Nearly every day, we’re seeing a new article about B2B buyer behaviors. These cover everything from, “no more phones,” to “no more faxes,” to “no more emailed PDFs,” to “B2B buyers expect B2C experiences”. However, for B2B practitioners, we know that seven-figure deals are still happening on paper, over the phone, and yes, even by fax.
Though this may seem like a failure at modernization, we see it as a bridge between two worlds: those doing business 100% online, and those doing a hybrid online/offline.
Why do buyers still email, call, and fax?
From the outside, legacy buyer behaviors may seem inefficient, but they still serve a purpose: they’re systems with a built-in level of trust, and with that trust comes a perceived reduction in risk.
In complex B2B circumstances, for both manufacturers and distributors, purchasing is far from transactional. It differs from D2C ecommerce in that most purchases are built on mutual interactions, all relational at their core. Additionally, the stakes can be high. A single error can impact the supply chain, cause a compliance issue, or even put someone’s job at risk. Buyers, the processes built in their own organizations, need a system that feels stable, familiar, and still keeps enough of “the old” to feel like it’s earned its trust.
Calling a sales rep takes more time than requesting a quote online, but it comes with a sense of reassurance and immediacy. Emailing documents back and forth adds work for all involved but also creates a “paper trail” that some buyers find necessary. Faxing still provides the security and formality that many organizations require.
Modern tools promise speed and efficiency, which is incredibly valuable, but legacy channels offer something that modern tools cannot (yet) promise: certainty, familiarity, and that phrase we’ve all heard at least once before, “this is the way it’s always been done.”
What Can Legacy Buying Behavior Teach Us About Trust?
There is a growing temptation to file legacy behavior as “friction” and put it where the rest of the friction-causing processes go: future modernization projects. However, it shouldn’t be labeled without some examination, because figuring out why buyers prefer to do things a certain way can reveal how a manufacturer or distributor can best serve them.
Buyers who avoid self-service tools are oftentimes not doing so out of ignorance but because they may not trust the modern tools to follow-through just yet, believe the transaction is too important to automate, or they need reassurance before committing. (Often it’s a combination of these, or even all three.)
In this sense, legacy behaviors serve as a necessary and human last-step that buyers must complete before making a final commitment. This fits the typical B2B buyer journey of exploration, evaluation, reassurance, then action. Digital tools are excellent at the first two steps, and can be great at the rest, in the right contexts. However, for the time-being, legacy tools continue to dominate the latter half of the buyer journey.
Rather than remove the “reassurance” step, how can organizations leave room for it?
Modernization Does NOT Mean “Replacement”
May see digital transformation as “addition by subtraction.” The vision often includes fewer people, fewer “steps,” fewer options, fewer tools, etc. In practice though, the strongest digital transformations absorb legacy behaviors into a unified experience rather than forcing buyers to abandon them completely.
In this way, modernization is not a purge, but a reimagination, and it can look like:
- A buyer calls a sales rep, and the interaction is automatically logged using AI and tracked within a CRM
- Orders are often still emailed, but they’re immediately added to an ERP
- Certificates are faxed, but trigger an automated workflow
From the buyers’ perspective, everything is “business as usual,” and for the manufacturer or distributor’s perspective, everything is clean, process-ready, visible, organized, and easily-accessible.
Listening to buyers—their needs and expectations, their experiences and opinions on improvement—is a critical step towards building processes that continue building trust in the short-term, and scalable in the long-term.
Where buyers are often navigating risk, complexity, and internal pressures, the manufacturers and distributors best positioned for long-term success are those that act as guides. This often means implementing modernization that’s only visible “behind the scenes.” Other times, it can be building systems that allow for a harmonious relationship between all channels.
How To Modernize Without Alienating
It’s no secret that B2B is trending towards digital, and it is true that businesses that don’t adapt will be left behind, however, there is a way to embrace the new while not abandoning any trust already established.
When implementing new processes, keep in mind:
- Are the new tools additive, or are they fully replacing existing processes?
- Are new processes based on actual buyer behavior, or ideal buyer behaviors?
- Are legacy behaviors treated internally as a problem to be solved, or a signal for what buyers are needing and expecting?
The best digital transformations serve not only the manufacturers and distributors building them, but the buyers they serve as well. And now, in 2026, creating a bridge between the old and the new is a great place to start.
In B2B, those staying ahead are not the ones with the flashiest features or most innovative tools, but those building strong foundations and investing in long-term transformations. At Cadent Commerce, we can help with both. Reach out to get started.
