consumer problem solving process

Definition and examples of the consumer decision-making process

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What is the consumer decision making process

The consumer decision-making process involves five basic steps. This is the process by which consumers evaluate making a purchasing decision. The 5 steps are problem recognition, information search, alternatives evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation.

5 steps of the consumer decision making process

• Problem recognition : Recognizes the need for a service or product
• Information search : Gathers information
• Alternatives evaluation : Weighs choices against comparable alternatives
• Purchase decision : Makes actual purchase
• Post-purchase evaluation : Reflects on the purchase they made

The consumer decision-making process can seem mysterious, but all consumers go through basic steps when making a purchase to determine what products and services will best fit their needs. 

Think about your own thought process when buying something—especially when it’s something big, like a car. You consider what you need, research, and compare your options before making the decision to buy. Afterward, you often wonder if you made the right call. 

If you work in sales or marketing, make more of an impact by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and reviewing the steps in the consumer decision-making process.

Steps in the consumer decision process

Generally speaking, the consumer decision-making process involves five basic steps.

1. Problem recognition

The first step of the consumer decision-making process is recognizing the need for a service or product. Need recognition, whether prompted internally or externally, results in the same response: a want. Once consumers recognize a want, they need to gather information to understand how they can fulfill that want, which leads to step two.

But how can you influence consumers at this stage? Since internal stimulus comes from within and includes basic impulses like hunger or a change in lifestyle, focus your sales and marketing efforts on external stimulus. 

Develop a comprehensive brand campaign to build brand awareness and recognition––you want consumers to know you and trust you. Most importantly, you want them to feel like they have a problem only you can solve.

Example: Winter is coming. This particular customer has several light jackets, but she’ll need a heavy-duty winter coat if she’s going to survive the snow and lower temperatures.

2. Information search

When researching their options, consumers again rely on internal and external factors, as well as past interactions with a product or brand, both positive and negative. In the information stage, they may browse through options at a physical location or consult online resources, such as Google or customer reviews.

Your job as a brand is to give the potential customer access to the information they want, with the hopes that they decide to purchase your product or service. Create a funnel and plan out the types of content that people will need. Present yourself as a trustworthy source of knowledge and information. 

Another important strategy is word of mouth—since consumers trust each other more than they do businesses, make sure to include consumer-generated content, like customer reviews or video testimonials, on your website.

Example: The customer searches “women’s winter coats” on Google to see what options are out there. When she sees someone with a cute coat, she asks them where they bought it and what they think of that brand.

3. Alternatives evaluation

At this point in the consumer decision-making process, prospective buyers have developed criteria for what they want in a product. Now they weigh their prospective choices against comparable alternatives.

Example: The customer compares a few brands that she likes. She knows that she wants a brightly colored coat that will complement the rest of her wardrobe, and though she would rather spend less money, she also wants to find a coat made from sustainable materials.

4. Purchase decision

This is the moment the consumer has been waiting for: the purchase. Once they have gathered all the facts, including feedback from previous customers, consumers should arrive at a logical conclusion on the product or service to purchase.

If you’ve done your job correctly, the consumer will recognize that your product is the best option and decide to purchase it.

Example: The customer finds a pink winter coat that’s on sale for 20% off. After confirming that the brand uses sustainable materials and asking friends for their feedback, she orders the coat online.

5. Post-purchase evaluation

This part of the consumer decision-making process involves reflection from both the consumer and the seller. As a seller, you should try to gauge the following:

• Did the purchase meet the need the consumer identified?
• Is the customer happy with the purchase?
• How can you continue to engage with this customer?

Remember, it’s your job to ensure your customer continues to have a positive experience with your product. Post-purchase engagement could include follow-up emails, discount coupons, and newsletters to entice the customer to make an additional purchase. You want to gain life-long customers, and in an age where anyone can leave an online review, it’s more important than ever to keep customers happy.

Tools to better understand your customer

Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes can help you steer consumers towards your product. Here are some tools to help you analyze their decision-making process and refine your brand marketing and sales tactics.

Customer journey map

A customer journey map visualizes a hypothetical customer’s actions. Use it to empathize with your customers as they go through a specific process or try to complete a purchase. Map out the actions the customer is likely to take.

Learn how to make a customer journey map to understand the decision-making process for your product/service.

Empathy map

Empathy maps help teams understand the customer’s mindset when dealing with a product or service. They can be used for personas or specific customer types. Empathy mapping is often most helpful at the beginning of a new project. Collaborate as a team to quickly get inside the heads of your customers during every step of product development, testing, and release.

Learn how empathy maps work so you can understand your customers better and make customer-oriented decisions .

User personas

Based on user research or past user interactions, user persona cards construct fictional or composite personas that break down and organize your data into distinctive types of users. Build a more human picture of your users and understand your user base better by creating user personas for the various types of users for your product or service.

Understanding the consumer decision-making process is key if you want to attract more customers and get them to make that crucial purchase. Use this process and the tools above to tune in to consumers and genuinely understand how to reach them.

Visualize your own customer journey map.

About Lucidchart

Lucidchart, a cloud-based intelligent diagramming application, is a core component of Lucid Software's Visual Collaboration Suite. This intuitive, cloud-based solution empowers teams to collaborate in real-time to build flowcharts, mockups, UML diagrams, customer journey maps, and more. Lucidchart propels teams forward to build the future faster. Lucid is proud to serve top businesses around the world, including customers such as Google, GE, and NBC Universal, and 99% of the Fortune 500. Lucid partners with industry leaders, including Google, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Since its founding, Lucid has received numerous awards for its products, business, and workplace culture. For more information, visit lucidchart.com.

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3.3 The Consumer Purchasing Decision Process

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Explain the first stage in the consumer purchasing decision process.
• 2 Summarize the second stage in the consumer purchasing decision process.
• 3 Describe the third stage in the consumer purchasing decision process.
• 4 Discuss the fourth stage in the consumer purchasing decision process.
• 5 Explain the fifth and final stage in the consumer purchasing decision process.

Consumer Decision Process

This chapter has examined many of the factors that influence consumer buying behavior, but behind the visible act of making a purchase lies an important decision process that takes place before, during, and after the purchase of a product or service. Figure 3.12 shows the five stages of the consumer decision process .

A buyer passes through five stages of the consumer decision process when making choices about which products or services to buy. Let’s examine each, starting at the beginning.

Stage 1: Need Recognition

The buying process starts when you sense a difference between your actual state and your desired state. This is referred to as problem awareness or need recognition. You might become aware of a need through internal stimuli (such as feeling hungry or thirsty when you’re on a long road trip) or external stimuli (such as passing a bakery and smelling the wonderful aroma of cookies baking).

Sometimes recognizing the problem or need is easy. You’ve run out of toilet paper or milk. But other times recognizing the problem or issue is more complicated. For example, think about this first stage in terms of your decision to enroll in college. What was the stimulus that triggered your interest in attending college? Are you a working adult who has recognized that upward advancement in your company won’t happen without possessing a college degree? Have you long aspired to be an entrepreneur, and you wanted to get some business and marketing courses under your belt so that you’re better prepared for the challenges of entrepreneurship? Perhaps a career in marketing has been on your internal radar since high school, and you’ve decided to take the plunge and get your degree in marketing. Or perhaps, after graduating from high school, your parents gave you an ultimatum—either find a job or enroll in college.

Stage 2: Information Search

Now that you’ve identified the problem or need, you’ll be inclined to search for more information. There are two different search states. The milder search state is called “heightened attention,” in which you become more receptive to information about the product or service. The stronger search state is called “active information search,” in which you might do some research about the product or service on the Internet (referred to as an internal search), ask friends and/or family members their opinions (what’s known as an external search), or even visit stores to view and touch the product (called an experiential search).

Keep in mind, of course, that not all needs/problems identified in Stage 1 will require this second stage. If you’ve run out of bread or toilet paper, you’re probably not going to do an information search; rather, you’ll just go to the store to buy what you need, and your information search may be as simple as checking prices at the grocery store to see if your favorite brand is available or another brand is on sale. However, purchase decisions of more consequence will usually trigger an information search of some type.

Again, consider the process you went through in deciding which college to attend. What sources of information did you use to find out about the colleges or universities you considered attending? Did you look at their websites, talk with friends or family who attended that school, or perhaps even visit the campus and meet with an admissions counselor?

Stage 3: Evaluation of Alternatives

Consumers are said to view a product or service as a “bundle of product attributes,” and you evaluate several attributes of a product or service in reaching your purchase decision. For example, if you’re buying a smartphone, you’ll consider factors such as battery life, speed, storage capacity, or price. If you’re booking a hotel, you’ll probably consider its location, cleanliness, free Wi-Fi, whether it has a free breakfast in the morning or a pool, and of course price.

What bundle of attributes did you use when evaluating your college alternatives? You may have considered factors such as location, size of the campus, whether the school had the program of study you wanted, if it had online learning, and cost.

Stage 4: Purchase Decision

This stage involves actually reaching a decision on the purchase of the product or service. One way people navigate all the information, evaluations, and choices in their purchase decision is to use heuristics —mental shortcuts or “rules of thumb.” Heuristics are types of preexisting value judgments that people use to make decisions.

For example, do you believe that the more expensive product is always of higher quality than the lower-priced product? That’s known as the price = quality heuristic. Brand loyalty is another heuristic people use in reaching their purchase decisions. For example, do you eat cereal? Do you always buy the same brand, or do you buy whatever’s on sale or a brand for which you have a coupon? Country of origin is still another heuristic. Given a choice, do you prefer to buy products made in the United States versus products made in other countries?

How did you make your purchase decision to enroll in your college or university? What heuristics did you use?

Stage 5: Post-Purchase Evaluation

After purchasing the product or service, you’ll experience either satisfaction or dissatisfaction. You may have second thoughts after making a purchase decision, and these doubts lead to cognitive dissonance , or buyer’s remorse—tension caused by uncertainty about the correctness of your decision. This may lead you to search for additional information to confirm the wisdom of your decision in order to reduce that tension.

What determines if a consumer is very satisfied, somewhat satisfied, or dissatisfied with his or her purchase? Satisfaction is a function of the closeness between the buyer’s expectations and the product’s perceived performance. If the product’s performance falls short of expectations, you’ll be dissatisfied. If the product’s performance meets your expectations, you’ll be satisfied, and if the product’s performance exceeds your expectations, you’ll be very satisfied.

Think about the purchase decision you made when you decided to enroll in your college or university. Are you very satisfied, satisfied, or dissatisfied with your decision? Refer to Table 3.1 for a summary of the five stages of the consumer decision process.

Careers In Marketing

You are also a consumer.

Learn about the five stages of the consumer decision process in this video from Open Up (Upatras) Entrepreneurship and this article from Business Study Notes .

GWI , a company that researches global consumer thinking, published its 2022 consumer trends report , which showed that consumers’ needs and priorities have shifted. Read the report and see if you find the same results for yourself. Have your priorities and needs changed since the pandemic hit? What are the other factors influencing your needs assessment?

