1. Functional needs pertain to the performance of a product or service.
The Consumer Decision Process
Need Recognition
Functional needs pertain to the performance of a product or service.
The consumer decision process begins when consumers recognize they have an unsatisfied need
Psychological needs pertain to the personal gratification consumers associate with a product and/or service.
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2. External Search for Information Internal Search for Information
Ask students where they looked for external information when conducting a search for colleges?
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3. Actual or Perceived Risk
In buying a car, what risks come to mind about making the wrong decision?
Performance risk
Financial risk
Psychological risk
Performance risk involves the perceived danger inherent in a poorly performing product or service.
Financial risk is associated with a monetary outlay and includes the initial cost of the purchase, as well as the costs of using the item or service.
Psychological risks are those risks associated with the way people will feel if the product or service does not convey the right image.
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4. Evaluation of Alternatives: Attribute Sets
Universal sets include all possible choices for a product category.
Retrieval sets are the brands or stores that can be readily brought forth from memory.
Universal
Retrieval
Evoked
Research has shown that a consumer’s mind organizes and categorizes alternatives to aid his or her decision-making process.
Universal sets include all possible choices for a product category.
Retrieval set - brands or stores that can be readily brought forth from memory.
Evoked set, the alternative brands or stores that the consumer states he or she would consider when making a purchase decision.
Ask students to name cookie brands – this is their retrieval set. They may be surprised at how few brands they retrieve.
A consumer’s evoked set comprises the alternative brands or stores that the consumer states he or she would consider when making a purchase decision.
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5. Evaluation of Alternatives: Evaluate Criteria
Evaluative criteria consist of a set of important attributes about a particular product.
Determinant attributes are product or service features that are important to the buyer and on which competing brands or stores are perceived to differ.
The students will respond to the question on this slide with weather, beach, friends, price, outdoor activities.
What are some of the features of a vacation that would be in your evaluative criteria?
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6. Consumer Decision Rules
Evaluation of Alternatives: +
.8 +
1.8 +
1.6 = 8.2
(.4 * 10)
(.1 * 8)
(.3 * 6)
(.2 * 8)
Entertainment
Number of
Days
Meals
Price
Importance Weights
0.4
0.1
0.3
0.2
Carnival 10 8 6
8.2
Holland America 9 3
7.1
Celebrity 5
7.2
Consumer decision rules are a set of criteria that consumers use consciously or subconsciously to quickly and efficiently select among several alternatives.
Compensatory decision rules assume that the consumer, when evaluating alternatives, trades off one characteristic against another, such that good characteristics compensate for bad characteristics.
Sometimes consumers use non-compensatory decision rules in which they choose a product or service on the basis of a subset of its characteristics, regardless of the values of its other attributes.
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7. Evaluation of Alternatives: Decision Heuristics
Mental Shortcuts
Price
Brand
Product presentation
Decision heuristics are mental shortcuts that help a consumer narrow down his or her choices. Some examples of these heuristics include
Price
Product presentation, and
Brand.
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8. Purchase and Consumption
Ritual consumption
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9. Post-purchase: Customer Satisfaction
Setting unrealistically high consumer expectations of the product can lead to dissatisfaction when the product fails to achieve high performance expectations.
Marketers can take several steps to ensure post-purchase satisfaction:
demonstrating correct product use
building realistic expectations
providing a money back guarantee
encouraging feedback, and
periodically making contact with customers.
Customer contact
Encourage feedback
Provide money back guarantee
Build realistic expectations
Demonstrate correct product use
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10. Post-purchase: Dissonance
Firm’s attempt to reduce dissonance by reinforcing the decision
Thank you letters, congratulations letters, quality ratings
Post-purchase dissonance, also known as buyer’s remorse, is the psychologically uncomfortable state produced by an inconsistency between beliefs and behaviors that in turn evokes a motivation to reduce the dissonance.
Ask students how firms attempt to reduce dissonance:
send thank you letters
advertise awards and quality
follow up with phone calls.
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11. Factors Influencing the Consumer Decision Process
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12. Psychological Factors: Motives
A motive is a need or want that is strong enough to cause the person to seek satisfaction. People have several types of motives, such as those illustrated in the PSSP hierarchy of needs.
Ask students if there are any products that fulfill several levels of needs?
They will mention products like an expensive fur coat given as a gift is physiological, love, and esteem.
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13. Psychological Factors: Attitude
An attitude is a person’s enduring evaluation of his or her feelings about behavioral tendencies toward an object or idea.
Behavioral
Cognitive
Affective
An attitude consists of three components:
The cognitive aspect reflects what we believe to be true,
the affective component involves what we feel about the issue at hand, and
the behavioral component comprises the actions we undertake with regard to that issue.
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14. Psychological Factors: Perception
Process by which we select, organize, and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
How has society’s perception of people with tattoos changed in recent years?
Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and interpret information to form a meaningful picture of the world.
Societies’ perceptions can change. For example, tattoos used to be only considered acceptable for unsavory individuals. They were clearly NOT mainstream, yet today people from a variety of demographic backgrounds get tattooed. Many celebrities have tattoos, even some parents and children have matching tattoos.
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15. Psychological Factors: Learning and Lifestyle
Learning affects both attitudes and perceptions
Lifestyle involves decisions in spending time and money
Learning refers to a change in a person’s thought process or behavior that arises from experience and takes place throughout the consumer decision process.
Learning affects both attitudes and perceptions.
A person’s perceptions and ability to learn are affected by their social experiences
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16. Social Factors: Family
Decision makers
Influencers
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17. Social Factors: Reference Groups
A reference group is one or more persons whom an individual uses as a basis for comparison regarding beliefs, feelings, and behaviors.
A consumer might have various reference groups including family, friends, coworkers, or famous people.
These reference groups affect buying decisions by offering information, providing rewards for specific purchasing behaviors, and enhancing a consumer’s self-image.
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18. Social Factors: Culture
Culture is defined as the shared meanings, beliefs, morals, values, and customers of a group of people.
Culture is defined as the shared meanings, beliefs, morals, values, and customers of a group of people.
Like reference groups, cultures influence consumer behavior.
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19. Situational Factors Purchase Situation Shopping Situation
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20. Types of Buying Decisions
Limited problem solving occurs during a purchase decision that calls for, at most, a moderate amount of effort and time.
Extended problem solving occurs during a purchase decision that calls for a lot of effort and time.
Impulse buying is a buying decision made by customers on the spot when they see the merchandise.
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