Resolve conflict amongst tech buying teams — and post-purchase regret — by mapping the customer journey the right way.
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Tech buying regret often stems from team conflict
A whopping 80% of tech buyers experience some form of post-purchase regret. While the first instinct may be to blame the products, Gartner research reveals a more significant driver: conflict within buying teams. Mismatched objectives amongst purchasing teams occurred in 89% of high-regret cases. On the opposite side of the spectrum, buyer teams with aligned objectives are nearly five times more likely to achieve a high-quality deal.
A series of best practices, applied to a particular customer business situation, minimize this source of friction and drive the ideal customer buying journey, shortening time to purchase and reducing regret.
Tech buying regret is avoidable with these steps
To help reduce regret, focus on developing a better ideal customer profile (ICP).
Mapping the ideal customer profile means looking beyond the individual
Tech providers often start mapping the ICP by evaluating the behaviors of individual buyer personas. This does little to address the team conflict that leads to post-purchase regret.
When mapping the customer journey, target the enterprise rather than the individual as a buyer. This allows providers to meet the needs of the entire tech buying team, avoid the conflicts that lead to post-purchase regret, and it makes tech purchasing teams feel they got a high-quality deal. This makes them more likely not only to buy again, but also to do so faster and spend more.
Four steps for organizations mapping the ideal customer journey
To create an ICP that targets an organization instead of an individual buyer, remember that businesses buy when they have a good motivator, are confident to act and it is easy to act. To meet these needs at the organizational level:
Clarify the “why” for your customers. Addressing the “why” at scale requires identifying and designing the journey for specific use cases. To understand the use case, you must also grasp the business situation and clarify the value scenario — a series of questions about the common factors in a use case for that target audience.
Give your buyers the confidence to act. Show them you understand the critical decision points in the buyer’s journey and demonstrate what their post-purchase experience will look like.
Enable an easy buying experience. Work to remove friction from the tech buying process. Consider buyer enablement tools like cost-benefit calculators, simulations, benchmarks, and buying recommendations.
Bring it all together in a task-based buying journey roadmap. Distill your ideal customer journey into a task-based roadmap. Share it with all customer-facing teams and solicit feedback to increase the likelihood of successful buying outcomes.
Buyer journeys are rarely alike or linear
No two customers’ journeys are alike. Even when organizations with the same firmographics buy the same thing, they do so differently. Simply aggregating how buyers behave will result in more regret.
The customer journey is also seldom linear. More than three-quarters of buyers may revisit buying tasks at every stage of the purchasing process.
That’s why it’s vitally important to go beyond firmographics and identify the business decisions that drive purchasing decisions.
Tech buying regret FAQs
What are the impacts of tech buying regret?
Regret is costly for both buying organizations and their providers. It leads to trepidation and risk aversion among providers, causing them to put the brakes on further tech expansion and investments. This results in fewer sales and the organizations falling behind competitors that make larger tech investments.
What are the benefits of mapping the ideal customer journey?
Mapping the ideal customer journey fulfills customers’ functional needs (buying tasks and decision hygiene) and emotional needs (for confidence, reassurance, validation, affirmation and deconflict). Customers who experience a strong journey are more likely to become advocates, renew contracts and increase spend.
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