Business organisations, Audit Co. UK and Coffee London agree to co-operate and set their B2B Terms (e.g. common contact identification means, i.e. phone); therefore, Coffee London is added as a B2B Merchant under Audit Co. UK business network.
Scenario 1 - A contact registers with both organisations and performs a purchase at Coffee London; the purchase will be created, resulting in possible awards based on applicable offers. A second purchase will also be created (automatically) in Audit Co. UK as well (identifying the contact under Audit Co. UK based on the agreed common identification mean), resulting in possible awards from B2B Merchant Coffee London under Audit Co. UK as well.
Note - spending can only take place at the organisation where the original purchase took place, not at the B2B (peer) organisation that the purchase is forwarded to.
Scenario 2 - A contact is registered only with one organisation (Audit Co. UK) and performs a purchase at Coffee London (such a purchase will not be created though, since the contact is not found/does not exist in Coffee London). A purchase will (automatically) be created in Audit Co. UK (identifying the contact under Audit Co. UK based on the agreed common identification means), resulting in possible awards from B2B Merchant Coffee London under Audit Co. UK.
Scenario 3 - A contact is registered only with the organisation Coffee London, and performs a purchase at Coffee London (resulting in possible awards based on applicable offers). An attempt will be made to create a second purchase (automatically) in Audit Co. UK, however, such a purchase will not be created since the related contact is not found/does not exist in Audit Co. UK based on the agreed common identification means).
Purchase with B2B Spend & Published Commerce Pools
B2B Spend
An organisation can enable B2B spending (from Business Network settings), allowing its contacts to spend their wallet balance at other businesses.
Contact Identification - Submitting a purchase event from an organisation (business) that a contact is not registered with can be achieved either using a Spend OTP Token (issued from the organisation that such contact is registered with) OR Contact’s Wallet Identifier & Organisation Identifier (where the organisation identifier should be the one that the contact is registered to).
Spend Amount - This is always calculated based on, firstly, the available business Open Balance and, secondly, the CRM.COM Wallet balance.
In the event that the contact is registered with both organisations, then the system takes into consideration only the business Open Balance from where the contact requested a Spend OTP/provided the Organisation Identifier, and not the Open Balance from both (business) organisations.
B2B Commerce Pools
An organisation can promote a commerce pool to other businesses, and in return, any business can join the promoted commerce pool by adding it to their reward offers ‘Redeem’ settings.
Reference Material
You may also find it useful to refer to the following manuals for further reading about B2B.
Business Network
Rewards
https://crmdevelopment.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/TFDv2/pages/432472155
CRM.COM Wallet
Integrations
Applications
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