MODEL OF CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer make many buying decision everyday, and the buying decision is the focal point of the
marketer’s effort. Most large companies research consumer buying decision in great detail to answer questions
about what consumers buy, where they buy, how and how much they buy, when they buy, and why they buy.
Marketers can study actual consumer purchases to find out what they buy where, and how much.

Marketers want to understand how the stimuli are changed into responses inside the consumer’s black
box, which has two parts. First, the buyer’s characteristics influence how he or she perceives and reacts to the
stimuli. These characteristics include a variety of cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors. Second,
the buyer’s decision process itself affects his or her behavior.

CHARACTERISTICS AFFECTING CONSUMER BEHAVIOR

Consumer purchases are influenced strongly by cultural, social, personal, and psychological
characteristics. For the most part, marketers can’t control such factors, but they must take them into account.

Cultural Factors

Cultural factors exert a broad and deep influence on consumer behavior. Marketers need to understand
the role played by the buyer’s culture, subculture, and social class.
Culture is most basic cause of a person’s wnats and behavior. Human behavior is largely learned.
Growing up in a society, a child learns basic values, perceptions, wants, and behaviors from his or her family
and other important institutions.
 Subculture is A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and
situations. Subculture include nationalities, realigions, racial groups, and geographic regions. Many subcultures
make up important market segments, and marketers often design products and marketing programs tailored to
their needs.Example : Three such important subculture groups are Hispanic American, African American, and
American Consumers.
A Total Marketing Strategy, the practice of integrating ethnic themes and cross-cultural perspective
within and brand’s mainstream marketing, appealing to consumer similarities across subcultural segment rather
than differences.An example, is general-market commercials for Cheerios and Honey Maid that feature
interracial and blended families and couples. A total market strategy appeals to consumer similarities across
subcultural segments rather that differences.
Social Class are society’s relatively permanent and ordered divisions whose member share similar
values, interests, and behaviors. Social scientist have identified seven American social classes: upper upper
class, lower upper class, upper middle class, middle class working class, upper lower class, and lower lower
class. Social class is not determined by a single factor, such as income, but is measured as a combination of
occupation, income, education, wealth, and other variables.

Social Factors
A consumer’s behavior also is influenced by social factors, such as the consumer’s small groups, social
networks, family, and social roles and status.
Groups and Social Networks, many small groups influence a person’s behavior. Groups that have a
direct influence and to which a person belongs are called membership groups. In contrast, reference groups
serve as direct (face-to-face interactions) or indirect points of comparison of reference in forming a person’s
attitudes or behavior. Marketers try to identify the reference groups of their target market. Reference group
expose a person to new behaviors and lifestyles, influence the person’s attitudes and self concept, and create
pressures to conform that may affect the person’s product and brand choices.

Word-of-mouth influence, can have a powerful impact on consumer buying behavior. The personal
word and recommendations of trusted friends, family, associates, and other consumers tend to be more credible
that those coming from commercial sources, such as advertisements or salespeople.

Opinion Leaders, people within a reference group who, because of special skills, knowledge,
personality, or other characteristics, exert social influence on other. Some experts call this group the influentials
or leading adopters. When these influentials talk, consumers listen. Marketers try to identify opinion leaders for
their products and direct marketing efforts toward them.

Online Social Networks, are online communities where people socialize or exchange informations and
opinions. Social networking communities range from blogs, and message boards to social media sites, and even
communal shopping sites. These online forms of consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer dialogue
have big implications for marketers.

Family, member can strongly influence buyer behavior. The family is the most important consumer
buying organization in society, and it has been researched extensively. Marketers are interested in the roles and
influence of the husband, wife, and children on the purchase of different products and services.

Roles and Status, A person belongs to many groups-family, clubs, organizations, online communities.
The person’s position in each group can be defined in terms of both role and states. A role consists of the
activities people are expected to perform according to the people around them.
 Personal Factors

A buyer’s decisions also are influenced by personal characteristics such as the buyer’s occupation, age
and stage, economic situation, lifestyle, and personality and self-concept.

