B2B Buyer Loyalty

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Product Quality

• 41 percent of B2B buyers rated vendors as only “average” in product quality , indicating buyer concerns about how well the solution will meet the needs of their organizations.
• When buyers rate winning vendors on product quality, 55 percent give “excellent” ratings to their vendors.
  • Even when vendors lose, approximately one-third of buyers (29 percent) rate product quality as “excellent.”
• Perceptions of product quality closely track overall decision satisfaction: when product quality is judged to be high, overall decision satisfaction is also high.
• 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 percent versus 20 percent).

Recommendation Likelihood

• Overall, just 39 percent of buyers will recommend the vendors they evaluate.
• When vendors win, 57 percent of B2B buyers will strongly recommend their choice of vendor.
• When firms lose, 35 percent of buyers will recommend vendors they didn’t select to other companies and friends.
• 78 percent of buyers who rated their overall satisfaction with their decision purchase as high are likely to recommend their vendor.
  • Only 4 percent of buyers will recommend vendors when their overall decision satisfaction is low.
• Hardware vendors are most likely to be recommended by B2B buyers: 45 percent of buyers evaluating Hardware vendors plan to recommend these vendors to other companies or friends; in contrast, only 36 percent of Software buyers will recommend the Software vendors they evaluated to others.
• Buyers in EMEA were least likely to recommend vendors 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 percent) indicated they will only give some consideration (30 percent) or no consideration (24 percent) 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 percent of buyers who will consider vendors in future evaluations, 44 percent of buyers said they’ll consider losing vendors, while 66 percent 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 percent) 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 percent of Healthcare buyers plan to consider the vendors they evaluated for future business opportunities; only 28 percent of Software buyers will consider past vendors for future business.
• Nearly 50 percent of North American buyers indicated a strong likelihood of future business with evaluated vendors, while less than one third of buyers in Asia Pacific and EMEA plan to consider evaluated vendors for future business engagements.