What is the key to a successful organisation? Easy customers… If we can serve our customers better than our competitors and become their preferred choice, the mutual benefits for both the company and the customer, will drive growth.

Today we will look at why our customers behave the way they do and analyse the consumer decision making process.

Why do we study our Consumers?

Studying our consumers not only allow us to understand their behaviour, but it helps us predict and influence their behaviour with our messages.

In order to serve our customers better than our competitors we need to understand our customers better than our competitors do. If we understand how our consumers make decisions, we can position ourselves to show our customers that we can help them solve their problems.

Consumer Decision Making Process

Consumers go through this process to solve a problem. They have wants and needs and are looking for solutions that will satisfy them.

1. Problem Recognition

This occurs when a consumer realises that an unfulfilled need exists. There is a difference between the actual state (I want food) and the desired state (I have a Burger). This is usually triggered by either internal or external triggers, ex. Hunger (internal) or Packaging (External).

2. Information Search

This is where the consumer gathers information about various alternatives that can help them achieve the desired state.

The extent of the search depends on the consumers knowledge, the more they know about possible solutions the less likely they will be to search for additional information. The size of the investment required will also influence the search, the more the product costs the more information will be needed to decide.

Information sources can include marketing related material or non-marketing related material, ex. Personal experience, or recommendations from a friend. Making sure we have content available that differentiates our products is important to support the customers information search.

3. Evaluate Alternatives

When consumers have gathered enough information, they will establish a set of attributes to qualify the alternatives against. Knowing these attributes will help inform marketing communications.

We can use our content to influence the important characteristics or attributes to look for when evaluating alternatives.

4. Purchase

After evaluation the Consumer will decide whether to buy a product, or which alternative to purchase.

5. Post Purchase Behaviour

During this phase customers will either be satisfied or dissatisfied with the solution they decided on depending on whether their expectations were exceeded or if our product fell short of their expectations.

This post purchase behaviour will determine if a consumer will become a repeat customer or a detractor for your brand. It is important to remember that if handled properly even a bad experience can create a repeat customer. If a customer was unhappy or disappointed with your product or service, reach out and find out why, help them solve their problem and achieve the desired state and build a relationship.

Conclusion

Understanding how our consumers make decisions will help us predict their behaviour and improve our communication. It should help us build communities and grow our brand. Building communities require us to approach our customer relationships like we approach our relationships in our personal lives. The better we know our customers and the more time we spend getting to know them, the more they will trust us.