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Chapter 8
THE BUYING PROCESS AND BUYER BEHAVIOR
Chapters 8 and 9 begin Part 4, Developing a Customer Strategy. With increased
knowledge of the customer, the salesperson is in a better position to achieve sales goals. This
part presents information on understanding the buying process, understanding buyer behavior,
and developing a prospect base.
EXTENDED PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Much of what we know about today’s consumer is drawn from recent market research
and the behavioral sciences, including psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Through
application of this knowledge, salespeople can increase their ability to satisfy the needs and
wants of consumers.
As part of the Reality Selling Today Video Series, this chapter features Ashley Pineda
from Pulte Group, selling homes and home financing solutions.
I. Developing a Customer Strategy
A. Greatest challenge to salespeople in age of information is to understand realized and
unrealized needs and improve responsiveness to customers.
B. Growing number of sales professionals believe the customer has supplanted the product
as the driving force in sales today.
C. Today’s customer represents new generation of aggressive, Internet-empowered
customers.
D. The customer is the “new expert,” employing three power tools to get their way:
1. Instant comprehensive information from the Internet about all products and services
sold online and offline
2. Immense choice in every segment of commerce
3. Real-time price comparison at the moment and location of purchase on increasingly
advanced technology
E. Adding value with a customer strategy
1. The customer strategy is a carefully conceived plan that will result in maximum
customer responsiveness.
2. One major dimension of this strategy is to achieve a better understanding of the
customer’s buying needs and motives.
F. The customer strategy is built upon three prescriptions that help salespeople add value:
1. Focus on the customer’s buying process (see Figure 8.1)
2. Focus on why customers buy
3. Emphasizes building a strong prospect or account base (discussed in Chapter 9)
G. Complex nature of customer behavior
1. The forces that motivate customers can be complex.
2. Individual customers perceive the product in their own terms.
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3. Buyers have different needs and motives.
4. The customer is a person, not a statistic.
a. Companies that fully accept this basic truth are likely to adopt a one–to-one
marketing strategy.
b. The one-to–one strategy is based on a bedrock concept: Treat different customers
differently
II. Consumer versus Organizational Buyers
A. Consumer buyer behavior refers to the buyer behavior of individuals and households
who buy products for personal consumption.
B. Business buyer behavior refers to the organizations that buy goods and services for use
in production of other products and services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others.
1. The buying center is a cross-functional team of decision makers who often
represent several departments.
2. Salespeople must continually identify which individuals within a firm will be
members of the buying center team.
C. Differences between consumer and organizational buyers (see Figure 8.2)
1. The time and effort organizational buyers spend on a purchase usually depends on the
complexity of the product and how often the decision must be made.
2. There are three types of organizational buying situations:
a. A first time purchase of a product or service is a new-task buy.
b. A straight rebuy situation is a routine purchase of items needed buy a business-
to-business customer.
c. Modified rebuy situations surface when the buyer approaches a supplier and
requests a change in product specifications, delivery schedules or a lower price.
3. Building strategic alliances
a. Large companies often form several alliances.
b. Some strategic alliances take the form of systems selling.
c. System selling appeals to buyers who prefer to purchase a package solution to a
problem from a single seller.
4. Types of consumer buying situations
a. Habitual buying decisions usually require very little consumer involvement and
brand differences are usually insignificant.
b. Variety-seeking buying decisions are characterized by low customer
involvement, but important brand differences.
c. Complex buying decisions are characterized by a high degree of involvement by
the consumer.
III. Achieving Alignment with the Customer’s Buying Process
A. The foundation of a successful sales effort comes from knowing how buyers buy.
1. Defining how buyers buy helps avoid making assumptions that throws the sales
process out of alignment with the buyer’s buying process.
2.
Often salespeople rely on generalizations about the buyer’s decision-making process.
rather than acquiring specific information.
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3.
The buying process is a systematic series of actions, or a series of defined, repeatable
steps intended to achieve a result.
B. Although buying decisions are made in different ways, there is a model (Figure 8.3) that
shows the typical stages in the buying decision process.
1. Need awareness motivates buyers to begin searching for possible problem solutions.
2. Evaluation of solutions is the second step in the buying process.
a. Buyers who experience need awareness usually begin searching for information
that will help them evaluate possible problem solutions.
b. Salespeople can add value at this stage by providing useful information that helps
the customer make an informed choice.
3. Resolution of problems is the stage where the customer has evaluated one or more
solutions and has resolved to do something, but may need more assistance from the
salesperson.
4. Once all of the customer’s obstacles and concerns have been overcome, the purchase
decision is made.
a. Professional salespeople create value in many ways at this stage of the buying
process.
b. Salespeople add value by becoming a “customer advocate” within their own
organizations.
5. Implementation is the final stage of the buying process.
a. The first sale is only the beginning of the relationship with the buyer.
b. This stage offers many value creation opportunities.
IV. Understanding the Buying Process of the Transactional, Consultative, and Strategic
Alliance Buyer
A. Transactional process buyers are, in most cases, well aware of their needs and usually
know a great deal about the products or services they intend to purchase.
1. They are not looking for new information or advice from the salesperson.
2. Some value creation opportunities exist during and after a transactional sale.
a. Do whatever is necessary to facilitate a convenient and hassle-free purchase.
b. Eliminate any unnecessary costs or delays in processing the order.
B. Consultative process buyers often lack needs awareness or need help evaluating possible
solutions.
1. Complex products and services require assistance from a consultative salesperson.
2. Successful consultative salespeople focus a great deal of attention on needs awareness
(see Figure 8.3).
3. Consultative selling encompasses the concept that salespeople should conduct
systematic assessment of the prospect’s situation.
