You know how it is, you think about something for so long that it gets harder to do it not easier! Today I had a couple of hours free and decided to tackle the long overdue consumer behaviour website make-over. Of course, once I got started it took considerably longer than a couple of hours, but once you get started it only gets easier to keep going: that first step is always the longest! I’ve taken note of feedback from the blog; now articles will all appear on one page, but I’ll still link them from the front page too so that visitors to the site can get an immediate indication that there are frequent updates. I’ll also be changing the main box from time to time as new products come out. I decided that the video had had so much positive reaction – and I know it has already […]
Consumer Behaviour: Price is Not What it Seems
When it comes to understanding consumers it’s always important to consider the issues from a rational perspective, and then completely ignore what you conclude. Why? Because consumer behaviour isn’t, for the most part, rationally based. Recently I happened across a great example. The UK supermarket chain Waitrose has always operated at the higher end of the market, catering to customers who are willing to pay a little more for higher quality produce. Waitrose’s marketing makes much of the fact that they source their products carefully; some of their packaging will state which farm meat has come from for instance. With the economic downturn all of the supermarkets have been keen to communicate low price messages; which isn’t easy since most of them operated on a low price platform anyway. Indeed, the big two supermarkets (Asda who are owned by Wal Mart) and Tesco frequently squeeze suppliers brutally hard in order […]
Customer Satisfaction: Out of the Mouths of Babes
Continuing from yesterday’s post it seems my customer satisfaction is developing into a series. I really appreciate the questions and comments, I sense an eBook coming on! Today’s gratitude is due to babysitting maestro Lisa McLellan. You may wonder what link there could possibly be between someone who is so focused on children and babysitting, and a consumer behaviour expert. Well, as Lisa’s comment demonstrates, there is a link if you open your mind to it. Here’s what Lisa said: “I have found myself giving different answers to basically the same question depending on the wording of the question. I have also found through babysitting children of all ages, that at a particular age, (usually younger children age 2-4)children will choose the last choice they are given when you ask a question giving them a few answers to choose from. For example, you ask, “How did you get that scratch, did […]
Why it Matters That You’re Thoughtless
With so much consumer behaviour, not to mention human behaviour, happening at an unconscious level, it’s all too easy for something that you say or do to not register in your own consciously accessible memory as significant. One friend of mine was asked in a survey what brands of lager he purchased. He wasn’t a big drinker, but would probably make a lager purchase (always of the same brand) every month or two. But faced with an interviewer’s question, and without the unconsciously filtered visual prompts of the packaging he couldn’t recall the brand he’d bought all these years (a little-known brand called Budweiser!). How do I know the visual prompts were unconsciously filtered? Because faced with a bottle, even with a large proportion concealed he would recognise it and name it every time. But he couldn’t describe the bottle’s design, because if he could summon up a similar small […]
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