Customer Behavior Principles

A customer is usually considered to be the one to dominate the market. Therefore, they are considered to dominate the market and market trends. A producer would not be producing if a consumer did not exist. A customer gives the produce a motive to produce goods and services.

The psychological process related to the emotions of a consumer makes up consumer behavior (David, 2016). It starts from need recognition, determining a way to solve the need, making the buying decisions, confirming the information and then making the purchase. The customer behavior is determined and affected by several factors. Also, there are principles of customer behavior. These are aspects that need to be put in place to better understand the target market.

Principles of customer behavior

Offering a social currency. This is something that would make people want to share the idea or product. It’s the job of the marketer to give the customers the idealized version of themselves to the world. The “currency” is something that makes the product or idea is what makes people who share them look and appear good (Tronvoll, 2011). For example, games have this feature of showing off your score to friends, as much as it is making the users look good,

he is also promoting the product knowingly. In the mobile industry, offering the currency can be done through giving details of the phone after sending a certain element from the phone. For example, after sending an email, the email could have a small text showing that it was sent from this kind of mobile phone.

The second principle is to include triggers that are easy to remember. This creates a memory in the consumer’s mind. Some environmental factors stimulate the triggers that whenever a customer experiences the stimuli, the product comes in mind (Watkinson, 2013). An example of such a feature in the mobile phones is googles map. The invention is almost in every brand. Today most people are going to places with just their phones, and they can locate it. Such a feature is a trigger of how good a certain brand is.

Another principle is striving for an emotional connection. , people share things that they care about. To positively affect customer behavior, it is important to trigger a positive emotional reaction in people. This way people will develop a positive connection and will be more willing to share the message.

Making a brand more visible is another important principle. This means putting in place features that advertise themselves. In other words, the messages should be more public facing. This is to get the customers attention and make them interested in the brand.

Providing a practical value is another principle. This is how well some brand performs its purpose. For example, what is the quality of a Vodafone camera? People usually test the practical usefulness of a product before they share it. When people get to know how well a phone can take photos, they will share it with their friends and this by itself is a promotion. 

Principles of customer behavior

Finally, you should never underestimate the power of a story. Communication in marketing happens in many ways, and it could be through an email, an ad, a poster, a blog post or even a social media post. Consumers get to collect information from all this point before purchasing a product. Therefore, putting on the right image matters (Persson, 2013). Creating a good story makes a brand sell no matter where it is posted. Someone will come along and read or see the story.

Customer Behaviour Theories

The organization of choice is the Vodafone company. As the market research manager, I researched customer behavior to develop an innovative sustainable market. Sometimes customers are not satisfied with the brand or the service provided, some of the factors that cause the dissatisfaction include; competition, response to service failure, pricing, service counter failure, core service failure, inconveniences, and ethical problems among others. Improving on these areas would act as a boost to customer satisfaction. The more the customers are satisfied, the better the chances of maintaining the brand in the market. In this research, we are going to look at why customers in Vodafone act the way they do and why their buying pattern is the way they do. This will be supported by the customer behavior theories as outlined below. 

The reasoned theory

The theory suggests that the customer’s behavior is influenced by their intention to create or receive a particular outcome. Customers are said to be rational actors and only act according to their best interests. In respect to this theory, customers take actions when they expect a result from it. Therefore, they would only make a purchase when they expect a positive result (Daunt, Harris, 2012). That is if the purchase satisfies their need completely that’s when they would make the purchase. Therefore, as a marketer, it is important to study what people prefer in phones and give them exactly that. Also, marketers can also anticipate what would make customers more thrilled to make the purchase.  For example, a Vodafone which is unbreakable would be what the customers want.

Motivation need theory

Abraham Maslow came up with his theory. In respect to this theory, people tend to act to fulfill their needs based on the five-part priority system. The needs are survival, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. For a successful marketing campaign, the marketers need to establish the place a product holds in the hierarchy of needs. Therefore, it is of importance to motivate the customers to prioritize their purchases according to the base of hierarchy (Peattie, and Belz, 2013). Even though a Vodafone mobile phone might be in the self-actualization part, making it a survival need will motivate the customers to make the purchases.

Hawkins theory of impulse buying

Most of the theories tend to focus on rational customer actions; this theory, however, focuses on the idea of impulse buying. Hawkins developed this theory implying that how the product is presented makes the customers want to buy even when they have not planned. Certain aspects such as packaging, scent and just the physical appearance heavily support the idea of impulse buying (Baker and Saren, 2016). Marketers can, therefore, capitalize on these aspects to attract customers.

Engel, kollet, Blackwell theory

The theory is an expounded reasoned action theory. It points out a five-step process used by consumers when making a purchase. The process goes from input to data collection on the product to information processing. The next stage is decision making and finally the purchase. Under this theory, marketers must show the value of the product at the input stage, at data collection they must also ensure they provide them with all necessary information (King, 2010). This is to make the customers consider making the purchase.

In conclusion, customer satisfaction is very vital in any organization. Customers are important in business, and their needs need to be put into consideration satisfied customers would not consider switching brands. Customers would only buy a product when they expect it to fulfill their needs. Customers also tend to value information and therefore they need adequate information on the products. Impulse buying also tends to influence customers buying behavior. Customers impulse buy when they find something attractive about a product. Lastly, marketers should motivate customers to prioritize their purchases from the base of the hierarchy. 

References

David, E. (2016, June). Marketing Underground: an Investigation of Fishbein’s Behavioral Intention Model by David E. Weddle and James R. Bettman. 

Baker, M. J., & Saren, M. (Eds.). (2016). Marketing theory: a student text. Sage.

Peattie, K., & Belz, F. (2013). Sustainability marketing: A global perspective. John Wiley and Sons.

Daunt, K. L., & Harris, L. C. (2012). Exploring the forms of dysfunctional customer behavior: A study of differences in servicescape and customer disaffection with service. Journal of Marketing Management, 28(1-2), 129-153.

Tronvoll, B. (2011). Negative emotions and their effect on customer complaint behavior. Journal of Service Management, 22(1), 111-134.

Persson, A. (2013). Profitable customer management: reducing costs by influencing customer behavior. European Journal of Marketing, 47(5/6), 857-876.

Watkinson, M. (2013). The ten principles behind great customer experiences. Pearson UK.

King, B. (2010). Bank 2.0: How customer behavior and technology will change the future of financial services. Marshall Cavendish International Asia Pte Ltd.