NASHVILLE, Tenn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SiriusDecisions, the leading global business-to-business (b-to-b) research and advisory firm, today unveiled the findings from its 2015 B-to-B Buyer Study during a keynote address at its 10th annual SiriusDecisions Summit. According to the results of the study, b-to-b buyers interact with sales representatives at every stage of the buyer's journey. This finding challenges the common industry perspective that b-to-b sales representatives’ roles and importance are declining due to a disintermediation by digital buying behaviors.
SiriusDecisions’ 2015 B-to-B Buying Study, which was conducted earlier this year, studied the buying behaviors of more than 1,000 b-to-b executives who were involved in a significant b-to-b purchase decision within the past six months. The data collected represents an estimated half-billion dollars in b-to-b purchases across North America and Europe.
"While the cognitive buying decision process is linear and sequential, we found that how buyers consume content and interact with provider organizations is not linear – in fact, the interaction patterns are much more episodic," explained Marisa Kopec, Vice President and Group Director at SiriusDecisions. “For example, a buyer can perform a single search on Google or go to a sales meeting, and that one interaction might provide all the information they need to inform each of the decision gates they need to get through in order to make a decision to buy.”
The study’s other key findings included the following:
- The price point of an offering affects the number and type of interactions that occur between a buyer and provider.
- As the price point of an offering goes up, human interactions between the buyer and the provider also increase. But even at low price points, there is evidence that human-to-human interactions occur.
- More than half the time, sales representative involvement starts at the beginning of the buyer’s journey. In complex buying scenarios, sales rep involvement starts at the beginning of the journey two-thirds of the time.
- The highest level of reported buyer/seller interaction for all buying scenarios occurred during the education phase of the buyer’s journey (the first decision gate in the purchasing decision process).
- Not only do buyers interact with a sales representative from the winning provider organization in all phases of their decision-making process, but they overwhelmingly describe those interactions as positive (in over 85 percent of the buying experiences studied).
In addition, SiriusDecisions introduced the B-to-B Buyer Interactions Model, a new model that categorizes every type of interaction a buyer can have with a provider, to help organizations understand the balance required between human and non-human interactions.
"We found that buyers interact with representatives during every stage of the decision-making process at least half the time, and that the type of decision – or buying scenario – greatly impacted the number and types of interactions," said Jennifer Ross, Senior Research Director, SiriusDecisions.
“The new way to think about b-to-b buying is that human interactions still occur and matter, and that the rise of digital marketing doesn't mean those interactions go away,” Kopec said. “It just means that buyers and providers are interacting in new digital ways. Just because buying behavior is done digitally does not mean that sales representatives are no longer required to instigate or facilitate a buying process.”
Resources
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Tags
SiriusDecisions, Summit, B-to-B, Buying, B2B,
Marketing, Sales, Product, Research, Alignment, B-to-B, B2B, Buying
Study, Buying Behavior, Digital
About SiriusDecisions
SiriusDecisions is the leading global
b-to-b research and advisory firm. We deliver the actionable
intelligence, transformative frameworks and expert guidance that equip
executives to modernize and elevate sales, marketing and product
performance.
For more information, visit www.siriusdecisions.com.
