What We’re Hearing From SMEs Right Now

One of the most valuable parts of attending events as a business development manager is hearing directly from SMEs about the challenges they are experiencing.

Industry reports and market research can identify trends, but face-to-face conversations give a more honest view of the challenges businesses are facing day-to-day.

Over recent months, I've spoken with business owners, brokers, sales leaders and operational teams across a range of industries. While the sectors varied, many of the same concerns kept coming up.

Businesses talked about:

Different challenges, but all pointing towards a wider issue around disconnected customer journeys.

The compliance challenge: When a signature isn’t enough

One of the most common conversations I had was with brokers and businesses operating in regulated environments, where proving customer understanding is just as important as securing the agreement itself.

Several people shared experiences of agreements being challenged after the sale had already taken place, leading to clawbacks, lost commission and lengthy dispute processes.

The issue usually wasn’t whether the customer had signed the contract. The challenge was proving what had been explained, and whether this had been fully understood, before the signature was placed.

Questions raised during disputes often included:

• Was pricing explained clearly?
• Were the terms discussed properly?
• Did the customer fully understand the commitment?
• Was consent clearly recorded?

Many teams felt frustrated because they believed they had followed the correct process. The conversations had taken place, the explanations had been given, and the documents had been signed.

But without a record of the interaction itself, businesses often found themselves unable to evidence the full customer journey behind the agreement.

Traditional digital signing tools can confirm that a document was signed, but they do not always provide visibility into the conversation that led to the decision.

As customer expectations and compliance requirements continue evolving, more businesses are beginning to think beyond signatures alone and focus on building clearer, more transparent audit trails across the full customer interaction.

Why sales momentum disappears after contracts are sent

Another challenge that repeatedly came up was sales teams losing customer momentum at the final stage of the process.

The journey sounded very familiar:

Initial conversations go well

Discovery meetings build momentum

Questions are answered

The customer seems ready to proceed

Then the contract gets sent

Suddenly the process slows down

Sales teams described chasing follow-up emails, waiting for responses, and trying to regain momentum that seemed to disappear almost overnight.

For many SMEs, the issue is not the sales conversation itself, but the gap between agreement and action. We recently explored some of the frustrations businesses are experiencing around disconnected sales and approval processes in a LinkedIn post, including the growing pressure to reduce delays and simplify customer interactions.

For businesses focused on sales process optimisation, this creates a major challenge.

Sales teams spend significant time building trust and guiding prospects through the customer journey, only to introduce friction at the final stage by moving customers into disconnected processes.

Customers often leave a live conversation and move into a separate experience involving:

• Email attachments
• Separate signing platforms
• Additional logins
• Multiple communication channels

Every extra step creates another opportunity for hesitation.

One sales leader I spoke with summed it up:

That conversation reflected a wider shift in customer expectations.

Customers increasingly expect experiences to feel simple, seamless and connected. The transition from conversation to agreement should feel like one continuous process, not a series of disconnected stages.

Reducing friction at these moments by combining video meetings with digital signing can have a significant impact on conversion rates, customer engagement and overall sales efficiency.

The Operational Impact of Disconnected Workflows

The third recurring challenge involved disconnected workflows and fragmented systems.

Many businesses described relying on several separate tools across the customer journey:

• A CRM platform for customer data
• A video conferencing platform for meetings
• A separate signing solution
• Additional communication and reporting tools

While each system often worked well independently, teams repeatedly described the operational burden of trying to connect everything together.

Common frustrations included:

• Manual data entry between systems
• Duplicate administrative work
• Limited visibility across customer activity
• Difficulty maintaining accurate records
• Inefficient reporting processes

These issues seem small in isolation. But over time, they create inefficiencies that affect productivity, customer experience and growth.

What stood out most was that the impact wasn’t limited to internal teams.

Customers also experience the fragmentation through:

Businesses often invest heavily in improving customer engagement while overlooking the impact of fragmented internal systems.

But increasingly, workflow automation and platform integration are becoming central parts of delivering a stronger customer experience.

A Wider Shift in How SMEs Are Thinking About Customer Journeys

While these conversations focused on different operational challenges, they all pointed toward the same underlying issue.

Businesses are increasingly recognising that customer interactions cannot be treated as isolated events.

Sales conversations, compliance requirements, document completion, and customer records all form part of a single customer journey. When those experiences become fragmented, it can lead to:

Disputed agreements
Lost sales momentum
Operational inefficiencies
Poorer customer experiences
Missed revenue opportunities

The SMEs I spoke with are beginning to ask a different question.

Rather than simply asking:

“Do we have the right tools?”

They are asking:

“Do our tools create a connected experience for both our teams and our customers?”

As businesses continue investing in workflow automation, sales optimisation and customer experience, that distinction is becoming increasingly important.

Ultimately, improving workflows is not just about efficiency.

It is about building trust, reducing friction and helping customers move forward with confidence.