Topic 4: Customer behaviour

1. Presentation
The goal of marketing is to attract consumers. To do this, marketers must understand
customer behaviour very well.
Consumer behaviour refers to the set of actions taken by a person or organisation
from the emergence of a need to the purchase and use of the product, as well as the
factors influencing those actions.
Therefore, we will focus on the “what, when and how” of customer buying decisions.
Understanding these aspects will enable us to:

• Identify current and future needs more efficiently

• Improve our ability to communicate with the customer
• Earn their trust and ensure their loyalty
• Plan commercial actions more effectively

2. The consumer behaviour model

People make many buying decisions over the course of a day. Influencing these buying
decisions is the main focus of marketing. To understand our customer’s behaviour
model, we need to answer the following questions:

• What do they buy?

• Who buys?
• Why do they buy?
• How do they buy?
• When do they buy?
• Where do they buy?
• How much do they buy?
With the answers obtained, marketing professionals can design the most appropriate
actions to attract customers and establish a relationship with them.
There are many different factors influencing consumer behaviour and buying
decisions:

• Cultural: these factors have the most influence. Culture means behaviour learned
at a basic level which affects the individual’s behaviour.

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 • Social: an individual’s behaviour is influenced by many small groups. The groups
which directly influence a person’s behaviour are called groups of belonging; those
which the individual refers to and aspires to join are reference groups. The family is
the most important buying organisation in society. Accordingly, marketing is
continually studying the roles of each member.
• Personal: each person is influenced by their own characteristics, such as their
profession, age, stage of life, economic situation, lifestyle, personality and self-
concept.
• Psychological: four psychological factors influence people’s buying decisions:
motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes.
Motivation: is the general predisposition driving behaviour to obtain what is
desired.
Perception: is the process of selecting and integrating sensory stimuli into a
meaningful, consistent image. Perception is selective (we perceive what we are
interested in); the same product may be perceived differently by different
people, depending on the attributes which most interest them.
Learning, beliefs and attitudes: learning refers to changes in an individual’s
behaviour caused by experience. Through learning, people acquire beliefs
(thoughts describing something) and attitudes (value judgements, feelings and
tendencies towards something) which also influence their buying behaviour.
Buying behaviour also varies depending on how the roles of buyer, consumer and
payer are associated, in which the following situations are possible:

The three functions are performed by the same person

Each function is performed by one person
One person is the buyer/payer and another is the consumer
One person is the buyer/consumer and another is the payer
One person is the buyer and another is the consumer/payer

3. The buying decision

Buying behaviour varies a great deal according to the product or service to be
acquired. The process is longer for important purchases, becoming shorter for less
important purchases or if the purchaser has greater experience of the product and
awareness of existing brands.

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 Low complexity High complexity
Repeat purchases First purchase
Frequent buying Occasional buying
Impulse buying Rational buying
Low-involvement buying High-involvement buying
Low-priced product High-priced product

Depending on the buyer’s level of participation and the difference between brands, we
can distinguish the following types of buying behaviour:

• Complex: when the buyer is very involved in the purchase and perceives
significant differences between brands. This usually involves a thoughtful
buying choice.
• Dissonance-reducing: when the buyer is very involved in the purchase but
does not see much difference between brands. A shorter decision-making
process.
• Habitual buying: when the buyer’s participation is low and the differences
between brands are not significant.
• Variety-seeking: when the buyer’s participation is low but there are large
perceived differences between brands.

4. The buying decision process

The buying process begins well before the purchase itself and continues for a long time
afterwards. Therefore, marketing professionals must analyse the whole buying process
and not only the buying decision.
There are five stages in the buying process, which everyone goes through in a different
way: the process may be fast or slow and consumers may skip a stage or change their
order.

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 • Recognition of a need: the person realises they have a need, which may be
triggered by an internal or external stimulus.

• Searching for information: consumers can obtain product information from a

wide range of sources: personal (family, friends, neighbours, acquaintances),
commercial (advertising, salespeople, websites, shop windows) and public
(mass media, consumer organisations, internet).

• Assessing options: how consumers process the information to choose between

different products and brands, sometimes thoughtfully, and sometimes buying
on impulse.

• Buying decision: consumers’ buying decisions usually consist of buying the

product or brand they prefer, but two factors may still enter into play between
the intention to buy and the final decision: the attitudes of other people and
unexpected circumstances.

• Post-purchase behaviour: after the acquisition of a product the consumer will

feel satisfied or dissatisfied and will behave in a certain way depending on that
feeling. This behaviour is determined by the relationship between consumer
expectations and the perceived product performance.
Ø If the product does not fulfil expectations, the consumer will feel
dissatisfied.

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 Ø If the product fulfils expectations, the consumer will feel satisfied.
Ø If the product exceeds expectations, the consumer will be delighted.
The greater the difference between expectations and performance, the more
dissatisfied/satisfied the consumer will be.
Customer satisfaction is a marketing priority, because:

• A satisfied consumer will buy a product again, talks about it positively, and pays
less attention to messages from competitors.
• A dissatisfied consumer talks negatively about the product, will not buy it again
and switches to the competitors.
Negative publicity “travels” much faster than positive. Hence, marketers must assess
the satisfaction of their customers, encouraging them to share their complaints, what
they value about the product and what the company is doing wrong, and then look for
solutions.

5. The buying decision process for new products

A new product is a good, service or idea which potential customers perceive to be
something new. From the marketing point of view, it is important to know how
consumers discover a product for the first time and how they decide whether or not to
adopt it.
The adoption process is the mental process an individual goes through from first
hearing about an innovation to finally adopting it.
During the process of adopting a new product, consumers go through several stages:

• Awareness: they discover that a new product exists but have no information
about it.
• Interest: they look for information on the new product.
• Evaluation: they assess whether it makes sense to acquire the new product.
• Trial: they try the new product on a small scale to further assess its value.
• Adoption: they decide to use the new product habitually.
The person responsible for marketing a new product must think about how they can
help consumers go through these stages and adopt the product.
People’s willingness to try new products varies widely. We can distinguish five
different types of new product “adopters”:

• Innovators: adventurous consumers who will risk trying new ideas.

• Early adopters: they adopt new ideas quickly but cautiously, with some
previous knowledge. They are opinion leaders in their communities.

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 • Early majority: they adopt new ideas later than the above, but earlier than
average.
• Late majority: they are sceptical and adopt innovations only when they have
already been tried by the majority.
• Laggards: they reject changes and adopt innovations only when they have
already become customary.
The adoption rate for a very high percentage of new products or ideas follows a similar
curve to this figure:

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