CONSUMER OR CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR

MEANING OF CONSUMER BEHAVIOR
Consumer behavior is the study of how people buy, what they buy when they buy and why they buy. It is a subcategory of marketing that blends elements from psychology, sociology, socio psychology, anthropology and economics. It attempts to understand the buyer decision making process, both individually and in groups. It studies characteristics of individual consumers such as demographics, psychographics, and behavioral variables in an attempt to understand people’s wants. It also tries to assess influences on the consumer from groups such as family, friends, reference groups and society in general.

The starting point for understanding the buyer is the stimulus-response. Marketing and environmental stimuli enter the buyer’s consciousness. The marketer’s task is to understand what happens in the buyer’s consciousness between the arrival of outside stimuli and the buyer’s purchase decisions.

MODELS OF BUYER’S BEHAVIOR:
The major factors influencing buying behavior, a consumer buying is influenced by cultural, social, personal and psychological factors.

Cultural Factors:
Culture is the most fundamental determination of a personal wants and behavior. The growing child acquires a set of values perception and behavior though his or her family and other key institutions.

Sub Culture:
Each culture consists of smaller sub culture that provides as more specific identifications. Such culture include nationalities, religions many sub cultures make up important market segmentation and marketers often design product and marketing programme tailored this needs.

Social Class:
Social class are relatively homogenous and enduring divisions in a society, which are hierarchically order whose members share similar value interest and behavior. Vertically all human societies exhibit social stratification.

Social classes have several characteristics class tend to behave more alike than persons from two different social classes. Second person are perceived has occupying inferior or superior position according to social class. Their class is indicated by a cluster of variables for Ex. Occupation and value orientation rather than by any single variable. Individuals can more from one social class to another up or down during this life time.

Reference Group:
A person reference group consists of all the group there have direct or indirect influence on that persons attitudes or behavior group having a direct influence on a persons are called membership group.

Some membership group are primary group such as family, friends, neighbors and co-workers with whom the person fairly continuously and informally people also belong to secondary groups which tend to be more formal and require uses continuous instruction.

Marketers try to identify target customers reference group. However the level of reference group influence varies among products and brands reference both product and brand choice in such times as furniture and clothing and mainly product choice is such items as backs cigarette.

Manufactures of products and brands where group influence and brands where group influence is strong must determine how to reach and influence the opinion leaders in these reference group.

Family :
The family most important consumer buying organization in society and it has been research extensively. Family members constitute the most influential reference group. The family of orientation consists of ones parent and siblings from parents a person acquires are orientation towards religion.

Markets are interested in the roles of relative influence of the husband, wife, children in the purchase of a large variety of products and services.

Role and Status:
A person participates in many groups, family clubs and organizations. The person position in each group can be defined in terms of role and status. A role consists of activities that a person is expected to perform each role carries status.

Personal Factors:
A buyer decisions are also influenced by personal characteristics. Those include the buyer age and stage in the life cycle, occupation, economic circumstances like lifestyle, personality and self concept.

Age and Stage: In the life cycle people buy different goods and services over a life time. They eat baby food in the early years, most foods in the growing and mature years and special diets in the later years. Tasted in cloths, furniture and recreation in also are related.

Occupation and economic circumstances: Occupation also influences a person consumption pattern. A blue colour worker buy work clothes, work shoes and lunch box. A company president will buy expensive things. Marketers try to identify the occupational groups.

Life Styles:
People from the same sub culture, social class and occupation may lead quite different life styles.

A life style is the persons pattern of living in the world or expressed in activities interest and opinions life posture the “whole person” interacting with his or her environment.

Personality and Self Concept:
Each person has a district personality that influence buying behavior. By personally, we mean distinguishing psychological characteristics that lead to relatively consistent responses to environment.

Personality can be useful variable in analyzing consumer behavior, provided that personality types can be classified accurately can the correlation exist between certain personality types and product or brand choices.

Psychological Factors:
A persons buying choice are influenced by four major psychological factors.
Motivation
Perception
Learning
Attitude

Motivation:
A person who has many needs at any given time some needs are biogeneric they arise from physiological states of tension sleeks as hunger. This is discomfort other needs are physiological they arise from psychological states of tension such as the need for recognition esteem or belonging. A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to sufficient level of intensity.

