Kris Harrington is CEO and co-founder of GenAlpha Technologies, where she helps manufacturers and dealers move from static, physical support to connected digital experiences, spanning product configurators, eCommerce, warranty management, and interactive manuals. Her path started in the US Navy as a machinist mate, then took her through Bucyrus International (later acquired by Caterpillar), moving from financial analyst into parts, service, and equipment sales.

Jason Hein sat down with Kris for his first episode hosting the B2B eCommerce Show to dig into a question most B2B websites still can't answer: what happens when a customer knows their problem but not their solution. Kris breaks down why the industry has mastered transactional parts support while still struggling to help buyers who show up with a symptom instead of a part number, and how AI and connected data can turn scattered manuals and tribal knowledge into something a technician can query in real time.

They also get into what happens to experienced salespeople once routine work is automated away, and why aging-out institutional knowledge is quietly one of the biggest risks in B2B today. Kris closes with a reflection on her own career: the years GenAlpha spent building a strong product without marketing it, and why she wishes she'd raised her hand sooner.

Key idea: the part number was never the hard problem. Helping someone find the part number they didn't know they needed is.