Occupation, A person’s occupation affects the goods and services bought. Blue-collar workers tend to
buy more rugged work clothes, whereas executives buy more business suits. Marketers try to identify the
occupational groups that have an above-average interest in their products and services. For example,
Caterpillar/CAT, the worlds leading manufacturer of construction machinery, offers rugged mobile phones
made for tough and challenging work environments. In demanding surroundings like the construction and
heavy industry, normal smartphones are not durable, robust, or reliable enough. According to the devices
maker, consequential damage of handsets is a common problem for tradesmen in these professions, leaving
them being unnecessarily burdened and out of pocket. CAT’s phones withstand extreme drops and
temperatures, are dust and waterproof, offer enhanced audio quality for noisy workplaces, and feature displays
that can be controlled with wet fingers or gloves.

Age and Life Stage, People change the goods and services they buy over their lifetimes. Tastes in food,
clothes, furniture, and recreation are often age related. Buying is also shaped by the stage of the family life
cycle-the stages through which families might pass as the mature over time. Life-stage segmentation provides
as powerful marketing tool for marketers in all industries to better find, understand, and engage consumers.
Armed with data about the makeup of consumer life stages, marketers can create targeted, actionable,
personalized campaigns based on how people consume and interact with brands and the world around them.

Economic Situation, will affect his or her store and product choices. Marketers watch trends in
spending, personal income, savings, and interest rates. In today’s more value-conscious times, most companies
have taken steps to create more customers vakue by redesigning, sepositing, and repricing their products and
services. For example, in recent years, upscale discounter Target has put more emphasis on the “Pay Less” side
of its “Expect More. Pay Less” positioning promise.

Lifestyle, is person’s pattern of living as expressed in his or her psychographics. It involves measuring
consumer’s major AIO dimensions-activities, interest, and opinions. Lifestyle captures something more than
the person’s social class or personality. It profiles a person’s whole pattern of acting and interacting in the
world. Marketers look for lifesyle segment with needs that can be served through special product or marketing
approaches. Such segments might be defined by anything from family characteristics or outdoor interests to the
foods people eat. For example, The Body Shop markets much more than just beauty products. Its founder,
Anita Roddick has always been a strong advocate of ethical consumerism, human and animal rights issues, and
environmental protection. When she made her first beauty products in 1976, she infused her philosophy in them
by using natural and non-animal-tested ingredients, making them ethical and ecological statement pieces.

Personality and Self-Concept, Personality refers to the unique psychological characteristics that
distinguish a person or group. Personality is usually described in terms of traits such as self-confidence,
dominance, sociability, autonomy, defensiveness, adaptability, and aggressiveness. Personality can be useful in
analyzing consumer behavior for certain product or brand choices. Theres five brand personality traits:
sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness. Many marketers use a concept related to
personality-a person’s self-concept (also called self-image). The idea is that people’s possesions contribute to
and reflect their identities to understand consumer behavior, marketers must first understand the relationship
between consumer self-concept and possesions.
 Psychological Factor

A person’s buying choices are futher influenced by four major psychological factors:
Motivation, perception, learning, and beliefs and attitudes.

Motivation, A person has many needs at any given time. Some are biological, arising from states of
tension such as hunger, thirst, or discomfort. Others are psychological, arising from the need for recognition,
esteem, or belonging. A need becomes a motive when it is aroused to a sufficient level of intensity. A motive
(or drive) is a need that is sufficiently pressing to direct the person to seek satisfaction. Psychologists have
developed theories of human motivation. Two of the most popular—the theories of Sigmund Freud and
Abraham Maslow— carry quite different meanings for consumer analysis and marketing.

A person tries to satisfy the most important need first. When that need is satisfied, it will stop being a
motivator, and the person will then try to satisfy the next most important need. For example, starving people
(physiological need) will not take an interest in the latest happenings in the art world (self-actualization needs)
nor in how they are seen or esteemed by others (social or esteem needs) nor even in whether they are breathing
clean air (safety needs). But as each important need is satisfied, the next most important need will come into
play.

