Relationship Data: Turning Buyer Moves Into Revenue Opportunities

This is the third in a three-part series, highlighting relationship data's importance and value to businesses.

Job changes happen constantly. Each buyer transition reshapes the sales dynamic. When a buyer who knows your product moves to a new company, or when a new decision-maker steps into an existing account, the outcome depends on how quickly you act and how much context you have.

The sales motion is no different. With average job tenure shrinking, buyer movement is now a near-constant variable in every sales cycle.

The most important question here is are you keeping tabs. If you are, you will encounter two scenarios:

1. Your buyer (or power user) has moved to a new company, one you are interested in converting to a customer.
2. Your buyer has moved to a new company, and you have to court their replacement to keep the account.

Old buyer, new company: managing the buyer transition

When UserGems detects that a former buyer has moved to a new company, that job change signal triggers an alert your team can act on immediately—before a competitor even notices the move.

Your strategy should involve two steps:

1. ‍Use relationship data and buyer job movement signals to help you:

• Build trust from day one. Having a buyer or a champion who’s already used your product in their previous role instantly differentiates you from the crowd. They’ll champion or help you navigate the buying committee. Or refer you to the right decision-maker.
• Highlight the buyer preferences and tailor your outreach accordingly. The buyer's preferences at their former company are likely to transfer to their role at the new company. And you/your team already have this historical information.

2. Gather and analyze intent data to help your old buyer adjust to the new workplace. Presenting insights on who wields power in the buyer's new division — and who they need to align with to make a smooth transition — helps you build goodwill and deepen the relationship. If the insights you provide help the buyer get oriented and land well in their new role, you become a trusted resource before the formal sales conversation even starts.

New buyer, existing company

A buyer transition at an existing customer account is more complicated (especially if the new buyer is coming from a company serviced by a competitor.)

To retain the account, put intent and relationship data to work to launch a re-selling (or “churn prevention”) campaign to keep/win critical stakeholders to your side. Here's the approach that works:

1. Get alerts when a new decision-maker (or influencer) joins your customer account. Reach out early to introduce yourself and welcome them. That conversation opens the door to share what you've been doing with their team, learn their new priorities, and establish your value before any formal review begins.
2. Use relationship data to strengthen your standing with the existing team. The new buyer may want to shake things up when they join. But having their new team on your side is a great way to backup any ROI conversations on your product.
3. Use intent data to know the new buyer’s interest (that they might not be telling you). You should thoroughly analyze the new buyer's behavior to determine how they intend to make their evaluation and buying decision.

Final thoughts

Relationships will always be critical to your sales success. Now is the time to build a strong pool of intent and relationship data. Revenue teams that build their outreach around verified buyer signals—job changes, intent data, real relationship history—close more and churn less. That's where UserGems fits: giving your team the right signal at the right time with the context to act on it.