Psychologist have developed theories of human motivation three of the best known theories of Sigmund Freud, Abraham Maslow and Tedrical Herzberg of carry quit different implications for consumer analyse and marketing strategy.

Freud’s theory:
Sigmund Freud assumed that psychological shaping people behavior are largely unconscious and that a person cannot fully undress and his or her own motivation.

Maslows Theory:
Abraham Maslows sought to explain people are driven by particulars needs as a particular time.
Self
Actualization
Extreme Needs
Social Needs
Safety Needs

Physiological Needs:
Human needs arranged in hierarchy from the most pressing to the least processing. Is this order of importance they are physiological needs, safely needs, social needs, esteem needs, and self actualization needs will try to satisfy their most important needs first.

Herzberg Theory:
Frederick Herzberg developed a two factor theory that distinguishes satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Perception:
It is the process by which an individual selects organizes and interprets information, inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world. Perception depends not only on the physical stimuli but also on the stimulus but also on the stimulus relations to the surrounding field on condition within the individual.

The key work is the definition of perception in individuals are person might perceive of fast talking sales person as aggressive and insincere another as intelligent and helpful people can emerge with different perceptions of the same, because of their personal perceptual process, selective attention, selective distortion and selective reinvention.

Learning:
When people act they learn, learning involves changes an individuals behavior arising from experience. Most human behavior is learned.

Beliefs and Attitudes:
Through learning people require beliefs and attitudes. These in turn influence buying behavior.
A belief is a descriptive through that a person hoods about something. Beliefs may be based on knowledge, opinion or faith. The manufacturers will want to launch a comparing to current these beliefs.

Attitude:
It is a person learning favorable or unfavorable inoculation emotional things and action tendencies towards some objects or idea. People have attitudes towards almost everything like religion, politics, foods, clothes, music etc.

Buying Roles:
We can distinguish five roles people might in a decision process.

Initiator : A person who first suggest.
Influencer : A person whose view or achieve influence the decision
Decider : A person who decides on any component of a buying decisions whether to buy, what to buy, how to buy, where to buy.
Buyer : A person who makes the actual purchase.
User : A person who consumes or uses the product or service.

TYPES OF BUYING BEHAVIOR:
Complex Buying Behavior:
It involves three steps:
The buyer develops beliefs about the products.
He or she develops attitudes about the product.
He or she makes a thoughtful choice consumer engages in the complex buying behavior when they are highly involved in a purchase and aware of significant difference among brands.

Dissonance-Reducing Buying Behavior:
Sometimes the consumer is highly involved in purchase but has title differences in brands. The high involvement is again based on the fact that purchase is expensive, infrequent and risky.

Habitual Buying Behavior:
Many products are bought conditions of low consumer involvement and absence of significant brand differences. Consider the purchase of salt. Consumers have little involvement in this product category. They go to the store and reach for the brand. It they keep reaching for the same brand, it is out of habit, not strong brand loyalty.

Variety Seeking Buying Behavior:
Some buying situations are characterized by low consumer involvement but significant brand differences. Here consumers are often observed to do a lot of brand switching. The consumer has some beliefs, chosen a brand without much evaluation and evaluates it during consumption. But next time, the consumer may reach for another brand out of boredom or a wish for a different taste.

Stage in Buying Decision Process:
The consumer passes though five stages: Problem recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and post purchase behavior.

Need Recognition:
The buying process starts when the buyer recognizes a problem or need. The buyer senses a difference between his or her actual state and a desire state.

Information Search:
An aroused consumer will be inclined to search for more information. Consumer information falls into 4 groups.

Personal Sources : Family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances.
Commercial Sources : Advertising, salesperson, dealers, displays, packaging.
Public Sources : Mass media, consumer rating organizations
Experiential sources : Handling, examining using the product.

As for the consumer information sources, the marketers should identify them and evaluate their relative importance.

Evaluation of alternatives:
The consumer arrives at attitudes (judgments, preferences) toward the brand alternatives though an evaluation procedure.

Purchase Decision:
In the evaluation stage, the consumer forms preferences among the different brands. However two factors can intervene between the purchase intension and the purchase decision.