Perception, A motivated person is ready to act. How the person acts is influenced by his or her own
erception of the situation. All of us learn by the flow of information through our five senses: sight, hearing,
smell, touch, and taste. However, each of us receives, organizes, and interprets this sensory information in an
individual way. Perception is the process by which people select, organize, and interpret information to form a
meaningful picture of the world.

Numerous studies by psychologists and consumer researchers have found little or no link between
subliminal messages and consumer behavior. Recent brain-wave studies have found that in certain
circumstances, our brains may register subliminal messages. However, it appears that subliminal advertising
simply doesn’t have the power attributed to it by its critics.27 One classic ad from the American Association of
Advertising Agencies pokes fun at subliminal advertising. “So-called ‘subliminal advertising’ simply doesn’t
exist,” says the ad. “Overactive imaginations, however, most certainly do.”

Learning, When people act, they learn. Learning describes changes in an individual’s behavior arising
from experience. Learning theorists say that most human behavior is learned. Learning Occurs through the
interplay of drives, stimuli, cues, responses, and reinforcement.

A drive is a strong internal stimulus that calls for action. A drive becomes a motive when it is directed
toward a particular stimulus object. For example, a person’s drive for self-actualization might motivate him or
her to look into buying a camera. The consumer’s response to the idea of buying a camera is conditioned by the
surrounding cues. Cues are minor stimuli that determine when, where, and how the person responds. The
camera buyer might spot several camera brands in a shop window, hear of a special sale price, or discuss
cameras with a friend. These are all cues that might influence a consumer’s response to his or her interest in
buying the product.

Beliefs and Attitudes, People have attitudes regarding religion, politics, clothes, music, food, and
almost everything else. Attitude describes a person’s relatively consistent evaluations, feelings, and tendencies
toward an object or idea. Attitudes put people into a frame of mind of liking or disliking things, of moving
toward or away from them. Our camera buyer may hold attitudes such as “Buy the best,” “The Japanese make
the best camera products in the world,” and “Creativity and self-expression are among the most important
things in life.” If so, the Nikon camera would fit well into the consumer’s existing attitudes.
 BUYING DECISION BEHAVIOR AND THE BUYER DECISION PROCESS

Some purchases are simple and routine, even habitual. Others are far more complex— involving
extensive information gathering and evaluation—and are subject to sometimes subtle influences. For example,
think of all that goes into a new car buying decision.

Types of Buying Decision Behavior, Buying behavior differs greatly for a tube of toothpaste, a
smartphone, financial services,and a new car. More complex decisions usually involve more buying participants
and more buyer deliberation.

Stages in the Adoption Process, consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new
product:

1. Awareness.
The consumer becomes aware of the new product but lacks information about it.
At the awareness stage, an attempt is made to bring attention or awareness. There are more ways in the
field of mass communication, such as broadcasts by radio, newspapers, magazines, films, television,
posters, and others.
2. Interest.
The consumer seeks information about the new product.
At the stage of interest, the efforts made are individual relations efforts, both oral and written. People
who are already aware and show little interest in change, so that more explanation is given so that their
interests can grow and develop.
3. Evaluation.
The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense.
At the evaluation stage the business of the instructor is to provide consideration material to the target.
May take the form of more frequent home visits, exhibitions, tours, demonstrations, exercises, leaflets
etc.
4. Trial.
The consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate of its value. At the
experimental stage the instructor will provide technical data that can convince the target. Also the target
will be the opportunity to try or do.
5. Adoption.
The consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.
At the acceptance or pengetrapan stage, the instructor will continue to accompany or guide the target,
which has carried out the recommendations more broadly and continuously it.
 THE BUYER DECISION PROCESS FOR NEW PRODUCT

We now look at how buyers approach the purchase of new products. A new product is a good, service, or
idea that is perceived by some potential customers as new. It may have been around for a while, but our interest
is in how consumers learn about products for the first time and make decisions on whether to adopt them. We
define the adoption process as the mental process through which an individual passes from first learning about
an innovation to final adoption. Adoption is the decision by an individual to become a regular user of the
product.

