Learn It 14.1.5: The Role of Customers

What Influences a Purchasing Decision?

People have many beliefs and behavioral tendencies—some controllable, some beyond our control. How all these factors interact with each other ensures that each of us is unique in our consumer actions and choices. Although it isn’t feasible for marketers to react to the complex, individual profiles of every single consumer, it is possible to identify factors that tend to influence most consumers in predictable ways.

The factors that influence the consumer purchasing process are many and complex. For example, as groups, men and women express very different needs and behaviors regarding personal-care products. Families with young children tend to make different dining-out choices than single and married people with no children. A consumer with much prior purchasing experience in a product category might approach the decision differently from someone with no experience. As marketers gain a better understanding of these influencing factors, they can draw more accurate conclusions about consumer behavior. We can group these influencing factors into four sets, illustrated in the figure below:

  • Situational Factors pertain to the consumer’s level of involvement in a buying task and the market offerings that are available.
  • Personal Factors are individual characteristics and traits such as age, life stage, economic situation, and personality.
  • Psychological Factors relate to the consumer’s motivation, learning, socialization, attitudes, and beliefs.
  • Social Factors pertain to the influence of culture, social class, family, and reference groups.
The consumer is in the middle of the following: Factors influencing consumer decisions, and the consumer decision-making process. Factors that influence consumer decisions can be grouped into 4 categories: Situational, personal, psychological, and social. These categories are explained in the text preceding this image. The consumer decision making process consists of five stages: 1. Need recognition. 2. Information searching and processing. 3. Identification and evaluation of alternatives. 4. purchase decision. 5. post-purchase behavior.
Figure 1. Many factors influence consumer decisions.

The Consumer Decision Making Process

Once the decision making process is started, a potential buyer can withdraw at any stage before making the actual purchase. This six-stage process represents the steps people undergo when they make a conscious effort to learn about the options and select a product–the first time they purchase a product, for instance, or when buying high-priced, long-lasting items they don’t purchase frequently. This is called complex decision making.

The Consumer Decision-Making Process for complex and simple decision making. Complex Decision is Step 1: Need recognition flows to Step 2: Information searching and processing flows to Step 3: identification and evaluation of alternatives flows to Step 4: purchase decision flows to Step 5: Post-purchase behavior. Simple Decision Making is Step 1: Needs recognition flows to Step 4: Purchase Decision flows to Step 5: Post-Purchase Behavior.
Figure 2. The consumer decision-making process is the conscious effort consumers go through to learn about and choose a product.

For many products, the purchasing behavior is routine: you notice a need and you satisfy that need according to your habit of repurchasing the same brand or the cheapest brand or the most convenient alternative, depending on your personal assessment of trade-offs and value. In these situations, you have learned from your past experiences what will best satisfy your need, so you can bypass the second and third stages of the process. This is called simple decision making. However, if something changes appreciably (price, product, availability, services), then you may re-enter the full decision process and consider alternative brands.

Need Recognition

The first step of the consumer decision process is recognizing that there is a problem–or unmet need–and that this need warrants some action. Whether we act to resolve a particular problem depends upon two factors: (1) the magnitude of the difference between what we have and what we need, and (2) the importance of the problem. You may want to drive a new BMW but own a five-year-old Ford Focus. There’s a big difference between these two types of cars but the difference is relatively unimportant compared to your other priorities that require you to spend or save your money. Consumers do not move on to the next step until they have confirmed that their specific needs are important enough to act on.

Information Search

After recognizing a need, the prospective consumer may seek information to help identify and evaluate alternative products, services, experiences, and outlets that will meet that need. Information may come from any number of sources: family and friends, search engines, reviews, personal observation, Consumer Reports, salespeople, product samples, and so forth. Which sources are most important depends on the individual and the type of purchase he or she is considering. The information-search process can also identify new needs. As a tire shopper looks for information, they may decide that the tires are not the real problem, but instead they need a new car. At this point, their newly perceived need may trigger a new information search.

Evaluation of Alternatives

As a consumer finds and processes information, they identify the alternative products, services, and outlets that are viable options. The next step is to evaluate these alternatives and make a choice, assuming a choice is possible that meets the consumer’s financial and psychological requirements. Evaluation criteria vary from consumer to consumer and from purchase to purchase, just as the needs and information sources vary. One consumer may consider price most important while another puts more weight on quality or convenience.

The Purchase Decision

After much searching and evaluating (or perhaps very little), consumers at some point have to decide whether they are going to buy. Anything marketers can do to simplify purchasing will be attractive to buyers. For example, in advertising, marketers might suggest the best size of product for a particular use. Sometimes several decision situations can be combined and marketed as one package. For example, travel agents often package travel tours that include transportation, food and lodging, and stores that sell appliances try to sell them with add-on warranties, delivery, and installation.

Postpurchase Behavior

All the behavior determinants and the steps of the buying process up to this point take place before or during the time a purchase is made. However, a consumer’s feelings and evaluations after the sale are also significant to a marketer because they can influence repeat sales and what the customer tells others about the product or brand.

Marketing is all about keeping the customer happy at every stage of the decision-making process, including postpurchase. It is normal for consumers to experience some postpurchase anxiety after any significant or non-routine purchase. This anxiety reflects a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance. According to this theory, people experience mental discomfort when there are inconsistencies between their actions (the non-routine purchase) and their knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and values.

Marketers may take specific steps to reduce postpurchase dissonance. One obvious way is to help ensure delivery of a quality solution that will satisfy customers. Another step is to develop advertising and new-customer communications that stress the many positive attributes or confirm the popularity of the product. Providing personal reinforcement has proven effective with big-ticket items such as automobiles and major appliances. Salespeople in these areas may send cards or even make personal calls in order to reassure customers about their purchase.