Buyer Behaviour and Relationship Marketing - Essay Example

Business entities are profit making organizations, which require concise decision-making and mutual co-existence among employees, stakeholders, and customers to achieve goals and objectives. Business operations are geared towards achievement of profit targets, winning new and retaining old customers. However, relationship with customers should be healthy to avoid misunderstanding, which leads to disputes. Nonetheless, successful entities allow customers to contribute to decision making through considering their decisions and reactions. It is the prerogative of the management and stakeholders to ensure there is a clear channel of communication and distribution of resources among all departments to avoid blame shifting thus enhance quick supervision. Societies expect companies to adhere to forces of mindset in order to build confidence within customers’ fraternity thus make stock turn over efficient and effective. Therefore, business prosperity largely relies on buyer behavior and market research. Business environment is paramount for successful fat-tracking of customer satisfaction and feed-back. Creation of stable working conditions and tranquil mindsets enable personnel produce quality products. Good environment can be observed through engaging dialogue and mutual organization of activities for instance, calling customers who complain. Behavioral and psychological mindsets among customers influence management decision making. Decisions should accommodate views and opinions of all employees and buyers irrespective of social, economic, and political affiliation. Good relations are aimed at reducing acrimony in work place that may cause inefficiency in production of goods and services. Customer satisfaction factors for instance, assessing competitor, market survey, product specification, expectation, and admitting to failure help firms understand customers with ease. Conversely, microeconomic variables for example, stakeholder decisions, decision making, change of production techniques, and pricing of goods and services adversely lead to increase or decrease of customer walk-ins. Segmentation is a strategy that is set to divide consumers into groups within a target market. Alternative products greatly influence the nature of marketing to undertake because it provides customers with a better option when company’s goods and services are not appealing. Similarly alternatives create a boundary of differentiation between each company’s goods and services. This helps in guiding potential and new customers to the organization to avoid unhealthy competition. Marketing is process of creating awareness among consumers over the presence of existing and new product in the market. It is the only way consumer needs and desires can be informed and satisfied. However, it is the prerogative of every organization to ensure that information provided do not mislead the consumers thus leading to lose of market segment and arbitrary negligence on the product. Consumer behavior nonetheless, shapes the marketing techniques and strategies employed by firms to clinch market share. Conversely, there are many types of marketing that attract customers for instance, internet marketing, relationship marketing, industrial marketing, personalized marketing, social marketing, and attractive branding of products. Marketing plan must be simple and accommodate the 7 Ps of marketing consisting of process, product, price, physical environment, place, people, and promotion (Denove, Power J. 192). Company codes of ethics are rules that govern the way operations are carried out in the organization. It is a company’s prerogative to formulate sturdy codes of ethics that cover all activities. Conversely, codes of ethics differ from one company to another depending on the kind of activities they employ for instance, agricultural farming, manufacturing, sell of finished products, and retailing. Focusing on customers’ markets is a strategy that businesses need to adapt for survival in the competitive world. Businesses have hard task for them to reach mainstream markets and potential customers. Customers are very important people in the positive progress of an entity since they contribute to stock turnover and profit maximization. Successful businesses must have both loyal and potential customer base to have an edge over competitors. Markets are free to enter but technical know-how is fundamental in securing a permanent place in market. In addition, markets involve having reliable suppliers and retailers to supply goods and services to the businesses and out of the firm. Buyers can be enticed by availing quality goods and services than competitors, having variety of goods that match individual tastes and preferences and extending after sale services for example, credit transfers, discounts, commissions and transport on bulky buying. Customers will feel wanted and will come with friends next time they come back to the enterprise. Markets for small businesses are so narrow and mostly rely on families and friends therefore, retaining customer base is significant for growth of the entity. Techniques of assessing customer response Consumer response can be achieved through collecting feedbacks, making quick decisions, offering after sale services, and treating all customers equally. Consumer psychology mainly deals with personal tenets that drive consumers to choose the type of products, businesses and services they want in a market full of suppliers and retailers. Consumer psychology is instrumental in shaping the reaction, liking, and retaining of customers while attracting new customers. A flourishing business knows the needs and desires of every customer, which is jerked by responding to complaints and reactions. Marketing therefore, is bestowed the responsibility to track and supervise the behavior of consumers. It is prudent to neglect consumer emotions, reactions, and thoughts towards a product because these shape the decisions, which can either retain or chase the customer to a competitor. Moreover, consumer psychology is guided by environment and family factors. Family members contribute greatly to the kind of goods and services to be consumed in the households Consumer psychologists should however, be equipped with skills and resources that enables them gather feedback and response from customers. Social marketing strategy is geared towards capturing information from social groups and organizations for instance, religious groups, age groups, and economic status (Denove, Power J. 181). The preferred methods to be used to conduct research on consumer psychology are questionnaires, experiments, focus groups, interviews, and observation. Marketing consumer products requires qualified psychologists who are well conversant with human behavior, culture, marketing, personality, and social attributes. On the other hand, consumer behavior involves the study of individual and groups of consumers that aid in curbing selling and buying patterns. Consumer behavior is hard to predict because each consumer has in-bound tenets that are unique. This is because consumers play three crucial roles namely, buyers, payer, and users of products. Consumer behavior more so, aims at focusing on decision-making process and full utilization of available resources. Consumer power rests on effort, money and time. Money is a commodity that is not durable and every person wants to get profit on every good and service they sell. Efforts can be encouraged through offering of after sale services for example, transportation, and prizes. Discounts also are determinants of consumer behavior, discounts reduces the expenses and increases revenues amassed after sale of goods and services thereby increasing profit margins. Consumer satisfaction can only be encouraged by meeting demands and preference. Loyalty is an indication of satisfaction therefore; satisfied customers always buy from the enterprise irrespective of price adjustments. This royalty needs to be rewarded with gifts and encouragements. Relationship marketing is conducive for prosperity of businesses since it shuns away enmity and bestows tranquil coexistence among customers and business owners. Healthy relationship is experienced through fast tracking ethics among personnel to ensure customers are respected and given desirable services with the best prices compared to competitors. Work Cited Denove, Power J. Satisfaction: How Every Great Company Listens to the Voice of the Customer. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print. Appendices Customer satisfaction survey of a grocery 1. Please complete the following details Sex a) Male b) Female Age a) Under 18 b) 18-35 c) 36-50 d) Above 51 Profession……………Teacher……………………………………………………… 2. How often do you buy from the grocery? A) Weekly b) Daily c) Hardly ever (please specify why)……………………………………………………………………………………. 3. When you buy in the grocery, what type of fruits do you prefer? A) Bananas b) Mangoes c) Apples d) Pine apples 4. Do you think the fruits equal value of your money? A) No c) Yes d) I don’t know (Give reasons) ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 5. What recommendations should be adopted to improve quality of fruits …Supply fresh fruits that can be consumed within a week……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….... 6. Please leave with us your name and contacts for follow up Name………Jennifer Adams…………………………………………………………………………… Day-time contact………+010-741953……………………………………………………………….. Read More