Several tools can help you with a personal needs assessment. Practice your marketing skills on yourself by trying this needs assessment worksheet . This personal awareness will help you in many ways, including finding the right job that best fits your interests and abilities. Also take a few assessments and compare your results to better identify jobs worth learning more about. There are several free career aptitude tests to try:

• 123 Career Test
• Interest Assessment
• Work Values Matcher
• A Personality Color Test

In addition to career aptitude tests, personality tests assess your skill level and your ability to succeed in a career. Try a few of these:

• Typology Central Jung Personality Test
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The Balance Careers site also provides a wealth of resources on additional aptitude, personality, talent, and preemployment tests. It’s worth your time to dive into this information to help you identify which career might be your best fit.

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• Need recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Purchase decision
• Problem identification
• Post-purchase evaluation
• It is the mental conflict that occurs when a person’s behaviors and beliefs do not align.
• It is a mental shortcut that allows people to solve problems and make judgments more quickly and efficiently.
• It is a function of the closeness between your expectations of a product or service and its actual performance.
• It is the process of assigning the cause of behavior to either internal or external characteristics.

This book may not be used in the training of large language models or otherwise be ingested into large language models or generative AI offerings without OpenStax's permission.

Want to cite, share, or modify this book? This book uses the Creative Commons Attribution License and you must attribute OpenStax.

Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction

• Authors: Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht, Dr. Mark Green, Linda Hoffman
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: Principles of Marketing
• Publication date: Jan 25, 2023
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/1-unit-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/principles-marketing/pages/3-3-the-consumer-purchasing-decision-process

© Jan 9, 2024 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

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Consumer Decision-Making Process Explained (With Real-Life Examples & Templates)

Written by: Olujinmi Oluwatoni

Customers don't just buy. Their purchase decisions are shaped by their entire buying experience, from the initial spark of interest to the final purchase.

Each stage of the customer decision-making process is crucial. If you want to succeed in today's cutthroat market, you'll need to learn and leverage the subtleties of consumer behavior at each stage.

Understanding why, when, and how your customers make buying decisions will help you create memorable customer experiences, remove obstacles, drive more conversions and improve your business processes.

In this post, we'll examine the many phases of the consumer decision-making process and uncover secrets to win customers over at each level. We’ll also share some practical, real-life examples and templates that’ll help you along the way.

Table of Contents

What is the consumer decision-making process, 5 steps of the consumer decision-making process, 5 templates to understand your customer better.

• The consumer decision-making process is a series of steps an individual undergoes to make a purchase.
• A good knowledge of how your customers make buying decisions allows you to create more targeted marketing strategies to interact with your customer at each stage of the decision-making process.
• The five stages of the consumer decision-making process include; problem recognition, information search, alternatives evaluation, purchase decision and post-purchase evaluation.
• Visme has a vast library of beautiful, professionally designed templates to help you create visual assets to better understand your audience and streamline the sales process.

The consumer decision-making process is a series of steps an individual undergoes to make a purchase. It is also called the Buyer Decision Process and covers the five stages a buyer goes through before, during and after buying your product.

The consumer buying process begins when with the buyer recognizing their need and ends with them evaluating their purchase decision. Each step of this process allows you to make smart moves that position you properly and ensure the buyer chooses your product at the end of their decision-making journey.

Having a good knowledge of how your customers make buying decisions allows you to create more targeted marketing strategies to interact with them at each stage of the decision-making process.

Here are some more reasons you need a grasp of the consumer decision-making process.

• With this knowledge, you’re able to recognize and impact the social, psychological and external factors that influence your buyer’s decision process.
• By recognizing these factors, you can customize your messaging and create a strategy that appeals to your customer in the particular stage they are in.
• You can identify the obstacles that come up and prevent a buyer from going through with your product as a solution to their need. This, in turn, can help you make improvements to your product or customer experience along the sales cycle .
• Understanding how to influence your customers at the most important touch points will drive more sales conversion. This will ultimately increase your client base and revenue.

Throughout the buying process, your customer will inevitably consult a number of various resources for information. It is your job to make sure that information is readily accessible when they are ready to process it.

Build relationships with customers and drive sales growth

• Reach out to prospects with impressive pitch decks and proposals that convert
• Monitor clients' level of engagement to see what they are most interested in
• Build a winning sales playbook to maximize your sales team's efficiency

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 Let’s explore what’s going through a buyer’s head from the moment they identify their need to when they make a purchase.

This process isn’t always linear. Some products go through this process swiftly, while others go progressively. Buyers may quickly decide to purchase a low-cost or low-involvement product without investing much time or effort in the decision-making process.

For example, a buyer may spend little to no time comparing the prices and colors of snacks in a vending machine. What they are most interested in is satisfying their hunger.

Compare that to a B2B company interested in buying enterprise software. They would spend more time researching the features, pricing, reviews and whether it fits their needs.

Below are the 5-step processes most buyers go through when making a purchase.

Problem Recognition

The first step in the consumer decision making process is when the buyer recognizes that they have a need or a problem and require a solution.

Problem recognition may be influenced by internal factors such as new needs, interests, beliefs or external factors like learning, dissatisfaction with current products or advertising.

When people become aware of a need, they feel compelled to find a solution, and they devote more time and energy to exploring their options.

Your focus at the problem recognition stage would be to identify the core need behind customer needs and position yourself to be seen as a solution to that need.

Let’s take Native Deodorants as an example. Native identified that consumers were becoming more conscious of the ingredients used in deodorants and the health risks they posed. Thus, the core need of their customers was a deodorant that didn’t contain harmful substances like aluminum.

Native positioned itself as a solution that offered natural deodorants that were aluminum-free, paraben-free and made with recognizable ingredients, emphasizing product benefits.

They went on to create awareness using social media, influencers and advertising. They even engaged with consumers to build trust and offered incentives to encourage them to try the product. At this stage, the consumer recognized the need for a safe deodorant. Also, Native identified their customers' core needs and created awareness of their products as a solution.

Information Search

The next step the buyer will take after identifying and accepting their need or problem will be to search for a solution. Research shows that 87% of shoppers start their product searches online. In most cases, Google may be the first port of call!

At this stage, they want to know what products and services exist to fulfill their needs.

The consumer researches and gathers information by;

• Asking for recommendations
• Using their “pain point” as keywords on search engines, or
• Reading testimonials or reviews

While the consumer is actively looking for information, your goal at this stage should be to put out as much information as needed about your product or service. You may want to optimize your website and content for search engines or leverage social media.

The goal is to be present when your target audience comes searching. In other words, make it easy for your target customer to find you or find information about your product or service.

You can also take advantage of paid advertising to target buyers who are searching for products you offer. Actively encouraging satisfied customers to leave positive reviews for your products will also let prospects perceive you as a trusted solution.

Warby Parker established a strong online presence with an e-commerce website showcasing prescription glasses and providing detailed product information. They optimized their website for search engines and shared valuable content related to eyewear and fashion.

In a competitive market like New York, Warby Parker utilized smart sales skills and strategies like geotargeting, paid ads and promotions. This put them on the radar of consumers in the area who were in the information search stage.

Warby Parker made it easy for customers to find them and positioned themselves as a trusted source of information. This ultimately increased their chances of being considered and chosen by consumers needing prescription glasses.

Alternatives Evaluation

Now the consumer has gathered information on potential products that may solve their needs. Yours is one of them. In this stage, they compare and contrast the various options and alternatives they have at their disposal.

Depending on the complexity of the products, a few factors your target audience may be looking out for include, but are not limited to:

• Specific features of the product
• Brand reputation
• Quality of the product
• Availability and Warranty
• Personal preference (color, style, etc.)

At this stage, you can take advantage of sales collateral to showcase the value of your products. Examples of sales collateral you could use are sales battle cards, product demos, product sell sheets, videos, case studies and more.

You can share deal-closing insights with your team using this sales battle card template below:

There's also a case study template you can use to showcase your brand's performance:

This product sell sheet is a valuable asset for highlighting your product’s key features and benefits:

Purchase Decision

Hurray! The buyer has gone through three buying stages of the consumer decision-making process and has now selected a product they believe will solve their problem best.

If this product is yours, your customer will head over to your online store, purchase page, or retail store to buy the product. While this is an exciting moment, you must remain aware of some obstacles that may arise at this stage.

These obstacles may hinder a smooth sale, so information must be put out to handle them before the need arises. Some obstacles that may occur are:

• Payment issues
• Shipping or delivery challenges
• Purchase price
• Organizational hierarchy, etc

Knowing this step can help you prepare and provide content, materials, or strategies to combat these hindrances and ensure a smooth sale.

A good example is the sportswear company Nike . Nike offers a seamless checkout process and allows its customers to make up to four interest-free payments for products. This immediately eases the stress on their customers, who may not have had an initial budget for the product.

Nike also offers free shipping and free 60-day returns for its members. During the purchase decision, this can encourage customers to go ahead with Nike instead of alternatives, as they would feel secure with their purchase.

A great step you can take for consumers at this stage is to project the various obstacles that may hinder a good sale and provide solutions ahead of time. This will make your customer more comfortable and secure with your product.

Using this modern infographic, you can detail the specific features your customers gain with each pricing plan.

Post-purchase Evaluation

This last step in the consumer decision-making process is the post-purchase evaluation. This step is very important in the buyer's decision-making process because it determines whether or not they’ll move forward with your brand.

In this step, your customer will probably ask these questions:

• Am I happy with my purchase decision?
• Does it meet or surpass my expectation?
• Am I disappointed or satisfied?

Your customer is evaluating the use of your product to assess if they made the right choice or not. This evaluation can influence their loyalty to your brand, future buying decisions, or even recommendations.

But you don’t have to leave it all to chance. You can provide post-sale services that keep your customers happy and satisfied with their purchases.

A brand that understood this consumer decision process model and effectively applied it is Bombas . Their help center offers a ton of information that guides their customers even after a purchase. Customers can get answers to questions like “How do I wash my socks?” or “How can I recycle my Bombas?”

They also have a section to keep customers happy called “ Happiness Guarantee ”

According to Bombass, the happiness guarantee is dedicated to ensuring that every Bombas customer is satisfied through generous replacement programs.

Understanding what sort of value or services your customers will appreciate and implementing them post-sale will boost your customer loyalty, referrals and revenue.

You can create engaging customer feedback forms with Visme Forms to evaluate purchase satisfaction.

Visme has some professionally designed templates to help you better understand your audience and refine your sales strategy . We'll take a look at them.

But first, hear what the Polly, a creative director at IBM  has to say about her team's experience with Visme.

““Visme is something that I would highly recommend. It made us look a lot better in our clients’ eyes because it's something that's visually effective as a marketing tool. It’s a great tool to facilitate sharing that information in a much more visually-friendly and user-friendly method.”  - Polly Brewster | Creative Director of IBM's Talent Acquisition Optimization & Recruitment Team

If you're short on time, use Visme's AI Designer to generator a document for you. This AI Document Generator  is designed to create personalized templates in a matter of minutes.

