Top 4 Factors Influencing B2B Buyer Behavior

March 13, 2023
3:27 AM

Buyer behavior describes people’s choices and actions while purchasing goods or services. The driving force behind any marketing approach is consumer behavior. The most critical challenge for businesses looking to enhance their business model and attract more clients is understanding why and how individuals choose to buy this product or why they are so devoted to one particular brand.

Knowing what the buyer wants can help sell items much more quickly. Some fundamentals will remain unchanged despite customer wants, and behavior continually changes to satisfy daily demands. Additionally, once you know the basic consumer behavior principles, you can effectively build efficient sales strategies and increase revenues. To better comprehend and deal with them, it would be helpful to understand various B2B buyer behaviors and strategies to deal with them.

Let’s get started!

Key Factors Influencing Buyer Behavior

1. Status Quo Bias

The term “status quo bias” refers to a person’s intrinsic predisposition to not change from what they’re doing.

People typically favor sticking with what they are familiar with over trying something new. The root of this resistance is their belief that change can be costly, hazardous, and risky.

Pro Tip -

To overcome status quo prejudice, you must persuade such buyers that your product or service is worthwhile given the expense and risk involved because this is what they are most worried about. Even if it is for their benefit, they will pull out of the deal if they feel unsure.

2. Variety-Seeking Behavior

Individuals that engage in variety-seeking behavior in their consumption tend to change between products, categories, or brands to avoid the utility depletion brought on by frequent purchases or consumption of the same things.

Even though consumers can regularly purchase their preferred products from a particular selection set, studies have shown that people buy a specific number of diversified products. Repeated purchase or consumption lowers a product’s marginal utility, lowering its attractiveness to consumers and making them bored because the existing product no longer satisfies their demand for stimulation. As a result, customers seek novelty, change, and diversity by consuming things with various characteristics. This tendency demonstrates that customers’ common choosing strategy and a standard product purchasing decision is variety-seeking.

Pro Tip -

Hence, while dealing with a variety-seeking behavior, catch their attention immediately by presenting your goods or services in the best light; otherwise, they may not find it compelling enough. Also, don’t forget to highlight the special qualities of your goods or services, as customers want to know what makes you distinct from the competition and what kinds of options, they have with you.

3. Dissonance-reducing Buying Behavior

Dissonance-reducing buying behavior occurs when the consumer is highly involved but sees little difference between brands. This usually happens in the case of high-involvement purchases where there are few differences between brands. This differentiates it from the complex buying situation where there are many differences in the market options.

Essentially, this behavior entails a buyer changing their mind about a purchase they have already made. Because they lack sufficient knowledge to justify their choice, consumers try to reduce their anxiety by refusing to believe any unfavorable information about their chosen brand. Customers frequently exhibit post-purchase dissonance, which is one of the main downsides of this behavior and is exceedingly difficult to control.

Pro Tip -

When dealing with dissonance-reducing customer behavior, give them all the information they require about the goods or services you sell so that they can make a well-informed choice. And after you’ve made a sale to them, stay in touch with them so they may get in touch with you if they have even the slightest uncertainty about the item. This will assist them in lessening their post-purchase worry.

4. Complex Buying Behavior

Due to the high financial or psychological risk level, the consumer is very involved in the purchasing process and conducts extensive research before purchasing. Examples of this purchasing behavior include paying exorbitant prices for valuable items or services like a home, a car, a course of study, etc.

Due to the information available today on the internet, individuals are also very knowledgeable consumers. As a result, you need a good research team and excellent communication skills to connect with your customer and effectively resolve their problems, which will help to stop the buyer from overanalyzing the purchase.

Pro Tip -

When dealing with complex buyer behavior, the main goal is to acquire the customer’s trust and instill confidence in the purchase.

Wrap Up

We tried explicitly explaining the four diverse types of behavior and suggested suitable handling strategies. Hoping you had fun reading the blog.

Suppose you want to learn more about the behaviors of your target audience. In that case, you can also conduct customer surveys, monitor their preferences with Google Analytics, or use the most popular method, using outsourced intent data from reputable data providers like DataCaptive. This will help you better understand the behaviors of your target audience in detail and help you get the results you want.

Show some love!

Alvin Wiseman

Alvin Wiseman is the Sales and Marketing Manager at DataCaptive. He has been the backbone of our company by researching and developing marketing opportunities along with planning and implementing new sales plans. He is also very passionate about imparting knowledge and expertise on topics like lead generation, B2B marketing strategies, email marketing, etc through his blogs. You will find him reading, gaming, or exploring new places in his free time.

Want More?