What’s going on in a buyer’s head during the consumer’s buying process?

New data says less than 20% of B2B buyers want to be contacted by a salesperson during the awareness stage. Uh oh! Does that mean you should hold off on sending cold or warm calls to prospects? Maybe so.

What can you do, then? Is there a way to get prospects the information they need without pushing them away? It’s a fair question. And the answer, for an increasing number of today’s B2B sales departments, is called the B2C self-serve model.

If you’re not familiar with it, the goal of the B2C self-serve model is to allow prospects to educate themselves instead of speaking to a salesperson throughout most of their journey (and only at critical moments like a sales demo).

Of course, shifting to this model sounds like it would make the consumer’s decision-making process even more of a mystery. How can you know what they’re thinking, especially in those early stages of discovery, if you’re not talking to them directly? The answer is simpler than you might think: let them tell you. Adapt your B2B sales model to how people prefer to learn today, which is through self-education, and make sure your sales reps always have the right content and resources on hand for them through sales enablement. Then, sit back and let customers reveal the next step they want to take.

The self-serve model is actually very well suited to B2B sales; decision-makers are inundated with sales pitches, and self-education puts them in the driver’s seat at all times. It’s quite empowering actually. You’re treating your customers as educated professionals who can make informed decisions for themselves. As the old saying goes, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.”

If you’re ready to adapt your sales process to how people learn today, and you want deeper insight into how your buyers think at each stage, you’re in the right place. Today we’ll look at a classic model of the consumer decision-making process that’s probably older than your grandparents, showing you how to use the B2C self-serve model and sales enablement content to peek inside your buyer’s mind at each stage and ultimately creating loyal, well-informed customers.

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What is the consumer decision-making process?

The consumer decision-making process is a cost-benefit–based model first introduced by American psychologist and philosopher John Dewey in 1910. It breaks the decision of buying a product or service into five stages:

5 steps in the consumer decision-making process:

  1. Awareness of the problem: B2B decision-maker becomes aware of an issue that’s costing them money, time, or customers and agrees that it is, in fact, an issue.
  2. Researching solutions: customer collects information on different solutions to the problem and signs up for demos, presentations, or free trials.
  3. Evaluating alternative solutions: decision-maker researches and tests competitors and compares them against their top choice of interest.
  4. Deciding to purchase: decision-maker(s) (by this point there are often more involved) green-light the purchase of the new product or service.
  5. Post-purchase analysis: decision-makers and all users of the product or service provide feedback: did it solve the problem? Did it live up to their expectations?

These five basic stages can apply to anything a customer makes a choice on, from that new Thai restaurant you’ve been wanting to try to a multi-million-dollar software contract. Let’s explore each stage in depth to see what may be going on inside our buyer’s head.

Customer decision-making process vs. consumer adoption process 

The customer decision-making process refers to the series of steps that a customer takes in order to make a purchase. This includes everything from initial awareness of a product or service to post-purchase evaluation. The consumer adoption process, on the other hand, encompasses the stages that a consumer goes through in order to start using a new product or service. This includes stages such as trial and adoption. While the two processes are similar, they ultimately serve different purposes. The customer decision-making process is focused on helping customers make informed purchasing decisions, while the consumer adoption process is designed to help consumers integrate new products or services into their workflow and business. 

In addition, the customer decision-making process may involve multiple people (e.g., several decision-makers making purchase decisions together), whereas the consumer adoption process generally refers to an individual consumer’s decision to use a product or service.

5 steps in the customer buying process

Step one: Awareness

What’s the first step in the buyer decision process? The awareness stage. Sometimes a B2B decision-maker can see for themselves there’s a problem in their company, but often someone else brings it to their attention. It’s common for key players to be unsure that the problem is actually a problem, or that it’s more important than the 39 other problems they’re juggling. Part of your job is to help decision-makers understand the problem, its nuances, and what it will cost them if it goes unsolved.

Self-service tip: Provide diagnostic resources to help decision-makers gain clarity on their problem. This can take the form of a video, a quiz, or a “diagnostic” guide that lays out the signs and symptoms of a specific problem and what to do about it.