Here are some of Visme's templates that'll help you understand your customers better:

1. Project Management Software Customer Persona Template

Capture essential information and requirements about your ideal users and visualize their common characteristics and traits with the help of this template. It has a visually appealing design layout, complete with high-resolution images, icons and dynamic content blocks provided by Visme. Automatically customize this template with your brand assets using Visme's brand wizard .

2. User Journey Map

When it comes to gaining valuable insights into how your customers interact with your product, a user journey map is an invaluable tool. This helps to outline your ICPs business buying decision and more.

Our template is designed with visually appealing graphics, arrows, icons and layouts that make it effortless to translate insights from your user journey into actionable information.

With simple customization options such as color and font editing, you can easily tailor the template to align with your brand. You can also add Visme’s icons , stock photos and videos to make your design more appealing.

If you have trouble finding the perfect image use the AI Image Generator . Simply enter a detailed prompt and let the AI share several output styles: photos, paintings, pencil drawings, 3D graphics, and more for you to choose from.

3. Executive User Persona

With this whiteboard template, you can create and visualize realistic user personas for the key decision-makers involved in purchasing your product or service.

Dive deep into their needs, behaviors and motivations to craft targeted marketing messages that resonate with your audience. Featuring beautiful colors and stunning fonts, this fully customizable template can be tailored to reflect your brand's unique aesthetic, helping you create compelling marketing campaigns.

It's important to create a user persona that closely portrays your buyer or user. This could mean collaborating with internal stakeholders by sharing this template with them to contribute their input.

If it's solely on you to create one and you're struggling to fully capture what to say about your user persona, you can use the AI Writer . This AI-powered tool will help you create detailed personas effortlessly, ensuring your marketing messages are always engaging and precisely tailored to your audience.

Lastly, Use Visme's Dynamic Fields to easily update information on this template and throughout your projects.

4. Customer Journey Map Infographic Timeline

Use this template to provide a clear visual representation of how your customers navigate through your business.

With its sleek and intuitive design, this infographic is perfect for business and marketing presentations by professionals who want to effortlessly interpret and illustrate crucial touchpoints and areas that require improvement in a customer's journey with your business.

Whether you're fine-tuning your business strategies or highlighting key moments in your marketing campaigns, this infographic template is a great tool to convey your message with impact.

5. Step Ladder Brainstorming WhiteBoard

Use this brainstorming template with your team to collaborate with your team as you discuss insights about your customer decision-making process. This template will aid collaborative learning and visual thinking. You can include charts, graphs, maps, widgets and other data visualization tools to showcase data.

Use Visme to Understand & Attract Your Audience with Ease

You can better serve your customers, remove roadblocks, increase conversions, and fine-tune your operations if you have a firm grasp of the factors that influence their purchasing decisions.

Visme can assist you in increasing sales, fostering relationships and streamlining the sales process with appealing and professionally designed visual content.

Create visual presentations, training materials, graphics and other print and digital materials for sales support, marketing, human resources and other uses with Visme. Our easy-to-use software allows people of varying design skills to create professional work that’s engaging and within brand guidelines. So, you don't have to worry if you're not a professional designer.

Utilize tools for collaboration, live sharing, presenting and more to understand your audience, unite your team and produce outstanding sales content.

If you're looking for tools to help your team sell more effectively, you can also browse through these unique sales templates and learn more about selling with Visme here.

Streamline your sales and marketing process with Visme

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About the Author

Olujinmi is a Content writer for Visme who creates human-first SEO content. She loves helping businesses smash their ROI goals with strategic content development and optimization. When she’s not writing, you’ll find her composing songs.

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3.2 Low-Involvement Versus High-Involvement Buying Decisions and the Consumer’s Decision-Making Process

Learning objectives.

• Distinguish between low-involvement and high-involvement buying decisions.
• Understand what the stages of the buying process are and what happens in each stage.

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behavior. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product.

You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if she makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine response behavior when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying . While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them. These are items that are typically low-involvement decisions. Low-involvement decisions aren’t necessarily products purchased on impulse, although they can be.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving , where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of postpurchase dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that postpurchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding.”

Allstate’s “You’re in Good Hands” advertisements are designed to convince consumers that the insurance company won’t let them down.

Mike Mozart – Allstate, – CC BY 2.0.

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s “not Jap [Japanese made] is crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

1970s American Cars

(click to see video)

Today, Lexus is the automotive brand that experiences the most customer loyalty. For a humorous, tongue-in-cheek look at why the brand reputation of American carmakers suffered in the 1970s, check out this clip.

Stages in the Buying Process

Figure 3.9 “Stages in the Consumer’s Purchasing Process” outlines the buying stages consumers go through. At any given time, you’re probably in a buying stage for a product or service. You’re thinking about the different types of things you want or need to eventually buy, how you are going to find the best ones at the best price, and where and how will you buy them. Meanwhile, there are other products you have already purchased that you’re evaluating. Some might be better than others. Will you discard them, and if so, how? Then what will you buy? Where does that process start?

Figure 3.9 Stages in the Consumer’s Purchasing Process

Stage 1. Need Recognition

You plan to backpack around the country after you graduate and don’t have a particularly good backpack. You realize that you must get a new backpack. You may also be thinking about the job you’ve accepted after graduation and know that you must get a vehicle to commute. Recognizing a need may involve something as simple as running out of bread or milk or realizing that you must get a new backpack or a car after you graduate. Marketers try to show consumers how their products and services add value and help satisfy needs and wants. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Gatorade, Powerade, and other beverage makers locate their machines in gymnasiums so you see them after a long, tiring workout? Previews at movie theaters are another example. How many times have you have heard about a movie and had no interest in it—until you saw the preview? Afterward, you felt like you had to see it.

Stage 2. Search for Information

For products such as milk and bread, you may simply recognize the need, go to the store, and buy more. However, if you are purchasing a car for the first time or need a particular type of backpack, you may need to get information on different alternatives. Maybe you have owned several backpacks and know what you like and don’t like about them. Or there might be a particular brand that you’ve purchased in the past that you liked and want to purchase in the future. This is a great position for the company that owns the brand to be in—something firms strive for. Why? Because it often means you will limit your search and simply buy their brand again.

If what you already know about backpacks doesn’t provide you with enough information, you’ll probably continue to gather information from various sources. Frequently people ask friends, family, and neighbors about their experiences with products. Magazines such as Consumer Reports (considered an objective source of information on many consumer products) or Backpacker Magazine might also help you. Similar information sources are available for learning about different makes and models of cars.

Internet shopping sites such as Amazon.com have become a common source of information about products. Epinions.com is an example of consumer-generated review site. The site offers product ratings, buying tips, and price information. Amazon.com also offers product reviews written by consumers. People prefer “independent” sources such as this when they are looking for product information. However, they also often consult non-neutral sources of information, such advertisements, brochures, company Web sites, and salespeople.

Stage 3. Product Evaluation

Obviously, there are hundreds of different backpacks and cars available. It’s not possible for you to examine all of them. In fact, good salespeople and marketing professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so overwhelming that you might not buy anything at all. Consequently, you may use choice heuristics or rules of thumb that provide mental shortcuts in the decision-making process. You may also develop evaluative criteria to help you narrow down your choices. Backpacks or cars that meet your initial criteria before the consideration will determine the set of brands you’ll consider for purchase.

Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that are important to you such as the price of the backpack, the size, the number of compartments, and color. Some of these characteristics are more important than others. For example, the size of the backpack and the price might be more important to you than the color—unless, say, the color is hot pink and you hate pink. You must decide what criteria are most important and how well different alternatives meet the criteria.

Figure 3.10

Osprey backpacks are known for their durability. The company has a special design and quality control center, and Osprey’s salespeople annually take a “canyon testing” trip to see how well the company’s products perform.

melanie innis – break – CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Companies want to convince you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their products. For example, you might not have thought about the weight or durability of the backpack you want to buy. However, a backpack manufacturer such as Osprey might remind you through magazine ads, packaging information, and its Web site that you should pay attention to these features—features that happen to be key selling points of its backpacks. Automobile manufacturers may have similar models, so don’t be afraid to add criteria to help you evaluate cars in your consideration set.

Stage 4. Product Choice and Purchase

With low-involvement purchases, consumers may go from recognizing a need to purchasing the product. However, for backpacks and cars, you decide which one to purchase after you have evaluated different alternatives. In addition to which backpack or which car, you are probably also making other decisions at this stage, including where and how to purchase the backpack (or car) and on what terms. Maybe the backpack was cheaper at one store than another, but the salesperson there was rude. Or maybe you decide to order online because you’re too busy to go to the mall. Other decisions related to the purchase, particularly those related to big-ticket items, are made at this point. For example, if you’re buying a high-definition television, you might look for a store that will offer you credit or a warranty.

Stage 5. Postpurchase Use and Evaluation

At this point in the process you decide whether the backpack you purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is. If it’s not, you’re likely to suffer what’s called postpurchase dissonance . You might call it buyer’s remorse . Typically, dissonance occurs when a product or service does not meet your expectations. Consumers are more likely to experience dissonance with products that are relatively expensive and that are purchased infrequently.

You want to feel good about your purchase, but you don’t. You begin to wonder whether you should have waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information first. Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. If you don’t feel good about what you’ve purchased from them, you might return the item and never purchase anything from them again. Or, worse yet, you might tell everyone you know how bad the product was.

Companies do various things to try to prevent buyer’s remorse. For smaller items, they might offer a money back guarantee or they might encourage their salespeople to tell you what a great purchase you made. How many times have you heard a salesperson say, “That outfit looks so great on you!” For larger items, companies might offer a warranty, along with instruction booklets, and a toll-free troubleshooting line to call or they might have a salesperson call you to see if you need help with product. Automobile companies may offer loaner cars when you bring your car in for service.

Companies may also try to set expectations in order to satisfy customers. Service companies such as restaurants do this frequently. Think about when the hostess tells you that your table will be ready in 30 minutes. If they seat you in 15 minutes, you are much happier than if they told you that your table would be ready in 15 minutes, but it took 30 minutes to seat you. Similarly, if a store tells you that your pants will be altered in a week and they are ready in three days, you’ll be much more satisfied than if they said your pants would be ready in three days, yet it took a week before they were ready.

Stage 6. Disposal of the Product

There was a time when neither manufacturers nor consumers thought much about how products got disposed of, so long as people bought them. But that’s changed. How products are being disposed of is becoming extremely important to consumers and society in general. Computers and batteries, which leech chemicals into landfills, are a huge problem. Consumers don’t want to degrade the environment if they don’t have to, and companies are becoming more aware of this fact.