Stage In Adoption Process

Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product: Awareness. The consumer becomes
aware of the new product but lacks information about it. Interest. The consumer seeks information about the new product.
Evaluation. The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense. Trial. The consumer tries the new
product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate of its value. Adoption. The consumer decides to make full and
regular use of the new product.

This model suggests that marketers should think about how to help consumers move through these stages. For
example, if a company finds that many consumers are considering its products but are still tentative about buying one, it
might offer sales prices or special promotions that help get consumers over the decision hump. To help car buyers past
purchase-decision hurdles following the economic meltdown in 2008, Hyundai offered a unique Hyundai Assurance Plan.
It promised buyers who financed or leased new Hyundais that they could return them at no cost and with no harm to their
credit rating if they lost their jobs or incomes within a year. Sales of the Hyundai Sonata surged 85 percent in the month
following the start of the campaign.

Individual Differences in Innovativeness

Consumers go through five stages in the process of adopting a new product: Awareness. The consumer
becomes aware of the new product but lacks information about it. Interest. The consumer seeks information
about the new product. Evaluation. The consumer considers whether trying the new product makes sense. Trial.
The consumer tries the new product on a small scale to improve his or her estimate of its value. Adoption. The
consumer decides to make full and regular use of the new product.
This model suggests that marketers should think about how to help consumers move through these stages.
For example, if a company finds that many consumers are considering its products but are still tentative about
buying one, it might offer sales prices or special promotions that help get consumers over the decision hump.
To help car buyers past purchase-decision hurdles following the economic meltdown in 2008, Hyundai
offered a unique Hyundai Assurance Plan. It promised buyers who financed or leased new Hyundais that they
could return them at no cost and with no harm to their credit rating if they lost their jobs or incomes within a
year. Sales of the Hyundai Sonata surged 85 percent in the month following the start of the campaign.
 Influence of Product Characteristics on Rate of Adoption

In particular, 5 characteristics are especially important in influencing an innovation’s rate of adoption:

Relative Advantage. The relative advantage refers to the degree to which an innovation appears
superior to existing products. HDTV offers substantially improved picture quality. This speeded up its rate of
adoption.

Compatibility. Compatibility is the degree to which an innovation fits the values and experiences of
potential consumers. It belongs to the product characteristics that influence the adoption rate because
consumers will only slowly start adopting a product if it is not compatible with their mindset. HDTV, for
example, is highly compatible with the lifestyles of the TV-watching public. However, in the early years,
HDTV was not yet compatible with programming and broadcasting systems, which slowed adoption..

Complexity. The degree to which an innovation is difficult to understand or to use is also one of the
product characteristics that influence the adoption rate. HDTVs are not very complex. Therefore, as more
programming has become available and prices have fallen, the rate of HDTV adoption is increasing faster than
that of more complex innovations.

Divisibility. Divisability refers to the degree to which an innovation may be tried on a limited basis.
Would you buy an expensive innovative new car without having the opportunity to test it before? Early HDTVs
and HD cable and satellite systems were very expensive, which slowed the rate of adoption. As prices fall,
adoption rates increase.

Communicability. Even if all other product characteristics that influence the adoption rate are
favourable, communicability can still slow down adoption significantly. Communicability is the degree to
which the results of using an innovation can be observed or described to others. Because HDTV lends itself to
demonstration and description, its use has spread faster among consumers.
 Conclucion

Understanding consumer behavior is important for any organization before launching a product. If the
organization fails to analyze how a customer will respond to a particular product, the company may face losses.
Consumer behavior is very complex because each consumer has a different mindset and attitude towards
purchase, consumption and the disposal of the product. Consumer behavior helps to market the product or
services successfully. Moreover, studying consumer behavior helps in many aspects of the business. As there is
continuous change in the living standards, trends, fashion and change in technology; consumer's attitude
towards the purchase of product varies. Understanding these factors is very important because the marketing of
the product is largely dependent on these factors. Thus, consumer behavior serves as an important tool for
marketers in meeting their sales objectives.