Step two: Research

In this step, decision-makers are overwhelmed with information. Blog posts, case studies, industry reports—let’s face it, there’s always a new internal problem popping up, and managers’ LinkedIn feeds are bursting with “solutions” that they can’t live without. Your sales team’s mission is to provide key information and show them why they need your product or service as quickly and succinctly as possible.

Self-service tip: Sales reps should be available with introductory content and resources that help customers understand straight away how your product or service will solve their problem. An explainer video is often the best way to do this.

Step three: Evaluation

In this part of the consumer decision-making process, potential buyers are sizing you up. They’ve made a shortlist of companies they’re interested in, and B2B prospects will be making a cost-benefit analysis. A cost-benefit analysis anticipates the potential reward and losses from choosing your product or service. If you can clearly demonstrate that the benefit outweighs the costs and risks, your chances of moving your prospect forward will soar.

Self-service tip: Be straightforward about costs. If pricing varies by project scope, give a general idea about what similar clients spend on your product, both upfront and over the long run. Save them hours of work by creating comparison charts to your top competitors—they’ll love you for it, and you’ll be empowering them to analyze direct, indirect, and intangible costs and risks. Make sure to cover costs, timeline, benefits, and features.

Step four: Purchase

In this stage, a choice is finally, finally made. It’s not an easy one, though. Most sizable B2B companies have 3-6 decision-makers who have a say in whether a new product or service gets the stamp of approval. But it’s not just managers and executives you need to win over; gatekeepers (assistants) and influencers (low-level employees) often play a big part here. Your job is to prepare content to educate and convince each of these types of people.

Self-service tip: Decision-makers will get feedback and opinions from several people, so ensure your sales enablement content is tailored to different levels of professionals you might encounter. You can do customer segmentation analysis and find the different types of decision-makers and people you’ll come across.

Step five: Post-purchase

Congratulations, you made the sale! Your customers are now giving your product or service time to settle in. But don’t expect fan mail overnight; depending on the business problem it can take weeks or even up to a year for them to see results. All the while, they’ll be looking to validate their consumer decision-making process. Do you live up to expectations? Did you solve their problem? Did the benefits outweigh the cost and risks?

Self-service tip: Offer plenty of ongoing training and development if necessary. This way you can see how your customer is adapting to your product or service. Work closely with the customer support team to monitor signs of customer dissatisfaction and churn with .

An example of the consumer decision-making process

Do you want to see a consumer decision-making process example? Here it is in action:

Steve, a sales manager at a San Diego pet food company, is having trouble finding quality leads. He relates this back to other leadership and they agree to test out new B2B lead enrichment tools. Steve searches Google for “B2B lead enrichment tools for small businesses” and finds a blog post featuring 10 of the best tools for his company’s size. He checks out each one and narrows it down to 5 that stand out.

Then, Steve takes his findings back to his colleagues and sales reps and asks them to sign up for free trials and request sales demos. A month later, leadership gives their pros/cons on each tool and discusses which one is their top pick. After further evaluation, the sales leaders choose one of the B2B lead enrichment tools. This tool has a high accuracy and delivery rate. And, it saves them money by not charging for inaccurate lead sales data like their former tool.

After three months of usage, Steve notices sales reps are prospecting at a quicker rate and they’ve filled their pipelines with quality leads. His organization is satisfied with their choice and they’ve gotten the results they were looking for.

Key takeaways

  • There are five stages to the consumer decision-making process: awareness, research, evaluation, purchase, and post-purchase.
  • The consumer decision-making process is about cost-benefit analysis. Sales reps should always provide sales enablement content that conveys the benefits and helps them understand both upfront and long-term costs.
  • In the awareness stage, B2B buyers today want to learn more about your product or service without a sales rep breathing down their neck. The B2C self-serve model is about providing the right content and resources at every touchpoint for them to do so. Sales enablement will ensure your sales reps have those resources on hand and ready for action.

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    This information should not be mistaken for legal advice. Please ensure that you are prospecting and selling in compliance with all applicable laws.

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