Introduction
For decades, the industrial sector has operated under a premise assumed to be natural: the purchasing process begins when the customer calls. The buyer identifies a need, contacts several suppliers, explains their case, and from there, the commercial relationship begins.
That model wasn't perfect, but it worked because the supplier controlled access to information.
That context has changed structurally. Today's industrial buyer no longer needs to call to understand what options exist or which suppliers can meet their requirements. What they need is to confirm, quickly and autonomously, whether a supplier deserves consideration. And when they can't do that, they don't persist: they move on to the next one.
The industrial buyer purchases before talking to you
The 6Sense B2B Buyer Experience Report 2025 introduces a figure that redefines the role of commercial contact: the B2B buyer arrives with approximately 85% of their requirements defined before contacting a supplier.
This means that much of the work traditionally attributed to the salesperson—explaining capabilities, detailing options, narrowing down solutions—has already been completed without human intervention. The buyer has researched, compared alternatives, ruled out options, and made a preliminary decision based exclusively on the information they've found.
When they finally make contact, they're not looking to be sold to. They're looking for confirmation. They want to know if that specific supplier can deliver exactly what they've already defined internally, under what conditions, and within what timeframes.
If the supplier's website hasn't been able to accompany them during that prior phase, that contact will never happen.
85% of requirements are already defined before first contact with the supplier.
— 6Sense B2B Buyer Experience Report 2025
The first supplier contacted isn't a coincidence
The same 6Sense report provides a second key figure: the first supplier contacted wins approximately 8 out of 10 contracts. Not the most innovative. Not the one with the best sales pitch. The first one.
That order isn't decided by rapport or chance. It's decided by information accessibility. The supplier that allows the buyer to advance without friction becomes the first contact. The rest are relegated to a later phase that, in most cases, never comes.
From this perspective, the website stops being corporate collateral and becomes an active element in the sales process. It doesn't persuade, it doesn't convince, but it enables the decision.
8 out of 10 contracts are won by the first supplier contacted.
— 6Sense B2B Buyer Experience Report 2025
The real cost of wasting the buyer's time
From the supplier's perspective, a website that doesn't inform has a direct cost, even if it's rarely measured.
Of every 100 buyers who arrive actively seeking a specific product or service, more than half leave without making contact. Not because there's no fit, but because they couldn't verify what they needed to move forward.
Each of those abandonments represents an opportunity that automatically shifts to a competitor. And since the first supplier contacted captures the majority of closed deals, the impact is neither marginal nor theoretical.
This isn't a marketing or visibility problem. It's a friction problem at the exact moment decisions are being made.
52% of industrial buyers abandon the website as soon as they confirm they won't find what they're looking for.
— Thomas Industrial Network
Why the "call us for more information" model has stopped working
"Call us for more information" was viable when access to suppliers was limited and technical information wasn't publicly available. Today it acts as an unnecessary barrier.
71% of industrial buyers evaluate fewer than five suppliers before deciding. That means filtering happens before any contact. If a company requires a call to discover basic information, it's excluded from that shortlist.
The buyer isn't avoiding human contact; they're avoiding wasted time. They have internal pressure, deadlines, and multiple alternatives, and they've learned to disqualify quickly.
71% of buyers evaluate fewer than 5 suppliers before deciding.
— Thomas Industrial Network
The new industrial purchasing process in numbers
Aggregated data from cited studies on B2B industrial buyer behaviour.
| Indicator | Figure | Implication |
|---|---|---|
| Requirements defined before contact | 85% | The salesperson no longer defines the solution |
| Abandonments due to lack of information | 52% | The website filters before the phone does |
| Contracts for first supplier contacted | ~80% | Being second is almost being invisible |
| Suppliers evaluated before deciding | <5 | Filtering happens without human intervention |
Conclusion
Serving the industrial buyer is no longer about handling a call well—it's about preventing them from having to make one to resolve basic questions.
Commercial contact remains important, but only for those who have passed a prior validation phase that occurs almost entirely on the supplier's website.
When a company continues to rely on the phone as the gateway, it's not protecting its commercial process. It's ceding advantage to whoever actually understands how today's industrial market buys.
If your commercial process still depends on the phone to explain the basics, you're losing opportunities before you even know they existed. I can analyse how your website responds to the real expectations of the industrial buyer: what information is missing, where friction occurs, and what changes would have direct impact on the enquiries you receive.
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