Introducing G2.ai, the future of software buying.Try now

Guided Selling

by Amanda Hahn-Peters
Guided selling educates and directs consumers to relevant choices through a series of questions. Learn how to make this strategy work for your business.

What is guided selling?

Guided selling is a sales process that recreates an in-store experience by asking consumers questions to identify their wants and needs. The answers help brands recommend products that best meet the consumer's requirements. Guided selling aims to understand and analyze consumers' goals and point them towards the best purchase. 

Guided selling is also e-commerce's version of an in-store sales assistant. By asking questions and providing answers that make the consumer feel like they’re part of a one-on-one conversation, this method offers an elevated customer experience that predictive search and chatbots can’t match. 

To enhance the user experience throughout the guided selling process, brands may use e-commerce personalization software. These tools capture user behavior in real-time across multiple channels and provide personalized messaging to help users discover and buy products or services. E-commerce professionals use e-commerce personalization software to increase online sales. 

Types of guided selling solutions

In today’s fast-paced world, guided selling solutions reduce the time and effort required to make a purchase. These solutions deliver improved convenience and customer experience. Common types of guided selling solutions include: 

  • Product guides and product finders: Use artificial intelligence (AI) technology to ask customers questions to understand their needs and guide them toward the best recommendations. These solutions also make technical data more understandable for consumers. 
  • Product configurators: Give customers the ability to choose, customize, and personalize their items before hitting “purchase.” For instance, a brand selling bicycles could use product configurators to give consumers the ability to adjust elements like the bike’s color, components, and size, and see a photorealistic image of the final product in real time. 
  • Gift finders and quizzes: Gift finders are tools that help a customer find the best gifts for a particular person. Some questions a gift finder tool may ask include gender, occasion, and age. Quizzes also help guide consumers toward the perfect product and offer a unique customer experience. 

Benefits of guided selling

Guided selling is an extension of the user experience. It’s a subtle way for brands to nudge customers toward making a purchase. Some other benefits of guided selling include:

  • Uncovering customer needs: The data collected from guided selling allows companies to create solutions that best fit their customer needs and discover previously unknown customer preferences.
  • Removing purchase barriers: The entire process takes the guesswork out of purchasing for consumers. With all of their questions answered and a visual sneak peek of the product, they’re more likely to buy a product or service. 
  • Reducing product returns: This process cuts down on customer returns and saves the company money. Armed with more knowledge pre-purchase, the customer is more likely to find a product that fits their wants and needs the first time around.   
  • Fostering brand loyalty: Consumers prefer to buy from companies that offer some form of personalization. Guided selling offers unique results with every interaction and creates a fun overall experience for the customer. 
  • Driving sales conversions: Consumers may experience choice paralysis when they have too many products to choose from. The questions asked in the guided selling process help combat this and lead customers to products that work best for them.

Guided selling best practices

Guided selling solutions allow companies to analyze and act on their customers’ needs to distinguish themselves from the competition. When creating a guided selling solution, companies should keep the following best practices in mind: 

  • Optimize for speed. To speed up the guided selling process, opt for an “accordion” design that expands sections on a single page. Showing a progress bar can also increase consumer engagement.
  • Use images. Although plain text is useful for describing products, text paired with images leads to a more powerful and intuitive experience for the consumer. 
  • Educate consumers. By showing the user the main priority of a product or service, a brand can use questions to educate consumers and introduce them to relevant terminology. 
  • Keep the experience as simple as possible. Consumer time is valuable. It’s important to keep customers engaged by making sure to ask only essential questions and simplify the experience as much as possible. 
  • Provide context to questions and recommendations. The purpose of guided selling is to digitally mimic the sales process of buying an item in-store. Therefore, guided selling solutions should aim to recreate the experience a salesperson would provide by asking questions that are important to buyers to help them find the most suitable product. For example, if a customer is interested in buying running shoes, a series of questions could determine what type of shoe works best for the individual. 
  • Test and analyze. Creating a good guided selling solution is an ever-evolving process that involves many iterations. Testing different versions, monitoring performance, and analyzing user behavior by running a cohort analysis helps optimize the solution.     
Amanda Hahn-Peters
AH

Amanda Hahn-Peters

Amanda Hahn-Peters is a freelance copywriter for G2. Born and raised in Florida, she graduated from Florida State University with a concentration in Mass Media Studies. When she’s not writing, you’ll find Amanda coaching triathletes, cuddling up with a good book, or at the theater catching the latest musical.

