Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Consumer Behavior---Introduction

Leadorganizer and Lead Management are heart of any customer relationship, agency management system and marketing strategies. Leadorganizer means how to manage your leads. Businesses must have leadorganizer or lead management software to manage their leads. What is a lead? A Lead is a prospect for any business. It is very important for marketing executive/management to understand prospect requirements and consumer behavior. First let us understand consumer behavior.

‘What’ products and services do we buy, ‘why’ do we buy, ‘how often’ do we buy, from ‘where do we buy, ‘how do we buy, etc. are the issues which are dealt with in the discipline of consumer behavior. Consumer behavior can be defined as those acts of individuals (consumers) directly involved in obtaining, using, and disposing of economic goods and services, including the decision processes that precede and determine these acts. Just by human nature, consumers can be spontaneous, unpredictable, and selfish.

One thing that we have in common is that we are all consumers. In fact everybody in this world is a consumer. Everyday of our life we are buying and consuming an incredible variety of goods and services. However, we all have different tastes, likes and dislikes and adopt different behavior patterns while making purchase decisions. One may preferred to use colgate toothpaste, Dove soap, Head & Shoulder shampoo while your spouse may prefer another type for same requirement. Similarly, you may have a certain set of preferences in food, clothing, books, magazines, recreational activities, forms of savings and the stores from where you prefer to shop, which may be different not only from those of your spouse but also your friends, neighbors and colleagues. Each consumer is unique and this uniqueness is reflected in the consumption behavior and pattern and process of purchase. The study of consumer behavior provides us with reasons why consumers differ from one another in buying and using products and services. Customers and their behaviors comprise of many attributes and differentials. These differences are not just associated with demographics, groups or any one particular item. There is a complex development of behaviors that exist in the consumer markets.

In the world we live today, businesses and top Marketing executives must understand what differentiates their companies or their products from others and must understand the needs of the consumers in their markets. If they able to understand their product and consumer’s need, than it’s very easy for them to develop a strategic plan and create a market niche and develop their customer base with very good customer relations.
Customer Relationship Management can help them to take competitive advantage in the market. Customer Relations depend on understanding the customer and their reactions to the environment which will at last prolong the life of customer relationship between company and their customers.


Understanding the customer need can be a starting point for majority businesses. There are possibilities of gap occurs between customers expectation and what businesses think customers expect. It result into overlook or not understanding customer's perceptions and real requirement.

ref: agency management software