Initial Encounters: The Lived Experiences of Buyers

The initial encounter between a buyer and a seller has received much attention among practitioners. The first time a buyer interacts with a seller is thought to be highly influential. The premise is that buyers form an opinion during this first encounter, or even the first minutes of this encounter. Furthermore these first impressions tend to stay consistent over time (Tapp, 1999). Therefore the practitioner's literature suggests that sellers should create the best first impression possible: by matching and mirroring buyer behaviour (Boe, 2011a), using nonverbal communication (Goman, 2011) and aligning it with verbal communication (Ramsey, 2003), being groomed (Dumont, 2011), timeliness (Lemons, 2011) and adjusting the handshake (Boe, 2011b). Although academic research has also indicated that initial encounters are an important first hurdle (Dwyer et al., 1987), a holistic view on an initial encounter between a buyer and a seller in line with practice is still missing. Research shows that initial encounters contain a first impression (Bergeron et al., 2008) that impacts on trustworthiness (Geigenmüller and Greschuchna, 2011). Other constructs researched are perceived similarity (Lichtenthal and Tellefsen, 2001), expertise (Crosby et al., 1990), organisational and personal trustworthiness (Geigenmüller and Greschuchna, 2011). Although research provided an insight into specific causal relationships, a framework indicating the relative importance of these relationships is not available. Therefore a qualitative approach is developed to provide such a holistic description, as experienced by buyers. The methodology chosen is a phenomenological study. As research in industrial marketing in this form is rare, specific advantages of this type of research are currently underused (Wagner et al., 2010). Therefore providing a research project using this approach is a contribution on its own account. Practitioners will be able to use the outcomes as a means to reflect on their understanding of initial encounters. The outcomes can serve as a stimulus for evaluating current working methods and training. The purpose of this phenomenological study is to describe the essence (Moustakas, 1994) of the initial encounter between a buyer and a seller as experienced by buyers. The initial encounter between a buyer and a seller is defined as the first time a representative of an organisation who is responsible for the procurement, meets a representative responsible for the selling function of another organisation face-to-face. The central question of this research is: what is a buyer's essence of a lived experience of an initial encounter with a seller? First a short literature review is presented, this outlines the main issues addressed in current research regarding initial encounters in a business-to-business context. Secondly the methodology will be addressed. Next the data collected will be presented in the form of textural and structural themes. In the discussion composite textural description, composite structural descriptions and essence of the initial encounter as experienced by buyers are provided. Furthermore the limitations of the research, future research and managerial implications are discussed