Take for example Crystal Light, a water-based beverage that’s sold in grocery stores. You can buy it in a bottle. However, many people buy a concentrated form of it, put it in reusable pitchers or bottles, and add water. That way, they don’t have to buy and dispose of plastic bottle after plastic bottle, damaging the environment in the process. Windex has done something similar with its window cleaner. Instead of buying new bottles of it all the time, you can purchase a concentrate and add water. You have probably noticed that most grocery stores now sell cloth bags consumers can reuse instead of continually using and discarding of new plastic or paper bags.

Figure 3.11

The hike up to Mount Everest used to be pristine. Now it looks more like this. Who’s responsible? Are consumers or companies responsible, or both?

jqpubliq – Recycling Center Pile – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Other companies are less concerned about conservation than they are about planned obsolescence . Planned obsolescence is a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time. The goal is to improve a company’s sales by reducing the amount of time between the repeat purchases consumers make of products. When a software developer introduces a new version of product, it is usually designed to be incompatible with older versions of it. For example, not all the formatting features are the same in Microsoft Word 2007 and 2010. Sometimes documents do not translate properly when opened in the newer version. Consequently, you will be more inclined to upgrade to the new version so you can open all Word documents you receive.

Products that are disposable are another way in which firms have managed to reduce the amount of time between purchases. Disposable lighters are an example. Do you know anyone today that owns a nondisposable lighter? Believe it or not, prior to the 1960s, scarcely anyone could have imagined using a cheap disposable lighter. There are many more disposable products today than there were in years past—including everything from bottled water and individually wrapped snacks to single-use eye drops and cell phones.

Figure 3.12

Disposable lighters came into vogue in the United States in the 1960s. You probably don’t own a cool, nondisposable lighter like one of these, but you don’t have to bother refilling it with lighter fluid either.

Europeana staff photographer – A trench art lighter – public domain.

Key Takeaways

Consumer behavior looks at the many reasons why people buy things and later dispose of them. Consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchase products: (1) realizing the need or wanting something, (2) searching for information about the item, (3) evaluating different products, (4) choosing a product and purchasing it, (5) using and evaluating the product after the purchase, and (6) disposing of the product. A consumer’s level of involvement is how interested he or she is in buying and consuming a product. Low-involvement products are usually inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if he or she makes a mistake by purchasing them. High-involvement products carry a high risk to the buyer if they fail, are complex, or have high price tags. Limited-involvement products fall somewhere in between.

Review Questions

• How do low-involvement decisions differ from high-involvement decisions in terms of relevance, price, frequency, and the risks their buyers face? Name some products in each category that you’ve recently purchased.
• What stages do people go through in the buying process for high-involvement decisions? How do the stages vary for low-involvement decisions?
• What is postpurchase dissonance and what can companies do to reduce it?

Principles of Marketing Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Consumer Motivation and Involvement

15 Involvement Levels

Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product.

Low Involvement Consumer Decision Making

At some point in your life you may have considered products you want to own (e.g. luxury or novelty items), but like many of us, you probably didn’t do much more than ponder their relevance or suitability to your life. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives . As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if a mistake is made in purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine response behaviour when they make low-involvement decisions — that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behaviour. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying . While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with a notable celebrity on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them. These are items that are typically low-involvement decisions. Low involvement decisions aren’t necessarily products purchased on impulse, although they can be.

High Involvement Consumer Decision Making

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail. These are often more complex purchases that may carry a high price tag, such as a house, a car, or an insurance policy. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behaviour when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of post-purchase dissonance, also known as cognitive dissonance which is a form of anxiety consumers experience if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that post purchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, marketers try to offer consumers a lot of supporting information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and why the consumer won’t be disappointed with their purchase afterwards. Salespeople play a critical role in answering consumer questions and providing extensive support during and after the purchasing stage.

Limited Problem Solving

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favourite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Distinguishing Between Low Involvement and High Involvement

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low-versus high-involvement decision — say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behaviour), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands (e.g. your evoke set for automobiles). For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s not foreign is “crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

Ways to Increase Involvement Levels

Involvement levels—whether they are low, high, or limited—vary by consumer and less so by product. A consumer’s involvement with a particular product will depend on their experience and knowledge, as well as their general approach to gathering information before making purchasing decisions. In a highly competitive marketplace, however, brands are always vying for consumer preference, loyalty, and affirmation. For this reason, many brands will engage in marketing strategies to increase exposure, attention, and relevance; in other words, brands are constantly seeking ways to motivate consumers with the intention to increase consumer involvement with their products and services.

Some of the different ways marketers increase consumer involvement are: customization; engagement; incentives; appealing to hedonic needs; creating purpose; and, representation.

1. Customization

With Share a Coke, Coca-Cola made a global mass customization implementation that worked for them. The company was able to put the labels on millions of bottles in order to get consumers to notice the changes to the coke bottle in the aisle. People also felt a kinship and moment of recognition once they spotted their names or a friend’s name. Simultaneously this personalization also worked because of the printing equipment that could make it happen and there are not that many first names to begin with. These factors lead the brand to be able to roll this out globally ( Mass Customization #12 , 2017).

2. Engagement

Have you ever heard the expression, “content is king”? Without a doubt, engaging, memorable, and unique marketing content has a lasting impact on consumers. The marketing landscape is a noisy one, polluted with an infinite number of brands advertising extensively to consumers, vying for a fraction of our attention. Savvy marketers recognize the importance of sparking just enough consumer interest so they become motivated to take notice and process their marketing messages. Marketers who create content (that isn’t just about sales and promotion) that inspires, delights, and even serves an audience’s needs are unlocking the secret to engagement. And engagement leads to loyalty.

There is no trick to content marketing, but the brands who do it well know that stepping away—far away—from the usual sales and promotion lines is critical. While content marketing is an effective way to increase sales, grow a brand, and create loyalty, authenticity is at its core.

Bodyform and Old Spice are two brands who very cleverly applied just the right amount of self-deprecating humour to their content marketing that not only engaged consumers, but had them begging for more!

Content as a Key Driver to Consumer Engagement

Engaging customers through content might involve a two-way conversation online, or an entire campaign designed around a single customer comment.

In 2012, Richard Neill posted a message to Bodyform’s Facebook page calling out the brand for lying to and deceiving its customers and audiences for years. Richard went on to say that Bodyform’s advertisements failed to truly depict any sense of reality and that in fact he felt set up by the brand to experience a huge fall. Bodyform, or as Richard addressed the company, “you crafty bugger,” is a UK company that produces and sells feminine protection products to menstruating girls and women (Bodyform, n.d.). Little did Richard know that when he posted his humorous rant to Bodyform that the company would respond by creating a video speaking directly at Richard and coming “clean” on all their deceitful attempts to make having period look like fun. When Bodyform’s video went viral, a brand that would have otherwise continued to blend into the background, captured the attention of a global audience.

Xavier Izaguirre says that, “[a]udience involvement is the process and act of actively involving your target audience in your communication mix, in order to increase their engagement with your message as well as advocacy to your brand.” Bodyform gained global recognition by turning one person’s rant into a viral publicity sensation (even though Richard was not the customer in this case).

Despite being a household name, in the years leading up to Old Spice’s infamous “The Man Your Man Should Smell Like” campaign, sales were flat and the brand had failed to strike a chord in a new generation of consumers. Ad experts at Wieden + Kennedy produced a single 30-second ad (featuring a shirtless and self-deprecating Isaiah Mustafa) that played around the time of the 2010 Super Bowl game. While the ad quickly gained notoriety on YouTube, it was the now infamous, “ Response Campaign ” that made the campaign a leader of its time in audience engagement.

3. Incentives

Customer loyalty and reward programs successfully motivate consumers in the decision making process and reinforce purchasing behaviours ( a feature of instrumental conditioning ). The rationale for loyalty and rewards programs is clear: the cost of acquiring a new customer runs five to 25 times more than selling to an existing one and existing customers spend 67 per cent more than new customers (Bernazzani, n.d.). From the customer perspective, simple and practical reward programs such as Beauty Insider—a point-accumulation model used by Sephora—provides strong incentive for customer loyalty (Bernazzani, n.d.).

4. Appealing to Hedonic Needs

A particularly strong way to motivate consumers to increase involvement levels with a product or service is to appeal to their hedonic needs. Consumers seek to satisfy their need for fun, pleasure, and enjoyment through luxurious and rare purchases. In these cases, consumers are less likely to be price sensitive (“it’s a treat”) and more likely to spend greater processing time on the marketing messages they are presented with when a brand appeals to their greatest desires instead of their basic necessities.

5. Creating Purpose

Millennial and Digital Native consumers are profoundly different than those who came before them. Brands, particularly in the consumer goods category, who demonstrate (and uphold) a commitment to sustainability grow at a faster rate (4 per cent) than those who do not (1 per cent) (“Consumer-Goods…,” 2015). In a 2015 poll, 30,000 consumers were asked how much the environment, packaging, price, marketing, and organic or health and wellness claims had on their consumer-goods’ purchase decisions, and to no surprise, 66 per cent said they would be willing to pay more for sustainable brands. (Nielsen, 2015). A rising trend and important factor to consider in evaluating consumer involvement levels and ways to increase them. So while cruelty-free, fair trade, and locally-sourced may all seem like buzz words to some, they are non-negotiable decision-making factors to a large and growing consumer market.

6. Representation

Celebrity endorsement can have a profound impact on consumers’ overall attitude towards a brand. Consumers who might otherwise have a “neutral” attitude towards a brand (neither positive nor negative) may be more noticed to take notice of a brand’s messages and stimuli if a celebrity they admire is the face of the brand.

When sportswear and sneaker brand Puma signed Rihanna on to not just endorse the brand but design an entire collection, sales soared in all the regions and the brand enjoyed a new “revival” in the U.S. where Under Armour and Nike had been making significant gains (“Rihanna Designs…,” 2017). “Rihanna’s relationship with us makes the brand actual and hot again with young consumers,” said chief executive Bjorn Gulden (“Rihanna Designs…,” 2017).

Media Attributions

• The image of two different coloured sneakers is by Raka Rachgo on Unsplash .
• The image of a coffee card in a wallet is by Rebecca Aldama on Unsplash .
• The image of an island resort in tropical destination is by Ishan @seefromthesky on Unsplash .
• The image of a stack of glossy magazine covers is by Charisse Kenion on Unsplash .

Text Attributions

• The introductory paragraph; sections on “Low Involvement Consumer Decision Making,” “High Involvement Consumer Decision Making,” and “Limited Problem Solving” are adapted from Principles of Marketing which is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

About Us . (n.d.). Body Form. Retrieved February 2, 2019, from https://www.bodyform.co.uk/about-us/.

Kalamut, A. (2010, August 18). Old Spice Video “Case Study” . YouTube [Video]. https://youtu.be/Kg0booW1uOQ.

Bernazzani, S. (n.d.). Customer Loyalty: The Ultimate Guide [Blog post]. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-loyalty.

Bodyform Channel. (2012, October 16). Bodyform Responds: The Truth . YouTube [Video]. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bpy75q2DDow&feature=youtu.be.

