What is meant by a change in customer behavior
Today a change in customer behavior is characterized by a more and more moral-based purchase. Once the purchase was driven by the best price or the best-known brand. While today customers take into consideration some significant factors before choosing a product as well as the environmental impact or the speed of delivery. Customers’ values have changed therefore companies must adapt to a new buyer who is much more demanding than in the past.
What are the values that contribute to the change in customer behavior
Values are changing over time but remain impressive in people’s minds for a long time. For example “branded” products were considered the best on the market until it was discovered that they are not always a guarantee, but there are other determinants for purchasing a product apart from quality, price, and notoriety. Materials used for the production and their origin, workers’ conditions, and pollution, are also factors that interest customers before the purchase.
Values that most influence customers’ decisions today are ecology, recycling, organic ingredients, reduction of CO2 emissions, and everything that revolves around the concept of Environment. These are just some of the values that affect the change in customer behavior and absolutely the drivers nowadays, but they are not the only ones.
Why it is crucial to know customers’ values
It is crucial to be sensitive about customers’ values and transform them into a feature that the customer can find in the product or service offered. Companies must understand the change in customer behavior and use it as an advantage over competitors who are not attentive to these dynamics.
Three methods to identify the change in customer behavior
- The best tool to define a change in customer behavior is a survey. It is the best solution for a complete customer’s description. The most relevant elements to identify are the reasons that drive consumers to buy a product rather than another: in such a way as to become aware of what interests customers and offer them what they require. At the same time, it is not easy to build a proper survey to get the most detailed information possible since a poorly set search can also lead to erroneous results. Finally, a survey takes time to define the questions, collect the data, and have a report. Therefore, delegate this job to professionals.
- Another method to identify a change in customer behavior values is to observe your competitors. This strategy could bring to winning results, but even to losing ones. This happens when you copy the wrong behavior of competitors, and you suffer from the same loss. Instead, you can grasp effective tactics for your company if you have an excellent spirit of observation. Sometimes our competitors capture for first a change in costumers’ behavior, and we discover it thanks to their advertisements or new products. This method allows observing competitors’ strategies and to decide which replicate based on their success.
- Last method: analyzing society’s moral and ethical values. Everyone absorbs and clashes at the same time with the old values, the current ones, and the avant-garde ones. Because society is constantly changing and with a propensity towards an evolution that the human being has innate. This method needs an excellent spirit of analysis not to pass off passing trends for a real change in customer behavior.
How to use the change in customer behavior
Once the values behind the purchase and the customer’s change are established, the last step is the strategy definition to make customers understand that the product or service offered is in line with their values. For example, a company that produces tomatoes discovers, thanks to a survey, that the final consumer is attentive to the sustainability of the product as well as its quality. To meet consumers’ values, the company could use recycled plastic or paper packages to reduce the environmental impact. The customer will be more likely to buy the eco-sustainable tomato box because it reflects his values. Eco-sustainable tomatoes will therefore be more competitive than non-eco-sustainable tomatoes. This is how one can grasp the change in consumer behavior and exploit it strategically.
If you are curious about how customer values work and how to reflect them in your business, contact Mark it: we will analyze your customer and we will define the best strategy in terms of products and services to fit your customer needs.
