B2B Buyer Loyalty

Introduction

In our B2B Buyer Loyalty report, Primary Intelligence highlights the importance of leading indicators—product quality, recommendation likelihood, and future business—when understanding B2B buyer experience and satisfaction. Often referred to as “stickiness indicators” in Primary Intelligence’s Win Loss programs, these KPls provide directional guidance on buyers’ long-term interest in and support of the vendors they consider in competitive sales evaluations.

Going beyond straightforward KPI ratings can be instructive, providing the “why” and “how” of buyer feedback. Follow-up conversations and feedback highlight best practices sellers can leverage, as well as identification of root cause issues to avoid.

Evaluating KPls over time can also help in determining key trends and themes in the data. Time comparisons are especially useful when new products are introduced, features or functionality are added (or removed), and product extensions are rolled out. Product consolidations that result from mergers and acquisitions are also excellent opportunities for KPI feedback.

Additionally, it’s often helpful to compare company KPI ratings to other firms, including competitors and leading brands. In this way, industry benchmarking data can show how well specific solutions compare to industry rivals, as well as how well they stack up across different industry verticals altogether.

Key Findings

Overall 828 Buyer Loyalty report findings show that “future business” is the strongest KPI: 46 percent of buyers will consider evaluated vendors for future business opportunities with their organizations.

• In contrast, only 40 percent of buyers gave strong ratings to vendors when asked about product quality.
• Just 39 percent indicated they would recommend the vendors they evaluated to other companies and friends.

KPI ratings closely track overall decision satisfaction—that is, how satisfied the buyer is with their decision to choose the winning vendor.

• When product quality is judged to be high, overall decision satisfaction is also high.
• When buyers expressed high decision satisfaction, they also indicated a greater willingness to recommend vendors and to consider vendors for future business.

Buyers struggle to differentiate the firms they evaluate.

Only one third of buyers awarded vendors unique ratings when judging vendors on Product Quality, Recommendation Likelihood, and Future Business.

In general, buyers rate winning vendors higher than losing vendors.

• However, buyers also indicated a willingness to consider non-selected vendors in the future and to recommend non-selected vendors to others.
• Additionally, nearly one-third of buyers judged the overall product quality of losing vendors as “excellent.”

Vendors selling into the Hardware and Healthcare industries generally receive the highest ratings in product quality, recommendation likelihood, and future business.

Software firms struggle the most in all three KPI categories.

Buyers in Latin America and North America are most likely to rate vendors favorably in product quality compared to buyers in EMEA and APAC.

Buyers in the Americas are also more likely to recommend vendors they evaluated— especially compared with buyers in EMEA—and are more likely to consider evaluated vendors for future business.

How Can This Report Help You?

828 Buyer Loyalty is a guide for sales, strategy, operational, marketing and product management professionals to better understand the role of product quality, recommendation likelihood, and future business in competitive B28 sales opportunities.

The study answers important questions, such as:

• How are B2B buyers rating the vendors they evaluate in terms of product quality, recommendation likelihood, and the chance of future business opportunities with them?
• Is there any relationship between buyers’ overall satisfaction with their decision to select the winning vendor and their perception of product quality, recommendation likelihood, and future business  prospects?
• Do buyers in different vertical industries judge vendors differently when considering product quality, recommendation likelihood, or future business with their vendors?
• What differences do I need to consider when selling in different global regions? For example, do buyers in certain geographic regions view loyalty differently than buyers in other regions?
• How do buyers’ KPI ratings change when they choose a winning vendor versus vendors that are not selected?
• How can my organization improve buyer perceptions of our product quality, as well as increase our chances that buyers will recommend us to friends and colleagues and purchase from us in the future?