4. The consultative salesperson will help the customer evaluate solutions and help
resolve any problems that surface prior to the purchase stage.
5. Consultative salespeople also work hard to add value at the implementation stage of
1. Step one in building an alliance is a careful study of the proposed partner.
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2. Representatives from both companies will meet and explore the mutual benefits of the
alliance.
D. The buyer resolution theory is based on the point of view that the final buying decision.
1. Possible only after the prospect has answered five logical questions (see Figure 8.4).
a. Why should I buy?
b. What should I buy?
c. Where should I buy?
d. What is a fair price?
e. When should I buy?
2. One important limitation of this theory is that it is often not possible to anticipate
which of the five buying decisions might be most difficult for the prospect to make.
3. No established sequence in which prospects make these five decisions, so a highly
inflexible sales presentation would not be effective.
V. Understanding Buyer Behavior
A. Many forces influence buyer behavior (see Figure 8.5).
B. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
1. According to Abraham Maslow, basic human needs are arranged in a hierarchy
according to their strength (see Figure 8.6).
2. Physiological needs
a. Physiological needs, sometimes called primary needs, are basic needs (hunger,
thirst, shelter, and so forth), which tend to be very strong in the minds of most
people.
b. As basic needs are met, a person seeks to satisfy higher needs.
c. Satisfaction of higher needs is postponed until basic physical needs are satisfied.
3. Security needs
a. Security needs represent our desire to be free from danger.
b. Desire to satisfy this need may motivate people to purchase security systems,
smoke alarms, medical and life insurance, and so forth.
4. Social needs
a. Social needs reflect the desire for friendship, companionship, and long-term
business relationships.
b. Customers want to be treated as partners.
5. Esteem needs
a. Esteem needs reflect the desire to feel worthy, competent, or adequate in the eyes
of others.
b. Customers want salespeople to involve them in the transaction.
6. Self-actualization needs.
a. Self-actualization needs refer to the need for self-fulfillment, a full tapping of
one’s potential.
b. Highest-level needs on the hierarchy.
C. Group influences that influence buying decisions.
1. People around us also influence our buying decisions.
2. Group influences can be grouped into four major areas:
a. Role influences
b. Reference group
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c. Social class
d. Culture and subculture
D. Role influence
1. Role is a set of characteristics and expected social behaviors based on external
expectations.
2. Roles influence general behavior and buying behavior.
E. Reference group influence
1. A reference group is a group of several people who have well-established
interpersonal communications and tend to influence the values, attitudes, and
behaviors of one another.
2. May act as a point of comparison and a source of information for the individual
member.
3. Norms of the group become a guide for purchasing activity according to the
strength of the individual’s involvement with the group and the individual’s
degree of susceptibility to reference group influence.
F. Social class influence
1. Social class is a group of people who are similar in values, lifestyles, interests,
behavior, and occupational prestige.
2. Entry into various social classes differs among societies.
3. To some degree, individuals within social classes have similar attitudes, values,
and possessions.
4. Sociologists have determined that there are between three and six social classes.
G. Cultural influence
1. Culture is the accumulation of values, rules of behavior, forms of expression,
beliefs, and the like for a group of people who share a common language and
environment.
2. Culture has considerable influence on buying behavior.
3. Subculture is a group whose members share ideals and beliefs that differ from
those held by the wider society of which they are a part.
H. Perception is the process through which sensations are interpreted, using knowledge
and experience.
1. Perception is shaped by group influences and psychological and physiological
conditions within us (see Figure 8.2).
2. Perception influences buying behavior because it determines what is seen and felt.
I. Selective perception is screening out or modifying stimuli.
1. Impossible to be conscious of all inputs at one time.
2. Social and cultural background plus physical and psychological needs condition
the use of selectivity.
3. Buyers may screen out or modify information if it conflicts with previous
attitudes or beliefs.
4. Salespeople should review their own perceptions for accuracy.
J. Buying Motives
1. Buying motive is an aroused need, drive, or desire.
2. It acts as a force that stimulates behavior intended to satisfy that aroused need.
3. Perceptions influence or shape this behavior.
4. Buying decisions are influenced by more than one buying motive.
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5. Should try to discover the dominant buying motive (DBM), which may have the
greatest influence on the buying decision.
6. Successful salespeople have adopted a product strategy that involves discovery of
buying motives that influence purchase decisions.
K. Emotional versus rational buying motives
1. Emotional buying motives are those motives that prompt the prospect to act
because of an appeal to some sentiment or passion.
2. Rational buying motives are those motives that appeal to the prospect’s reason
or better judgment.
3. Emotional buying motives
4. Rational buying motives
a. A purchase based on rational buying motives is generally the result of an
objective review of available information.
b. The buyer closely examines the product or service in an unemotional manner
and has a functional use in mind.
c. A professional buyer or purchasing agent is likely to be motivated by rational
buying motives.
d. A professional buyer will welcome the advice and counsel of a well-trained
salesperson.
e. Rational buying motives include:
(1) Saving time
(2) On-time delivery
(3) Increased profits or financial gain
(4) Competent installation and servicing
(5) Durability
L. Patronage versus product buying motives
1. Patronage buying motives cause the prospect to buy products from one
particular business.
a. Prospect usually has had prior direct or indirect beneficial contact with the
business.
b. Highly important where there is little or no appreciable difference between
two products.
c. Patronage buying motives include:
1) Superior service
2) Selection
3) Competence of sales representative
2. Product buying motives lead a prospect to purchase one product in preference to
another.
a. Sometimes made without direct comparison between competing products.
b. Product buying motives include:
(1) Brand preference
(2) Quality preference
(3) Price preference
(4) Design and/or engineering preference