Consumer-Goods’ Brands That Demonstrate Commitment to Sustainability Outperform Those That Don’t. (2015, October 12). Nielsen [Press Release]. https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/press-room/2015/consumer-goods-brands-that-demonstrate-commitment-to-sustainability-outperform.html.

Curtin, M. (2018, March 30). 73 Per Cent of Millennials are Willing to Spend More Money on This 1 Type of Product . Inc. https://www.inc.com/melanie-curtin/73-percent-of-millennials-are-willing-to-spend-more-money-on-this-1-type-of-product.html.

Izaguirre, X. (2012, October 17). How are brands using audience involvement to increase reach and engagement?   EConsultancy. https://econsultancy.com/how-are-brands-using-audience-involvement-to-increase-reach-and-engagement/.

Rihanna Designs Help Lift Puma Sportswear Sales . (2017, October 24). Reuters. https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/news-analysis/rihanna-designs-help-lift-puma-sportswear-sales.

Tarver, E. (2018, October 20). Why the “Share a Coke” Campaign Is So Successful . Investopedia. https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/100715/what-makes-share-coke-campaign-so-successful.asp.

Low involvement decision making typically reflects when a consumer who has a low level of interest and attachment to an item. These items may be relatively inexpensive, pose low risk (can be exchanged, returned, or replaced easily), and not require research or comparison shopping.

This concept describes when consumers make low-involvement decisions that are "automatic" in nature and reflect a limited amount of information the consumer has gathered in the past.

A type of purchase that is made with no previous planning or thought.

High involvement decision making typically reflects when a consumer who has a high degree of interest and attachment to an item. These items may be relatively expensive, pose a high risk to the consumer (can't be exchanged or refunded easily or at all), and require some degree of research or comparison shopping.

Also known as "consumer remorse" or "consumer guilt", this is an unsettling feeling consumers may experience post-purchase if they feel their actions are not aligned with their needs.

Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they have some information about an item, but continue to gather more information to inform their purchasing decision. This falls between "low" and "high" involvement on the involvement continuum.

Introduction to Consumer Behaviour Copyright © 2021 by Andrea Niosi is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Unpacking the five stages of the consumer decision-making process

July 25, 2024

Brogan Woodburn

What does a jar of peanut butter have in common with a gaming laptop? When people decide to purchase either of these products, they go through a surprisingly similar process. 

The customer decision-making process includes five common stages: problem awareness, research, comparison of alternatives, purchase, and reflection. In this article, we'll dig into each of these stages in detail and show you why understanding the consumer decision-making process is a key step in building trust with your buyers and moving them toward a purchase decision.

Let's get going.

What are the five stages of the consumer decision-making process?

Here's a brief explanation of each stage of the consumer decision process that outlines the customer journey map:

• Problem recognition : At this stage, someone has a realization that they have a particular need or desire.
• Research : Next, they start researching to see if a product or service can fulfill that want or need.
• Evaluation of alternatives : From there, they compare the products and services they've found to see what might be the best fit.
• Purchase decision : After sufficient comparison, they decide to make a final purchase.
• Post-purchase evaluation : The consumer uses the product or service and reflects on their decision.

We'll go through each of these five stages of the consumer decision-making process more in-depth below.

1. Problem recognition: what's the need or desire?

At this first stage of the consumer buying process, the customer realizes they have a need or desire that could be fulfilled by some type of product or service. They might not know exactly what they want, and the realization may even be somewhat unconscious, but in this phase, a person goes from being unaware of their want or need to being aware of their want or need. This paradigm shift is what begins the consumer's journey and helps explain consumer behavior.

The realization can be spurred on by internal or external stimuli. In a basic sense, internal stimuli are sensations and feelings that arise on their own, while external stimuli are things like advertisements, ideas from friends and peers, or an eye-catching photo of a restaurant entree. 

Internal and external stimuli often go hand in hand. Someone may have the internal desire to improve their lawn because they just like it when things look nice—but they've also seen their neighbor's pristine lawns and perhaps lawn improvement advertisements they don't consciously remember.

Key application

If you're the founder of a business, you might be intimately aware of the problem your product or service solves based on your own experience. But if you were hired later on, you might have some work to do to understand the needs and desires of your ideal customer. All of your sales and marketing efforts should stem from the real problems your brand solves.

2. Research: what solutions exist?

During this information-gathering stage of the consumer decision-making process, customers are exploring what's out there. They might peruse product reviews, online forums, or social media. People often ask their colleagues, mentors, friends, and family members for advice when looking for a new product or service during this phase.

Your goal here as a business is to have optimized content across channels that explains what your company offers and how your specific solution would solve their needs. You might have content available through search engines, e-commerce product pages, social media posts, video platforms, or a blog. 

Some product categories, like beauty and DIY home improvement, lend themselves to social media influencer marketing. On the other hand, B2B products often work well with LinkedIn thought leadership articles and detailed blog posts. As a business, this is where you would want to focus your marketing efforts.

3. Evaluation of alternatives: which is the best option?

Comparison shopping is engrained in the modern consumer's DNA. Rarely does someone skip this step and decide to buy a product after simply discovering it exists. 

As an example, say a college student has a couple hundred dollars to spend after their birthday on a new watch. They might add five or ten watches to their Amazon shopping list. They'll evaluate things like dial color, water resistance, and movement type before making a purchase.

This phase could last months as business leaders contemplate the best new software to implement for their team. Or, it could last just a few seconds as someone compares different pasta sauces in a grocery aisle. 

User-generated content (UGC) is when current customers share their experience with your product or service, and it's a goldmine of opportunity for you as a business. Promote it like your business depends on it because prospects trust real people giving authentic reviews more than they trust self-promotion. It's a major part of the customer journey. If it's a good product, your past customers will do the selling for you through reviews. A good first step is to encourage previous customers to submit reviews to help people searching for information find you.

4. Purchase decision: this is the moment we've waited for

At this step in the consumer decision-making process, the customer buys the product they think will best fit their needs. Depending on your product category, this consumer decision may or may not be heavily influenced by small variables in price. Perhaps the deciding factor in making a purchase decision is the warmth someone feels from a salesperson at one store versus another. In some situations, a product or service might satisfy everything the customer is looking for, so they'll care less about the price or the type of customer service because it's so clearly the right solution.

Your goal is to make it as easy for customers to buy your product or service as possible. If you sell online, include trust signals, high-conversion copy, and high-level benefits of the product on the checkout page. You can use things like exit intent pop-ups and abandoned cart emails to reel prospective customers back in. Integrating with one-tap checkouts like Shop Pay or Apple Pay can make the buying decision even simpler.

5. Post-purchase evaluation: was it worth it?

The post-purchase evaluation is important for how the customer will make purchase decisions in the future. Did the product solve their need or problem? If you sell business services, equipment, or commercial software, your customer is likely to methodically review the outcomes of using your product against their expectations. But with other types of products, the reflection may be more spontaneous. It might happen when the customer's friend asks them about the product or when a consumable product runs out.

The end of the consumer decision-making process can be the beginning of many more if you leverage it correctly. Use post-purchase emails to ask for kind reviews and uncover problems. When issues arise, make sure your customer service team is on the case quickly. Often, the best customer advocates are the ones who initially had a problem but were quickly helped out.

How to manage each customer's journey in Streak

Whether you're nurturing 12 or 12,000 leads, it's nice to know exactly where everyone is in the decision-making process and get a full picture of the customer journey map. 

Maybe one prospect is already aware of your brand and actively comparing alternatives. Maybe another doesn't even know they have a need that your product solves. Streak can help you manage the customer experience at scale as your leads move down the funnel and get closer to making buying decisions.

Streak CRM integrates seamlessly with Gmail, so your team has visibility into the marketing funnel right in their inboxes. Intuitive controls allow you to edit customer data efficiently so you spend more time understanding the consumer and their needs. Plus, Streak's collaborative features allow you to link multiple salespeople and teams together . This keeps everyone on the same page as your prospects navigate their decision-making process and interact with different team members.

Think Streak could help you keep track of your prospects better? We think so too. Give it a go for free today .

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Chapter 3: Consumer Behaviour

3.1 Consumer Decision-Making Process

Learning Objectives

• Understand what the stages of the buying process are and what happens in each stage.
• Distinguish between low-involvement and high-involvement buying decisions.

Stages in the Consumer Decision-Making Process

Figure 3.1 outlines the buying stages consumers go through. At any given time, you’re probably in a buying stage for a product or service. You’re thinking about the different types of things you want or need to eventually buy, how you are going to find the best ones at the best price, and where and how you will buy them. Meanwhile, there are other products you have already purchased that you’re evaluating. Some might be better than others. Will you discard them and, if so, how? Then what will you buy? Where does that process start?

Stage 1. Need Recognition

You plan to backpack around the country after you graduate and don’t have a particularly good backpack. You realize that you must get a new backpack. You may also be thinking about the job you’ve accepted after graduation and know that you must get a vehicle to commute. Recognizing a need may involve something as simple as running out of bread or milk or realizing that you must get a new backpack or a car after you graduate. Marketers try to show consumers how their products and services add value and help satisfy needs and wants. Do you think it’s a coincidence that Gatorade, Powerade, and other beverage makers locate their machines in gymnasiums so you see them after a long, tiring workout? Or that you hear a McDonald’s ad on the radio during your morning commute?

Functional vs Psychological Needs

Functional needs  refer to the performance of the product or service.

Psychological needs  refer to the gratification from the product or service.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

One of the most important humanists, Abraham Maslow (1908–1970), conceptualized personality in terms of a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of motives, also called the Hierarchy of Needs . Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs will be discussed in further detail in chapter 3.2 “Factors that influence consumers’ buying behaviour” .​

Stage 2. Search for (Product) Information

For products such as milk and bread, you may simply recognize the need, go to the store, and buy more. However, if you are purchasing a car for the first time or need a particular type of backpack, you may need to get information on different alternatives. Maybe you have owned several backpacks and know what you like and don’t like about them. Or there might be a particular brand that you’ve purchased in the past that you liked and want to purchase in the future. This considered internal search for information and is a great position for the company that owns the brand to be in—it is something firms strive for. Why? Because it often means you will limit your search and simply buy their brand again.

If what you already know about backpacks doesn’t provide you with enough information, you’ll probably continue to gather information from various sources. People frequently ask friends, family, and neighbours about their experiences with products. Magazines such as Consumer Reports (considered an objective source of information on many consumer products) or Explore might also help you. Similar information sources are available for learning about different makes and models of cars.  This is considered external search for information.

Internet shopping sites such as Amazon have become a common source of information about products. Consumer Reports is an example of a non-profit review company. The site offers product ratings, buying tips, and price information. Amazon also offers product reviews written by consumers. People prefer “independent” sources such as this when they are looking for product information. However, they also often consult non-neutral sources of information, such as advertisements, brochures, company websites, and salespeople.

