Marketing, Consumer Behaviour, Pandemic, CRM
Post-Pandemic Consumer Behaviour
Why you should never take customer relationship management for granted
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…the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use or dispose of products, services, ideas or experiences to satisfy needs and desires. — Solomon, M et al, 2019, p.5
The buying process does not begin and end when the actual purchase is made, but continues long after. It is important to focus on the entire buying process, not just the purchase decision. Buyers may pass quickly or slowly through the buying decision process. And in more routine purchases, consumers often skip or reverse some of the stages. Almost all major purchases result in cognitive dissonance, or discomfort caused by postpurchase conflict because every purchase involves compromise. Consumers feel uneasy about acquiring the drawbacks of the chosen brand and about losing the benefits of the brands not purchased (Kotler, PT, & Armstrong, G 2017).
If relationship marketing is defined as the development of mutually beneficial long-term relationships between suppliers and customers (Francis Buttle, 1996), what is the importance of it? It offers the following.
- Provides competitive advantage
- Less transactional
- Retains customer relationships
- Increased customer satisfaction
According to Buttle, key features are as follows.
- Emphasis on high-quality service which is reliable, empathic and responsive
- Frequency and quality of communication
- Understanding of customer expectations
- Longer in duration
- Collaborative, with cooperative behaviours
- Characterised by concern, trust, commitment and service