Guided Selling Software

This list shows the top software that mention guided selling most on G2.

Easy to set up and easy to use, DealHub award-winning Sales Engagement and CPQ platform lets you share relevant content, quickly produce error-free quotes, track buyer engagement and automate sales workflows and approvals. DealHub is fully native within Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM.

Revenue.io is the complete AI-powered RevOps platform that delivers real-time guidance in the moments that matter.

Salesforce CPQ automates quoting, contracting, and the ordering processes. The solution improves sales productivity and helps you close more deals without ever leaving Salesforce. Fully native on the Salesforce platform, Salesforce CPQ delivers next-generation CPQ which is 5-10x easier to implement than legacy CPQ applications.

Oracle CPQ Cloud (Configure, Price, and Quote) helps you sell faster, easier, and with greater accuracy—from anywhere.

Neocom is an AI-powered Digital Shopping Advisor for E-Commerce Stores 🗸 Easy integration, customizable design 🗸 Higher conversion rate 🗸 Less returned goods 🗸 Less customer service calls and e-mails

Vendavo is a cloud-based mobile sales solution that integrates with leading CRM and ERP systems.

servicePath is a modular platform designed for IT service providers for costing, pricing, quoting and contracting simple to complex IT solutions. Each integrated module addresses a specific aspect of the commercial service lifecycle: cost management, product management sales management and solution management.

Revv is an all-in-one document management system to help individuals and teams run their business. Trust is the keystone of any business relationship. Trustworthy documents are the bricks on which the foundation of trust is laid. Revv is a superior alternative to Google docs or Microsoft word. Over a 1000 businesses trust us with their document management. It brings in easier to use templates, approvals, workflows, and data from systems of records. The intuitive user interface and out of the box abilities encourage users to be self powered, requiring no code or special skills to set up and manage. Teams anywhere can collaborate efficiently with every document being created, reviewed and signed in one central place. Running your business, one document at a time, is our business!

Revenue Intelligence platform that enables sales and revenue teams to identify and eliminate revenue leaks, accelerate sales cycles, and provide better visibility of pipeline performance using contextual real-time guidance Revenue Grid helps sales teams sell more by providing: Guided selling - Reduce human error and increase sales velocity with guiding Signals based on AI suggestions and your team’s own playbook Pipeline Visibility - See the health of every deal at a glance, along with what’s already been done, and what’s next. Find out immediately when deals are at risk, what’s gone wrong, and what to do to get them back on track Relationship intelligence - See how much time is being spent with decision-makers and other members of the buyer’s team, plus what connections your organization has inside an account Conversational intelligence - Get extra insights and timely warnings about prospects’ intentions by analyzing speech from calls and meetings Sales coaching - Find out who needs coaching and with what, based on reliable performance and behavior analytics Automated sequences – Automate highly-customizable outreach across multiple channels CRM and email integration - Automatically gather data from email and calendar and save it properly to your CRM, bring full CRM access into your inboxes

With CPQ software solution, your sales team can efficiently configure, price, and accurately quote complex products.

Showpad eOS makes every buyer interaction count, by preparing sellers better beforehand, turning them into trusted advisors during and by providing actionable insights for a better follow-up afterward. Showpad Content is a part of the Showpad Sales Enablement Platform, which unifies sales content management, training, and coaching into a single user experience.

Maintain IT flexibility and run your entire Quote-to-Cash processes on a single data model with any CRM that you like. Rated a Leader by Forrester and IDC.

SAP CRM can help you better engage with your customers in person, online, or via a mobile. Leverage true 360 customer insight – from interaction history to social media sentiments

Sell faster, smarter, and more efficiently with AI + Data + CRM. Boost productivity and grow in a whole new way with Sales Cloud.

Conversity are Intelligent Guided Selling experts who personalise recommendations for customers based on their real-time relevant needs. When a product is complex or choice is overwhelming, we provide the extra reassurance that empowers customers to have the confidence to buy.

Powertrak's configure, price, quote (CPQ) technology boosts user adoption, improves engagement, and enhances the overall customer experience. Enriched with mobile extendibility, design products, build quotes, and configure orders on mobile tablets with Powertrak.

LinkedIn Sales Insights is a platform for Sales Operations that delivers real-time market and account data from the world’s largest professional network. Transform your sales planning with more accurate account data and insights to focus your sales teams on the right accounts.

Velocify Lead Manager is a solution that helps you manage and respond to leads by capturing and automatically de-duping, and distributing inquiries coming from a variety of sources.