Step-by-Step Guide to understanding customer behaviour  

In the contemporary business scenario understanding customer behavior is the most important thing because of the increased competition and huge alternatives. For every customer there are 17 companies on average offering the same product or services. The online entrepreneurial setup is nascent but it is being highly influenced by the way customers make decision and engage with brands.

Gone are the days when customer behavior was all about the Needs and Wants, today it is about affordability, logistics, customer support, quality comparison and long term benefits. Any business that wants to impress customers on the web must take a deep dive into the analytics and discover what influences these DECISIONS.

Here we are going to traverse through the varied steps of understanding customer behavior. The main aim should always to serve people the way they want to be served.

Decision Making: You cannot be someone asking higher prices for same service provided by others at cheaper prices. You will have to improve your quality, be the only one of your type or be impressively cheaper then only you will be able to impact decision making. There’s a lot to decision-making and the only way to impact is to FILL THE GAPS, either bridge the gaps or go broke by providing services at a cheaper rate.

Note: Do not even start with your business if you are not looking forward to do something different than what is being already done.

 Information Search: Once the customer has discovered his or her want, they start looking for sources from where they can acquire the services or products. Information search is where the review sites and blogs help; businesses need to have a blog compulsorily. One cannot aim to create a better reputation without blogs. One can easily impact this step of information search by creating quality posts and establishing themselves as the thought leader.

Evaluation of Options: Information search is going to throw a lot of results, options and alternatives. It is only now when a strong social media presence and customer feedback steps in and impact decision-making—customer behavior—with impressive social media outreach new and old businesses can impact decision making procedures. Evaluation of option is one of the most important steps and requires a lot of research. Put up blogs, share on social media and acquire amazing results.

Purchase of Product/Service: Your social media account when mixed eloquently with blog posts can help you impress a customer but if you are not price effective or financially viable then you cannot make the most of the created opportunities. Decision-making is highly impacted by the price of the product.

Note: Flipkart an Amazon in India are constantly matching their prices to impress customers by impacting their Evaluation procedure but Flipkart is beating Amazon constantly because of its “FLIPKART ADVANTAGE” facility,

which Amazon is now trying to counter with “AMAZON PRIME”.

The fight between Amazon and Flipkart and latter emerging as a winner tells a lot about customer behavior. Learn from the mistakes of these giant and become one of them.