Business decision-makers in Australia have reported paying a 21% premium for improved customer experiences, according to a new global survey on the changing sales process and buying patterns of business and IT decision-makers.

In Australia, the ‘consumerisation’ movement is shifting the sales process out of the control of the seller as enterprise buyers begin to mimic consumer shopping behaviours, says the survey conducted by Avanade, a global business technology solutions and managed services provider.

With this shift, the value of the customer experience is now more important than price to business and IT decision-makers.

Key findings from Australian respondents:

• Customer experience now tops price as the most important factor in a buying decision by an enterprise decision-maker. Notably, business buyers are willing to pay up to 21% more for a product or service that offers an improved customer experience.
• Businesses no longer have control over information shared about their products or services. 60% of business decision-makers report third-party sites and feedback from business partners, industry peers or social channels is more important than conversations with a company’s sales teams when making a purchasing decision.
• To help navigate this change, companies are enlisting new people and departments to manage the customer experience. Compared to three years ago, customer service and call centres, IT and marketing are the leading groups now playing a larger role in the customer experience.
• 69% of respondents believe technology will primarily replace human interaction with customers in the next 10 years. Anticipating this change, businesses are making new technology investments, changing business processes and redesigning organisational roles. 84% of companies have changed at least one business process in the past three years to better interact with customers.
• To adapt to changing industry needs companies have invested in various customer sales and support technologies such as mobile devices (79%), customer relationship management (CRM) systems (57%), mobile applications (54%) and social media (50%).

About the survey: Avanade’s survey was conducted in October 2013 by Wakefield Research, an independent research firm. It surveyed 1000 C-level executives, business unit leaders and IT decision makers, at the top companies in the following countries: USA, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Norway, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.