Stage 3. Product Evaluation/Evaluate Alternatives

Obviously, there are hundreds of different backpacks and cars available, and it’s not possible for you to examine all of them. In fact, good salespeople and marketing professionals know that providing you with too many choices can be so overwhelming that you might not buy anything at all. Consequently, you may use heuristics or rules of thumb that provide mental shortcuts in the decision-making process. You may also develop evaluative criteria to help you narrow down your choices. Backpacks or cars that meet your initial criteria before the consideration will determine the set of brands you’ll consider for purchase.

Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that are important to you such as the price of the backpack, the size, the number of compartments, and the colour. Some of these characteristics are more important than others. For example, the size of the backpack and the price might be more important to you than the colour—unless, say, the colour is hot pink and you hate pink. You must decide what criteria are most important and how well different alternatives meet the criteria.

Companies want to convince you that the evaluative criteria you are considering reflect the strengths of their products. For example, you might not have thought about the weight or durability of the backpack you want to buy. However, a backpack manufacturer such as Osprey might remind you through magazine ads, packaging information, and its website that you should pay attention to these features—features that happen to be key selling points of its backpacks. Automobile manufacturers may have similar models, so don’t be afraid to add criteria to help you evaluate cars in your consideration set.

Consumers don’t have the time or desire to ponder endlessly about every purchase! Fortunately for us, heuristics, also described as shortcuts or mental “rules of thumb”, help us make decisions quickly and painlessly. Heuristics are especially important to draw on when we are faced with choosing among products in a category where we don’t see huge differences or if the outcome isn’t ‘do or die.’

Heuristics are helpful sets of rules that simplify the decision-making process by making it quick and easy for consumers.

Stage 4. Product Choice (Decision) and Purchase

With low-involvement purchases, consumers may go from recognizing a need to purchasing the product. However, for backpacks and cars, you will likely decide which one to purchase after you have evaluated different alternatives. In addition to which backpack or which car, you are probably also making other decisions at this stage, including where and how to purchase the backpack (or car) and on what terms. Maybe the backpack was cheaper at one store than another but the salesperson there was rude. Or maybe you decide to order online because you’re too busy to go to the mall. Other decisions related to the purchase, particularly those related to big-ticket items, are made at this point. For example, if you’re buying a Smart TV, you might look for a store that will offer you a discount or a warranty. Before purchasing an Amazon Prime subscription, you are eligible for a 30-day free trial.

Ritual consumption refers to patterns consumers exhibit that are connected to life events (birthdays, anniversaries) or everyday behaviours (coffee breaks or happy hour).

Stage 5. Post-Purchase Use and Evaluation

At this point in the process, you decide whether the backpack you purchased is everything it was cracked up to be. Hopefully it is, but if it’s not, you’re likely to suffer what’s called post-purchase dissonance or “buyer’s remorse.” Typically, dissonance occurs when a product or service does not meet your expectations. Consumers are more likely to experience dissonance with products that are relatively expensive and purchased infrequently.

You want to feel good about your purchase, but you don’t. You begin to wonder whether you should have waited to get a better price, purchased something else, or gathered more information first. Consumers commonly feel this way, which is a problem for sellers. If you don’t feel good about what you’ve purchased from them, you might return the item and never purchase anything from them again. Or, worse yet, you might tell everyone you know how bad the product was.

Companies do various things to try to prevent buyer’s remorse. For smaller items, they might offer a money-back guarantee or they might encourage their salespeople to tell you what a great purchase you made. How many times have you heard a salesperson say, “That outfit looks so great on you!” For larger items, companies might offer a warranty, along with instruction booklets, and a toll-free troubleshooting line to call or they might have a salesperson call you to see if you need help with a product. Automobile companies may offer loaner cars when you bring your car in for service.

Companies may also try to set expectations in order to satisfy customers. Service companies such as restaurants do this frequently. Think about when the hostess tells you that your table will be ready in 30 minutes. If they seat you in 15 minutes, you are much happier than if they told you that your table would be ready in 15 minutes, but it took 30 minutes to seat you. Similarly, if a store tells you that your pants will be altered in a week and they are ready in three days, you’ll be much more satisfied than if they said your pants would be ready in three days, yet it took a week before they were ready.

Stage 6. Disposal of the Product

There was a time when neither manufacturers nor consumers thought much about how products got disposed of, so long as people bought them. But that’s changed. How products are being disposed of is becoming extremely important to consumers and society in general. Computers and batteries, which leach chemicals into landfills, are a huge problem. Consumers don’t want to degrade the environment if they don’t have to, and companies are becoming more aware of this fact.

Take, for example, Soda Stream, an appliance that makes sparkling water. By using this product, customers don’t have to buy and dispose of plastic bottle after plastic bottle, damaging the environment in the process. Instead of buying new bottles of it all the time, you can make your own carbonated drinks. You have probably noticed that most grocery stores now sell cloth bags consumers can reuse and are charging for paper bags. Ikea, Patagonia and Arc’teryx offer their customers a chance to resell their products back to the company who will in turn sell it on their website.

Other companies are less concerned about conservation than they are about planned obsolescence . Planned obsolescence is a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time. The goal is to improve a company’s sales by reducing the amount of time between the repeat purchases consumers make of products. In 2020, Apple was found guilty of deliberately slowing down its older phones so customers would purchase new models.

Products that are disposable are another way in which firms have managed to reduce the amount of time between purchases. Disposable pens are an example. Do you know anyone today that owns a refillable pen?  There are many more disposable products today than there were in years past—including everything from bottled water and individually wrapped snacks to single-use eye drops and cell phones. How many disposable masks have you used since the COVID-19 pandemic first started?

Low-involvement and High-involvement Decisions

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behaviour. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions, while other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The level of involvement reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, though some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high level of involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product. You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if purchased by mistake.

Consumers often engage in routine response behaviour when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behaviour. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search. Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying. While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with your favourite celebrity on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one, or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them. These are items that are typically low-involvement decisions. Low-involvement decisions aren’t necessarily products purchased on impulse, though they can be.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behaviour when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called “extended problem solving”, where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of post-purchase dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they have a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that post-purchase dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding”.

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re travelling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favourite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or, you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way, you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low involvement for many consumers often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible. Many products that are typically high involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low-versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favourite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behaviour), but you may not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, when considering an electric car, some buyers may only consider Tesla.  If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

Maybe you already thought of examples from your own decision-making while reading this chapter. Use the exercise below to think through a decision in detail.

Key Takeaways

Consumer behaviour looks at the many reasons why people buy things and later dispose of them. Consumers go through distinct buying phases when they purchase products:

• realizing the need or wanting something,
• searching for information about the item,
• evaluating different alternatives,
• making a decision and purchasing it,
• evaluating the product after the purchase, and
• disposing of the product.

Review and Reflect

• What can marketers do at each stage to influence the customer in their favour?
• What is post-purchase dissonance and what can companies do to reduce it?
• How do low-involvement decisions differ from high-involvement decisions in terms of relevance, price, frequency, and the risks their buyers face? Name some products in each category that you’ve recently purchased.
• What stages do people go through in the buying process for high-involvement decisions? How do the stages vary for low-involvement decisions?

Media Attributions

• Stages of Consumer’s Decision-Making Process © Principles of Marketing is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
• Osprey Backpack © Melanie Innis is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND (Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives) license
• Recycling Center Pile © jqpubliq is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
• Disposable Face Mask on street, East Downtown, Vancouver during coronavirus pandemic © GoToVan is licensed under a CC BY (Attribution) license

a pyramid-shaped hierarchy of motives

certain characteristics that are important to you

when a product or service does not meet expectations of the buyer

a deliberate effort by companies to make their products obsolete, or unusable, after a period of time

Introduction to Marketing Copyright © 2024 by Pamela Ip is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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The consumer decision journey

If marketing has one goal, it’s to reach consumers at the moments that most influence their decisions. That’s why consumer electronics companies make sure not only that customers see their televisions in stores but also that those televisions display vivid high-definition pictures. It’s why Amazon.com, a decade ago, began offering targeted product recommendations to consumers already logged in and ready to buy. And it explains P&G’s decision, long ago, to produce radio and then TV programs to reach the audiences most likely to buy its products—hence, the term “soap opera.”

Marketing has always sought those moments, or touch points , when consumers are open to influence. For years, touch points have been understood through the metaphor of a “funnel”—consumers start with a number of potential brands in mind (the wide end of the funnel), marketing is then directed at them as they methodically reduce that number and move through the funnel, and at the end they emerge with the one brand they chose to purchase (Exhibit 1). But today, the funnel concept fails to capture all the touch points and key buying factors resulting from the explosion of product choices and digital channels , coupled with the emergence of an increasingly discerning, well-informed consumer. A more sophisticated approach is required to help marketers navigate this environment, which is less linear and more complicated than the funnel suggests. We call this approach the consumer decision journey. Our thinking is applicable to any geographic market that has different kinds of media, Internet access, and wide product choice, including big cities in emerging markets such as China and India.

In the traditional funnel metaphor, consumers start with a set of potential brands and methodically reduce that number to make a purchase.

We developed this approach by examining the purchase decisions of almost 20,000 consumers across five industries and three continents. Our research showed that the proliferation of media and products requires marketers to find new ways to get their brands included in the initial-consideration set that consumers develop as they begin their decision journey. We also found that because of the shift away from one-way communication—from marketers to consumers—toward a two-way conversation, marketers need a more systematic way to satisfy customer demands and manage word-of-mouth. In addition, the research identified two different types of customer loyalty , challenging companies to reinvigorate their loyalty programs and the way they manage the customer experience.

Finally, the research reinforced our belief in the importance not only of aligning all elements of marketing—strategy, spending, channel management, and message—with the journey that consumers undertake when they make purchasing decisions but also of integrating those elements across the organization. When marketers understand this journey and direct their spending and messaging to the moments of maximum influence, they stand a much greater chance of reaching consumers in the right place at the right time with the right message.

How consumers make decisions

Every day, people form impressions of brands from touch points such as advertisements, news reports, conversations with family and friends, and product experiences. Unless consumers are actively shopping, much of that exposure appears wasted. But what happens when something triggers the impulse to buy? Those accumulated impressions then become crucial because they shape the initial-consideration set: the small number of brands consumers regard at the outset as potential purchasing options.

The funnel analogy suggests that consumers systematically narrow the initial-consideration set as they weigh options, make decisions, and buy products. Then, the postsale phase becomes a trial period determining consumer loyalty to brands and the likelihood of buying their products again. Marketers have been taught to “push” marketing toward consumers at each stage of the funnel process to influence their behavior. But our qualitative and quantitative research in the automobile, skin care, insurance, consumer electronics, and mobile-telecom industries shows that something quite different now occurs.

