Wednesday Wisdom: Defensive and Empowered Buyer Syndrome (New reads!)

Hi all,

We have some new reads from this year's Buyer Experience Research.

The first explores the fact that buyers are #defensive. They do not want to talk to sellers until they are ready and only they decide when that is. The data show that there isn't really anything you can do to change that. Buyers wait until 69% of their buying journey is behind before they engage sellers. During this time, they avoid filling out forms (with form-fill rates under 4%) and disregard seller outreach. When buyers finally do reach out (and yes, in over 80% of purchases, buyers are the ones who initiate contact), they’ve already locked in most of their decision—both what they’ll buy and from whom.

So, how do buyers accomplish all this without speaking to a seller?

That brings us to the second read…buyers are also #empowered. By the time they engage, 85% have already fully or mostly defined their requirements, and they reach out to their favorite vendor first—ultimately purchasing from them 80% of the time. Gone are the days when buyers relied on sellers for essential information. Today, buyers draw on a wealth of online resources, and in over 70% of cases, they enlist trusted advisors—analysts or consultants—to guide their decision-making.

In these articles, we dive into the evidence behind these syndromes (Defensive Buyer Syndrome & Empowered Buyer Syndrome) and outline what selling organizations need to do to thrive in today’s buyer-controlled landscape.

@Kerry