Close Buyer-Seller Relationships
The smaller customer base and increased usage of supply chain management, characterized by buyers becoming highly involved in organizing and administering logistical processes and actively managing a reduced set of suppliers, has resulted in buyers and sellers becoming much more interdependent than ever before .This increased interdependence and desire to reduce risk of the unknown has led to an emphasis on developing long-term buyer-seller relationship characterized by increased levels of buyers-seller interaction and higher levels of service expectations by buyers.”Professional Selling in the 21 st Century: It’s No Longer All About Lowest Price”describes the emerging change in buyer’expectations from a price emphasis to relationships and problem-solving solutions. This shift requires salespeople to change their focus from quickly selling the buyer and closing the current transaction and,in its place,adapt a longer-term perspective emphasizing continuing multipleexchanges into the future.This perspective often includes making multiple sales calls to develop a better understanding of the buyer’s needs and enhances the buyer-seller relationship in favor of future interactions.
THE BUYING PROCESS
Buyers in both the consumer and business marketplace undergo a conscious and logical process in making purchase decisions. As depicted in figure 3.1, the sequential and interrelated phases of the business buyer’s purchase process begin with
1. Recognition of the problem or need.
2. Determination of the characteristics of the item and the quantity needed.
3. Description of the characteristics of the item and the quantity needed.
4. Search for and qualification of potential sources.
5. Acquisition and analysis of proposals.
6. Evaluation of proposal and selection of suppliers.
7. Selection of an order routine.
8. Performance feedback and evaluation.
Professional selling in the 21st century
It's No longer All About Lowest Price.
Results from the Quality Insurance Congress [QIC]and the Risk and Insurance management Society’s [RIMS]series of “Voice of the Customer” research studies describe the tremendous changes in buyer’s needs and expectations that are reshaping the commercial property and casualty insurance market.
These changes reflect a radically changed business environment and buying motives. No longer is lowest price the primary consideration in the insurance purchase decision. Certainly, price must be in line with the total value received. But today, business buyers of property and casualty insurance emphasize the importance of long-term partnerships, mutual trust, and innovative solutions in their evaluation and choice of vendors. The RIMS-QIC Quality Scorecard research program documents this shift in buyer expectations and identifies the four primary supplier performance expectations impacting customer satisfaction and loyalty to suppliers as the following:
1. Identifying customer need and creating innovative solutions.
2. Building internal and external partnerships.
3. Generating and maintaining trust and reliability.
4. Engaging in two-way interactive communications.
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Depending upon the nature of the buying organization and the buying situation, the buying process may by highly formalized or simply a rough approximation of what actually occurs. The decision process employed by General Motors for acquisition of a new organization-wide computer system will be highly formalized and purposefully reflect each of the previously described decision phases. Compared to General Motors, the decision process of Bloomington Bookkeeping, a single office and four-person oper-ation, could be expected to use a less formalized approach in working through their buying decision process for a computer system. In the decision to replenish stock offce