Actually, the decision-making process is a more circular journey, with four primary phases representing potential battlegrounds where marketers can win or lose: initial consideration; active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases; closure, when consumers buy brands; and postpurchase, when consumers experience them (Exhibit 2). The funnel metaphor does help a good deal—for example, by providing a way to understand the strength of a brand compared with its competitors at different stages, highlighting the bottlenecks that stall adoption, and making it possible to focus on different aspects of the marketing challenge. Nonetheless, we found that in three areas profound changes in the way consumers make buying decisions called for a new approach.

The decision-making process is now a circular journey with four phases: initial consideration; active evaluation, or the process of researching potential purchases; closure, when consumers buy brands; and postpurchase, when consumers experience them.

Brand consideration.

Imagine that a consumer has decided to buy a car. As with most kinds of products, the consumer will immediately be able to name an initial-consideration set of brands to purchase. In our qualitative research, consumers told us that the fragmenting of media and the proliferation of products have actually made them reduce the number of brands they consider at the outset. Faced with a plethora of choices and communications, consumers tend to fall back on the limited set of brands that have made it through the wilderness of messages. Brand awareness matters: brands in the initial-consideration set can be up to three times more likely to be purchased eventually than brands that aren’t in it.

Not all is lost for brands excluded from this first stage, however. Contrary to the funnel metaphor, the number of brands under consideration during the active-evaluation phase may now actually expand rather than narrow as consumers seek information and shop a category. Brands may “interrupt” the decision-making process by entering into consideration and even force the exit of rivals. The number of brands added in later stages differs by industry: our research showed that people actively evaluating personal computers added an average of 1 brand to their initial-consideration set of 1.7, while automobile shoppers added 2.2 to their initial set of 3.8 (Exhibit 3). This change in behavior creates opportunities for marketers by adding touch points when brands can make an impact. Brands already under consideration can no longer take that status for granted.

The number of brands added for consideration in different stages differs by industry.

Empowered consumers.

The second profound change is that outreach of consumers to marketers has become dramatically more important than marketers’ outreach to consumers. Marketing used to be driven by companies; “pushed” on consumers through traditional advertising, direct marketing, sponsorships, and other channels. At each point in the funnel, as consumers whittled down their brand options, marketers would attempt to sway their decisions. This imprecise approach often failed to reach the right consumers at the right time.

In today’s decision journey, consumer-driven marketing is increasingly important as customers seize control of the process and actively “pull” information helpful to them. Our research found that two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven marketing activities, such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family, as well as in-store interactions and recollections of past experiences. A third of the touch points involve company-driven marketing (Exhibit 4). Traditional marketing remains important, but the change in the way consumers make decisions means that marketers must move aggressively beyond purely push-style communication and learn to influence consumer-driven touch points , such as word-of-mouth and Internet information sites.

Two-thirds of the touch points during the active-evaluation phase involve consumer-driven activities such as Internet reviews and word-of-mouth recommendations from friends and family.

The experience of US automobile manufacturers shows why marketers must master these new touch points. Companies like Chrysler and GM have long focused on using strong sales incentives and in-dealer programs to win during the active-evaluation and moment-of-purchase phases. These companies have been fighting the wrong battle: the real challenges for them are the initial-consideration and postpurchase phases, which Asian brands such as Toyota Motor and Honda dominate with their brand strength and product quality. Positive experiences with Asian vehicles have made purchasers loyal to them, and that in turn generates positive word-of-mouth that increases the likelihood of their making it into the initial-consideration set. Not even constant sales incentives by US manufacturers can overcome this virtuous cycle.

Two types of loyalty

When consumers reach a decision at the moment of purchase, the marketer’s work has just begun: the postpurchase experience shapes their opinion for every subsequent decision in the category, so the journey is an ongoing cycle. More than 60 percent of consumers of facial skin care products, for example, go online to conduct further research after the purchase—a touch point unimaginable when the funnel was conceived.

Although the need to provide an after-sales experience that inspires loyalty and therefore repeat purchases isn’t new, not all loyalty is equal in today’s increasingly competitive, complex world. Of consumers who profess loyalty to a brand, some are active loyalists, who not only stick with it but also recommend it. Others are passive loyalists who, whether from laziness or confusion caused by the dizzying array of choices, stay with a brand without being committed to it. Despite their claims of allegiance, passive consumers are open to messages from competitors who give them a reason to switch.

Take the automotive-insurance industry, in which most companies have a large base of seemingly loyal customers who renew every year. Our research found as much as a sixfold difference in the ratio of active to passive loyalists among major brands, so companies have opportunities to interrupt the loyalty loop. The US insurers GEICO and Progressive are doing just that, snaring the passively loyal customers of other companies by making comparison shopping and switching easy. They are giving consumers reasons to leave, not excuses to stay.

All marketers should make expanding the base of active loyalists a priority, and to do so they must focus their spending on the new touch points. That will require entirely new marketing efforts, not just investments in Internet sites and efforts to drive word-of-mouth or a renewed commitment to customer satisfaction.

Aligning marketing with the consumer decision journey

Developing a deep knowledge of how consumers make decisions is the first step. For most marketers, the difficult part is focusing strategies and spending on the most influential touch points. In some cases, the marketing effort’s direction must change, perhaps from focusing brand advertising on the initial-consideration phase to developing Internet properties that help consumers gain a better understanding of the brand when they actively evaluate it. Other marketers may need to retool their loyalty programs by focusing on active rather than passive loyalists or to spend money on in-store activities or word-of-mouth programs. The increasing complexity of the consumer decision journey will force virtually all companies to adopt new ways of measuring consumer attitudes, brand performance, and the effectiveness of marketing expenditures across the whole process.

Without such a realignment of spending, marketers face two risks. First, they could waste money: at a time when revenue growth is critical and funding tight, advertising and other investments will be less effective because consumers aren’t getting the right information at the right time. Second, marketers could seem out of touch—for instance, by trying to push products on customers rather than providing them with the information, support, and experience they want to reach decisions themselves.

Four kinds of activities can help marketers address the new realities of the consumer decision journey.

Prioritize objectives and spending

In the past, most marketers consciously chose to focus on either end of the marketing funnel—building awareness or generating loyalty among current customers. Our research reveals a need to be much more specific about the touch points used to influence consumers as they move through initial consideration to active evaluation to closure. By looking just at the traditional marketing funnel’s front or back end, companies could miss exciting opportunities not only to focus investments on the most important points of the decision journey but also to target the right customers.

In the skin care industry, for example, we found that some brands are much stronger in the initial-consideration phase than in active evaluation or closure. For them, our research suggests a need to shift focus from overall brand positioning—already powerful enough to ensure that they get considered—to efforts that make consumers act or to investments in packaging and in-store activities targeted at the moment of purchase.

Tailor messaging

For some companies, new messaging is required to win in whatever part of the consumer journey offers the greatest revenue opportunity. A general message cutting across all stages may have to be replaced by one addressing weaknesses at a specific point, such as initial consideration or active evaluation.

Take the automotive industry. A number of brands in it could grow if consumers took them into consideration. Hyundai, the South Korean car manufacturer, tackled precisely this problem by adopting a marketing campaign built around protecting consumers financially by allowing them to return their vehicles if they lose their jobs. This provocative message, tied to something very real for Americans, became a major factor in helping Hyundai break into the initial-consideration set of many new consumers. In a poor automotive market, the company’s market share is growing.

Invest in consumer-driven marketing

To look beyond funnel-inspired push marketing, companies must invest in vehicles that let marketers interact with consumers as they learn about brands. The epicenter of consumer-driven marketing is the Internet, crucial during the active-evaluation phase as consumers seek information, reviews, and recommendations. Strong performance at this point in the decision journey requires a mind-set shift from buying media to developing properties that attract consumers: digital assets such as Web sites about products, programs to foster word-of-mouth, and systems that customize advertising by viewing the context and the consumer. Many organizations face the difficult and, at times, risky venture of shifting money to fundamentally new properties, much as P&G invested to gain radio exposure in the 1930s and television exposure in the 1950s.

Broadband connectivity, for example, lets marketers provide rich applications to consumers learning about products. Simple, dynamic tools that help consumers decide which products make sense for them are now essential elements of an online arsenal. American Express’s card finder and Ford’s car configurator, for example, rapidly and visually sort options with each click, making life easier for consumers at every stage of the decision journey. Marketers can influence online word-of-mouth by using tools that spot online conversations about brands, analyze what’s being said, and allow marketers to post their own comments.

Finally, content-management systems and online targeting engines let marketers create hundreds of variations on an advertisement, taking into account the context where it appears, the past behavior of viewers, and a real-time inventory of what an organization needs to promote. For instance, many airlines manage and relentlessly optimize thousands of combinations of offers, prices, creative content, and formats to ensure that potential travelers see the most relevant opportunities. Digital marketing has long promised this kind of targeting. Now we finally have the tools to make it more accurate and to manage it cost effectively .

Win the in-store battle

Our research found that one consequence of the new world of marketing complexity is that more consumers hold off their final purchase decision until they’re in a store. Merchandising and packaging have therefore become very important selling factors, a point that’s not widely understood. Consumers want to look at a product in action and are highly influenced by the visual dimension: up to 40 percent of them change their minds because of something they see, learn, or do at this point—say, packaging, placement, or interactions with salespeople.

In skin care, for example, some brands that are fairly unlikely to be in a consumer’s initial-consideration set nonetheless win at the point of purchase with attractive packages and on-shelf messaging. Such elements have now become essential selling tools because consumers of these products are still in play when they enter a store. That’s also true in some consumer electronics segments, which explains those impressive rows of high-definition TVs in stores.

Sometimes it takes a combination of approaches—great packaging, a favorable shelf position, forceful fixtures, informative signage—to attract consumers who enter a store with a strong attachment to their initial-consideration set. Our research shows that in-store touch points provide a significant opportunity for other brands.

Integrating all customer-facing activities

In many companies, different parts of the organization undertake specific customer-facing activities—including informational Web sites, PR, and loyalty programs. Funding is opaque. A number of executives are responsible for each element, and they don’t coordinate their work or even communicate. These activities must be integrated and given appropriate leadership.

The necessary changes are profound. A comprehensive view of all customer-facing activities is as important for business unit heads as for CEOs and chief marketing officers. But the full scope of the consumer decision journey goes beyond the traditional role of CMOs, who in many companies focus on brand building, advertisements, and perhaps market research. These responsibilities aren’t going away. What’s now required of CMOs is a broader role that realigns marketing with the current realities of consumer decision making, intensifies efforts to shape the public profiles of companies, and builds new marketing capabilities.

Consider the range of skills needed to manage the customer experience in the automotive-insurance industry, in which some companies have many passive loyalists who can be pried away by rivals. Increasing the percentage of active loyalists requires not only integrating customer-facing activities into the marketing organization but also more subtle forms of organizational cooperation. These include identifying active loyalists through customer research, as well as understanding what drives that loyalty and how to harness it with word-of-mouth programs. Companies need an integrated, organization-wide “voice of the customer,” with skills from advertising to public relations, product development, market research, and data management. It’s hard but necessary to unify these activities, and the CMO is the natural candidate to do so.

