B2B Buyer Loyalty: Lights the Way to Business Growth [Infographic]

How certain are you that your organization will be asked to bid in future opportunities with a coveted account? How sure are you that customers will recommend your brand to colleagues and friends?

Primary Intelligence’s latest industry report found that 46% of all B2B buyers say they’ll consider evaluated vendors for future business opportunities with their organizations.

The report also revealed that just 40% of buyers gave high marks to vendors when asked their opinion about product quality. Even fewer buyers—just 39%—said they’d recommend the vendors they evaluated to other companies and friends.

One key takeaway: Stay in touch with buyers, even when a sales deal is lost.

Check out the infographic below to learn more about B2B buyer loyalty and how a sales engagement can influence a buyer’s perception on your product, whether or not you’ll get a referral, and your chances for future business.

ADDITIONAL INSIGHTS

Below are additional insights about buyer loyalty indicators from Primary Intelligence’s 2016 B2B Buyer Loyalty report.

Product Quality

• [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]41% of B2B buyers rated vendors as only “average” in product quality[/clickandtweet] indicating buyer concerns about how well the solution will meet the needs of their organizations.
• When buyers rate winning vendors on product quality, 55% give “excellent” ratings to their vendors.
• Perceptions of product quality closely track overall decision satisfaction: [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]when product quality is judged to be high, overall decision satisfaction is also high.[/clickandtweet]
• Hardware and Healthcare industry providers receive the highest percentage of “excellent” ratings when buyers are asked to judge product quality; Software vendors have the highest percentage of “poor” product quality ratings.
• Buyers in North America and Latin America awarded nearly twice as many “excellent” product quality ratings to vendors compared to buyers in EMEA and APAC (approximately 40% versus 20%).

Recommendation Likelihood

• [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]Overall, just 39% of buyers will recommend the vendors they evaluate to friends and colleagues.[/clickandtweet]
• [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]When vendors win, 57% of B2B buyers will strongly recommend their choice of vendor.[/clickandtweet]
• When firms lose, 35% of buyers will recommend vendors they didn’t select to other companies and friends.
• 78% of buyers who rated their overall satisfaction with their decision purchase as high are likely to recommend their vendor.
  • Only 4% of buyers will recommend vendors when their overall decision satisfaction is low.
• Hardware vendors are most likely to be recommended by B2B buyers – 45% of buyers evaluating Hardware vendors plan to recommend these vendors to other companies or friends; in contrast, only 36% of Software buyers will recommend the Software vendors they evaluated to others.
• [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]Buyers in EMEA were least likely to recommend vendors[/clickandtweet] compared to buyers in Asia Pacific, Latin America, and North America. Buyers in Latin America are most likely to recommend, especially winning vendors.

Future Business

• Over half of all B2B buyers (54%) indicated they will only give some consideration (30%) or no consideration (24%) to future business with vendors they previously considered in product evaluations.
  • Firms in this category must determine reasons for buyers’ lack of confidence in their abilities for future business, such as potential concerns about product effectiveness, poor customer references, or long-term financial viability.
• Of the 46% of buyers who will consider vendors in future evaluations, 44% of buyers said they’ll consider losing vendors, while 66% of buyers will only consider winning vendors.
  • Losing vendors must stay in close contact with prospects over the long term to remain top of mind in future evaluations.
• Nearly two thirds (64%) of buyers whose overall satisfaction with their chosen vendor is poor say their likelihood of doing future business with that vendor is also low.
• 55% of Healthcare buyers plan to consider the vendors they evaluated for future business opportunities; only 28% of Software buyers will consider past vendors for future business.
• [clickandtweet handle=”@PrimaryIntel” hashtag=”” related=”” layout=”” position=””]Nearly 50% of North American buyers indicated a strong likelihood of future business with evaluated vendors[/clickandtweet] while less than one third of buyers in Asia Pacific and EMEA plan to consider evaluated vendors for future business engagements.