In 2023, Digital Commerce 360 and Forrester Research asked 150 B2B buyers which channels they use most to deal with suppliers. Buyers could pick more than one. Here is the table from the bottom up, because the order has a surprise near the top.
It is a small survey and three years old. Read it as a prompt for your own store, not as a benchmark.
The bottom: appointments and bots
A virtual appointment with a sales rep is the least used channel, at 17%. Social media follows at 20%, and automated chat, the kind with no person behind it, at 23%.
Set that last number beside live chat with a real person: 45%. The window on the page is the same, and the use is nearly double. The survey does not ask why. One plain reading is that buyers use a chat box when someone answers it.
A booked appointment asks the buyer to plan ahead. That is the opposite of a quick question on a product page, and it may explain why it sits last.
The middle: call centers and sales reps
The call center takes 38% and the sales rep 35%. These are the channels most B2B teams staff first. Both sit below live chat with a real person, and both sit below email.
The same survey shows why buyers do not want a rep on every step. 76% agreed that buying from a website is more convenient than buying from a sales rep, and 75% said that once they have decided, they prefer to buy online rather than from a rep.
The top: email, then a person in the chat window
Email leads at 55%. It is slow, but it is written down, and a buyer can forward it to the colleagues who sign off.
Live chat with a real person is second, at 45%, ahead of the call center and the sales rep. That order is the point. The buyer's second choice is not a meeting. It is a person who answers a question while the product page is still open.
Put a person where the buyer already is
Two 2026 Gartner surveys point the same way. Of 646 B2B buyers, 67% prefer a rep-free experience. Of 645, 69% turn to a sales rep to validate what AI told them. Buyers want to do the work themselves and then get a quick, real answer at the moment of doubt.
Check your own store this week. List the channels from the table that you offer. For each one, write down who answers and how long it takes. Then look at the chat or call button on your product pages and confirm that a person stands behind it during the hours your buyers shop.
A live call from the product page is that second-place channel with video added. It needs the same thing the chat box does: someone ready to pick up.
Source
Digital Commerce 360 with Forrester Research, "Online-only B2B buyers", published 11 July 2023 (150 B2B buyers, several answers allowed: email 55%, live chat with a real person 45%, call center 38%, sales rep 35%, automated chat 23%, social media 20%, virtual appointment with a sales rep 17%; 76% agree buying from a website is more convenient than buying from a sales rep; 75% prefer to buy online rather than from a rep once they have decided). Also Gartner, "67% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free experience" (646 buyers, August to September 2025) and "69% turn to sales reps to validate AI-generated insights" (645 buyers). The 2023 sample is small and three years old, and the survey does not say why buyers chose each channel; the readings in the body are editorial. Photos: Wikimedia Commons, CC0 (telephone on an office desk, Nationaal Archief; laptop and notebook on a desk, Unsplash; headphones on wood, Unsplash).
