Question

Use your knowledge of consumer behaviour to advise a person wishing to start a firm regarding what he/she should look for as potential success factors. Further, advise this person regarding the factors to check if his/her firm starts showing signs of troubles that one is not sure of, except that he/she is sure that the problems relate to consumer behaviour. The answer should NOT be less than eight pages of A4 paper and not more than 15 pages of A4 paper. You are also required to use relevant diagrams and equations to support your answers.

Answer 1

The knowledge of customer behavior helps to advise a business person for starting a firm regarding the success factors. This involved the advice regarding the operations, signs of troubles, and problems related to consumer behavior. The term consumer behavior means the study of how individual customers, communities, groups, or organizations select, collect, buy, use, and dispose of ideas, goods, products, and services to satisfy their own needs and wants directly or indirectly. It refers to the major actions of the core consumers in the marketplace or businesses and the underlying motives for those direct actions. The businesses and the marketing using the tactics to understand the nature and behavior of the customers and causes for the purchase of particular goods or services. In the background of the study, the consumer is the major actor in the business space or the driver in the businesses to determine the decision processes.

Consumer Behavior and Success Factors

The term or the process consumer behavior itself means the decision process and the physical activity, which directly influence the individuals engage in the actions, evaluating, using, acquiring, or disposing of the goods and services. The nature of the customer behavior are:

(a) The influence caused by various factors like marketing factors like collection, product design, promotion, price, packaging, positioning, and the dis­tribution factors. The psychological factors like perception, buying motives, and attitude towards the brand or business. The personal factors like education, age, gender, and income level in the market. And the social factors like reference groups, status groups, and family.

(b) The consumer behavior is not a static element, and it keeps changing according to time.

(c) The choices and the options are depending on changing trends and varies from customer to customer.

(d) Information is the key to attain success in the business and it helps to draft marketing plans and target the customers effectively and efficiently. This eases the brand to understand the behavior of the business and influence them.

Advices

Every firm has to understand the implications and the behavior of the consumer like motivation factors, psychology, and behavior shifts related to products and services. The advices also related to consumer behavior and the implications of the behavior decisions w.r.t. buying decisions. In order to fulfill the concern and structure the well-planned advice, the company have to rephrase or consider the self-reflected questions below:

(a) How consumers use to think and feel about the different alternatives to the offerings of the brand.

(b) How consumers use to adapt, reason, and even choose between different sets of alternatives in the market.

(c) The behavior of consumers while researching, selection, and shopping.

(d) How a consumer behavior is directly influenced by their environment (like peers, media, and culture)

(e) How the marketing campaigns can be well adapted and be improved to more effectively influence the consumers.

Factors to Gather the Information Regarding Consumer Behavior

As an advisor to the owner, it is crucial to explain the factors required to collect the details regarding the purchase, or the consumer behavior before starting the business firm. As the directions and motivations that directly influence consumer behavior so wide, the right research mix include the variety of data that will be the most robust. Some are more cost-effective and efficient than other factors.

(a) Customer Reviews,

(b) Question and Answers,

(c) Surveys – Online surveys and offline surveys,

(d) Focus groups – Bridge to ask the questions directly,

(e) Keyword research – SEO and keyword research,

(f) Google Analytics and Google trends – Understand the geography, demographics, and interests,

(g) Competitor analysis – Vertical analysis tools,

(h) Blog comments and social media – Millions of people reflect the life through social media,

(i) Twitter Insiders – Understand the strong focus groups and communities,

(j) Government data.

Signs of Troubles Involved In the Consumer Behavior

To understand the troubles involved in the business, the firm has to consider the social intelligence factor in the operations. The firm has to understand consumer insights and sort out social media researches. T is crucial to understand whether the firm is facing troubles in the business, regarding consumer behavior factors. While analyzing the sentiment analysis, and intelligent market segmentation, the business can identify the trouble involved in the operations or signs of troubles.

A consumer might have multiple types of buying motives for a specific product and is sometimes he/she is unable to express the main motive. This poses a serious challenge to the researcher in the field to identify the trouble or the identification of the basic buying motive. The other signs of trouble involved the perception, learning, motivation, beliefs, and attitudes of the consumer.

Understand the trouble in the stages of buying behavior

In the different stages of buying behaviors in the product line, if any signs or troubles in the segment describes the effect. The different stages in the normal scenario are, the consumer getting the best product at the best price in the usual scenario in the market. The stages are:

(a) Need Recognition – if any lack of recognition, then it leads to direct trouble to the consumer behavior. As an advisor, the firm has to regain the recognition and stimulate the customers into realizing the need of the products

(b) Search for information and if any lag in the process, or not getting enough information about the consumer, then it is the clear sign of distraction to the product in the market.

(c) Evaluate the product and understand the present status of the brand. Understand the space of where the product strives or the need of rebranding, or disposal of the brand in the business.

The above factors clearly mention, these are directly connected to the consumer behavior and these are signs of troubles in the short or long term operations. The brand has to consider the situation seriously and efficiently. If a consumer has any physical situation or the social situation, it directly affects the buying behavior of the consumer. Below are certain factors that help to regain the consumer behavior and use these factors to tackle the signs of troubles, such as:

(i) Identify the customer expectations.

(ii) Engage into prospects.

(iii) Evaluate the processes and product metrics.

(iv) Mobilize the management and teams.

(v) Look into the future now with the right tools and operations.

In conclusion, always understand how well one firm or business know their own customers. When the firm understand what their customers consider a premium service, valuable service, or quality product, the firm can then directly incentivize them to continue pushing the service or product and regain the satisfaction.