Enhancing the Post-Sale Experience Makes Business Sense, as 80 Percent of Buying Decisions Hinge on Past Customer Relationships
Wilton, Conn. – May 26, 2016 – SiriusDecisions, the leading global business-to-business (b-to-b) research and advisory firm, today unveiled the findings from its 2016 B-to-B Customer Experience Study during a keynote address at its 11th annual SiriusDecisions Summit in Nashville, Tennessee. The study found that customers believe there are many gaps in their post-sales experience, which highlights the need for b-to-b companies to rethink post-sale goals and delivery.
SiriusDecisions’ study, which was conducted earlier this year, surveyed 450 b-to-b customers (executives and user) from a broad range of industries and business sizes about their experience with providers in all stages following a purchase.
The study’s other key findings included the following:
- 80 percent of b-to-b buying decisions are based on a buyer’s direct or indirect customer experience. In fact, only 20 percent of buying decisions are made based on the offering or price.
- Less than half of b-to-b customers feel their providers offer them the needed value post-sale . As a result, only half of respondents plan to buy more from their current providers.
- Executives and end users have very different perceptions of their post-sale experience. In every post-sale phase, the two customer roles reported almost no overlap in their post-sale content and interaction preferences, and described completely different gaps in what they’re getting today compared to what they want.
In tandem with the research findings and to provide an actionable framework to improve sub-optimal customer experiences, SiriusDecisions introduced its updated Customer Experience Design Framework, a model that empowers b-to-b organizations to align around best practices and customer insights to create an experience that reflects both the customer’s needs and the company’s goals for efficiency, retention, growth and advocacy.
The Customer Experience Design Framework is among 30 new strategic models unveiled at SiriusDecisions Summit 2016. Representing the greatest number of models ever unveiled at one of its events, these new models will equip b-to-b businesses leaders with the strategies needed to modernize and elevate the performance of sales, marketing and product teams, allowing them to outperform their competition and accelerate revenue growth.
Supporting Quote
“The most important competitive differentiator in b-to-b is the customer experience,” said Megan Heuer, Vice President, Research of SiriusDecisions. “Far too often, b-to-b organizations portray themselves as customer-centric without really understanding what customers want after they buy. In order to keep current customers, attract new ones and ultimately grow revenues and profits, b-to-b companies must listen to customers, find out where there are gaps, then take meaningful action on what they hear. The good news is that our study showed that some relatively small changes could have a very big impact on improving the value customers get after they buy. ”
Resources
