New research conducted by Gong, the leading revenue intelligence platform, finds that the number of interactions buyers have had with sellers in the last two years has gone down by 22%. 

When buyers do meet with sellers they spend 15% more time together than they did in 2020, with more senior executives becoming involved in the buying process. This time is increasingly being spent on negotiating contracts and providing context that prospects are not finding elsewhere in the sales funnel. In fact, we’ve seen a 55% increase in the number of deals won that involved a VP or more senior role in one or more sales meetings. Despite more seniority on calls, the average deal size has fallen by almost a third (30%) in 2022.

These findings come amid a turbulent time for British businesses. Research released by Gong in December 2022, found that 44% of UK businesses missed their earnings targets at some point last year. This new data suggests that falling deal sizes and fewer opportunities to get in front of customers is contributing to those missed forecasts. 

In 2022, sales reps were working fewer active deals, while the average number of meetings/calls per deal had also decreased. Factoring both, on average reps saw a 36% drop in the total number of interactions with buyers compared to 2020.

The data also shows an increase in finance's involvement, with this department joining twice the amount of calls: 6% in 2022 vs 3% in 2020. Looking at these data points together, it suggests that calls and meetings are increasingly being spent on negotiating terms and contract sizes. 

According to Gartner, nearly three out of four B2B buyers say they prefer to make a purchase without ever engaging with a salesperson. These findings suggest that when buyers do engage with a seller, they are looking to make sense of information consumed during their hours of self-led research. This is highlighted by the substantial increase in average call duration.

Wendy Harris, Head of EMEA at Gong: “Selling in today’s economic downturn is undoubtedly difficult, but our analysis shows that there is still an important role to play for salespeople at all levels of the organisation during calls and in meetings. Reps need to help prospects contextualise what they’ve heard or read, provide answers that they haven’t been able to find on their own, and act as a trusted advisor to them.

“The data also highlights how B2B buyers are pivoting away from meetings during the early stages of the sales funnel in favour of a self-service-first approach. Companies need to ensure these asynchronous touchpoints are frictionless for buyers and that their sales teams engage with prospects at the right moment.. The new role of the seller is to inspire confidence in your buyer. Working fewer opportunities allows sellers to shift the focus from quantity to quality.”

Methodology

Buyer/Seller Trends Data: Gong analysed three years of its own data across 184 companies, and hundreds of thousands of deals to identify key shifts in buying behaviour. The analysis is of companies who used Gong before July 2020 and covers activity from July-year end for three years, 2020, 2021 and 2022. 

2022 Financial Target Censuswide Research: Gong commissioned Censuswide to survey 500 senior decision makers across the UK, from companies of any size. The research was conducted 1st December to 2nd December 2022.

About Gong
Gong unlocks reality to help people and companies reach their full potential. The Reality Platform™ autonomously empowers customer-facing teams to take advantage of their most valuable assets – customer interactions, which the Gong platform captures and analyzes. Gong then delivers insights at scale, enabling revenue and go-to-market teams to determine the best actions for repeatable winning outcomes. More than 3,500 innovative companies like Morningstar Inc., Paychex, LinkedIn, Shopify, Slack, Sprout Social, Twilio, and Zillow trust Gong to power their business reality. For more information, please visit www.gong.io.