Marketers have long been aware of profound changes in the way consumers research and buy products. Yet a failure to change the focus of marketing to match that evolution has undermined the core goal of reaching customers at the moments that most influence their purchases. The shift in consumer decision making means that marketers need to adjust their spending and to view the change not as a loss of power over consumers but as an opportunity to be in the right place at the right time, giving them the information and support they need to make the right decisions.

David Court is a director in McKinsey’s Dallas office, Dave Elzinga is a principal in the Chicago office, Susie Mulder is a principal in the Boston office, and Ole Jørgen Vetvik is a principal in the Oslo office.

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of Mary Ellen Coe, Jonathan Doogan, Ewan Duncan, Betsy Holden, and Brian Salsberg.

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Driving business growth by zeroing in on the consumer decision journey

The new consumer decision journey

The new battleground for marketing-led growth

Module 7: Consumer Behavior

Reading: buying-process stages, the consumer decision process.

Figure 1, below, outlines the process a consumer goes through in making a purchase decision. Once the 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 .

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.

The following section discusses each step of the consumer decision-making process.

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. A man may desire a new Lexus and own a five-year-old Ford Focus. The discrepancy may be fairly large but relatively unimportant compared to the other problems he faces. Conversely, a woman may own a two-year-old car that is running well, but for various reasons she considers it extremely important to purchase another car this year. Consumers do not move on to the next step until they have confirmed that their specific needs are important enough to act on.

Part of need recognition is defining the problem in a way that allows the consumer to take the next step toward finding a solution. In many cases, problem recognition and problem definition occur simultaneously: a consumer runs out of toothpaste, for instance. In other cases, these are separate tasks. Consider a scenario in which you injure your knee. You may know that your knee hurts, and you can’t walk very well, but you need to further define the problem before you can take action: Do you need a good night’s sleep? A brace? Pain medication? Physical therapy? Surgery? All of these things? As a consumer, you will be able to begin solving your problem once it is adequately defined.

Marketers get involved in the need recognition state at three points:

• Knowing what problems consumers are facing, so they can develop a marketing mix to address these problems
• Activating problem recognition, in order to trigger the start of the purchasing process
• Shaping how consumers define the need or problem, in order to influence their wants as they look for a solution

Marketing interactions through ads, Web sites, salespeople, and any number of other activities create opportunities for marketers to communicate with consumers and become engaged in need recognition. Listening to customers through social media or the customer support team provides insight into the ways consumers perceive the problems they face. A public service announcement espousing the dangers of cigarette smoking helps trigger a sense of needing to do something about cancer prevention. Advertising weekend and evening shopping hours triggers awareness of the problem of limited weekday shopping opportunities for busy working parents. Once a young man recognizes that he needs a new coat, marketing tries to influence his choices: Should it be a trendy, bargain-priced jacket from Old Navy or the pricey North Face coat he can wear snowboarding (assuming he can scrape together money for a lift pass after buying the coat). In each of these scenarios, marketing plays an active role in facilitating need recognition.

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, Yelp 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 promotion element of the marketing mix should provide information to assist consumers in the decision process. When marketers understand which information sources their target consumers turn to during the search process, they can develop a promotion strategy and tactics that put their offerings and message into the search path. For instance, teen boys rely heavily on peer networks to know what’s interesting, cool, and desirable. A social media strategy is essential for virtually any product—video games, fashion, gadgets, sports gear, music, and on—targeting these consumers.

In some cases, consumers already have the information they need based on past purchasing and consumption experience–for better or for worse. Good experiences reinforce customer loyalty, while bad experiences destroy opportunities for repeat purchases. For instance, a consumer who needs new tires may look for sales in the local newspaper or ask friends for a recommendation. If she has bought tires before and had a good experience, she may go to the same dealer and buy the same brand.

The information-search process can also identify new needs. As a tire shopper looks for information, she may decide that the tires are not the real problem, but instead she needs a new car. At this point, her newly perceived need may trigger a new information search.

Information search involves both mental and physical activities that consumers must perform in order to make decisions and solve their problems through the marketplace. As anyone who has purchased a car, computer, or pet knows, it takes time, energy, and money to achieve a satisfactory outcome. Often it means foregoing more desirable activities. Eventually most consumers learn that the benefits of information search can outweigh the costs, particularly for bigger-ticket purchases. A thorough information search may save money, improve the quality of selection, or reduce risks.

Evaluation of Alternatives

As a consumer finds and processes information about the problem she is trying to solve, she identifies 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 information search helps inform consumers about the criteria they might consider as they are evaluating options and making a final selection. For any given purchasing decision, each consumer develops a set of criteria–often only a mental list–along with the relative importance of each quality in their final selection. This evaluation process may be very systematic and comprehensive for some people and purchases. There are also people who find the selection process difficult or frustrating, and so they cope with their discomfort by keeping the number of alternatives to a minimum, or by making an impulse purchase at the last moment. Note that the selection and evaluation phases of consumer problem solving are closely related and often happen simultaneously.

Consider a situation in which you are buying a new vacuum cleaner. During your information search process, you identified five leading models in online reviews, as well as a set of evaluation criteria that are most important to you:  1) price, 2) suction power, 3) warranty, 4) weight, 5) noise level, and 6) ease of using attachments. After visiting Sears and Home Depot to check out all the options in person, you’re torn between two models you short-listed. Finally you make the agonizing choice, and the salesperson heads to the warehouse to get one for you. He returns with bad news: The vacuum cleaner is out of stock, but a new shipment is expected in three days. Strangely relieved, you take that as a sign to go for the other model, which happens to be in stock. Although convenience wasn’t on your original list of selection criteria, you need the vacuum cleaner before the party you’re having the next day. You pick the number-two choice and never look back.

From the marketer’s perspective, understanding your target consumer’s evaluation criteria is critical. You need to demonstrate these qualities in order to be short-listed in the selection set. Often these qualities make the difference in your offering being selected over competitors’. In the end, selection remains something of an unpredictable black box because people think differently, and the circumstances for any given purchasing situation are unique to the person, the product, and the problem being solved.

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 or the right wine to drink with a particular food. Sometimes several decision situations can be combined and marketed as one package. For example, travel agents often package travel tours, and stores that sell appliances try to sell them with add-on warranties.

To do a better job of marketing at this stage of the buying process, a seller needs to have answers to questions about consumers’ shopping behavior. Those answers will increase the likelihood of closing the sale and maximizing value at the moment of purchase. Useful questions to ask include the following:

• How much effort is the consumer willing to spend in shopping for the product?
• What factors influence when the consumer will actually make the purchase?
• Are there any conditions that would prohibit or delay the purchase?

Marketers should look for opportunities to influence things in their favor at the point of purchase. Product pricing, labeling, and packaging can be hugely influential at this stage of the process. Product sampling, coupons, and rebates may also give an extra incentive to buy. Personal selling, product display, convenience, and ease of finding the product may also lead the consumer to make one choice over another. Actually determining how a consumer goes through the decision-making process is a difficult research task, in part because it can vary so much from consumer to consumer. The key for marketers is to be aware of the influencing factors and how to shape them to your advantage.

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 nonroutine purchase. This anxiety reflects a phenomenon called cognitive dissonance . According to this theory, people strive for consistency among their cognitions (knowledge, attitudes, beliefs, and values). When there are inconsistencies, dissonance arises, which people try to eliminate.

In some cases, the consumer makes the decision to buy a particular brand already aware of dissonant elements or things that are inconsistent with their internal criteria. A common example is price: a consumer falls in love with every aspect of a product, but it costs more money than he intended to spend. His cognitive dissonance is whether to spend the extra money for a product he loves or else stick with a second-best product that fits the budget. In other cases, dissonance is aroused by information received after the purchase.  For instance, a disturbing report about sweatshop labor comes out days after you purchase a pair of athletic shoes from the company involved.

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.

Check Your Understanding

Answer the question(s) below to see how well you understand the topics covered in this outcome. This short quiz does  not  count toward your grade in the class, and you can retake it an unlimited number of times.

Use this quiz to check your understanding and decide whether to (1) study the previous section further or (2) move on to the next section.

• Revision and Adaptation. Authored by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
• Chapter 4: Understanding Buyer Behavior, from Introducing Marketing. Authored by : John Burnett. Provided by : Global Text. Located at : http://solr.bccampus.ca:8001/bcc/file/ddbe3343-9796-4801-a0cb-7af7b02e3191/1/Core%20Concepts%20of%20Marketing.pdf . License : CC BY: Attribution
• Adam with the Eureka Optima 431a. Authored by : Adam Walker Cleaveland. Located at : https://www.flickr.com/photos/walkercleaveland/2204542748/ . License : CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives

10 Consumer Behavior Models (& Which One Applies to Your Business)

Published: December 10, 2021

Consumer behavior models are instrumental for understanding how, when, and why your customers buy. By applying the models to your customer acquisition efforts , you can accurately predict who will buy your product and target the right customers at the right time.

In this post, we’ll discuss the most important consumer behavior models and explain how you can use them to create customer-centric experiences.

What is a consumer behavior model?

A consumer behavior model is a theoretical framework for explaining why and how customers make purchasing decisions. The goal of consumer behavior models is to outline a predictable map of customer decisions up until conversion, thus helping you steer every stage of the buyer’s journey.

Consumer behavior models may sound complicated, but they’re not. They’re a way to create a “buyer behavior story” that you can use to refine and improve your customer experience.

As a whole, buyer behavior refers to an individual's buying habits based on influences from their background, education, personal beliefs, goals, needs, desires, and more.

Businesses aim to understand buyer behavior through customer behavior analysis , which involves the qualitative and quantitative analysis of a target market. Even though this data can tell you your customer’s favorite brand of socks, it doesn’t mean much if it doesn’t tell you why they purchased that brand of socks.

That’s where consumer behavior models come in. Consumer behavior models contextualize results from customer behavior analysis studies and help you get to the “why” of purchasing decisions.

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Consumer Behavior Models

Customer behavior models help you understand your unique customer base and more effectively attract, engage, and retain them. These models are either traditional or contemporary.

Traditional Behavior Models

Traditional behavior models were developed by economists hoping to understand what customers purchase based on their wants and needs. Traditional models include the following:

• Learning Model
• Psychoanalytical Model
• Sociological Model
• Economic Model

1. Learning Model of Consumer Behavior

The Learning Model of customer behavior theorizes that buyer behavior responds to the desire to satisfy basic needs required for survival, like food, and learned needs that arise from lived experiences, like fear or guilt. This model takes influence from psychologist Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (pictured below).

Sigmund Freud is the father of psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytical model draws from his theories and says that individual consumers have deep-rooted motives, both conscious and unconscious, that drive them to make a purchase. These motives can be hidden fears, suppressed desires, or personal longings.

Thus, customers make purchases depending on how stimuli from your business, like an advertisement on Instagram, appeal to their desires. It’s important to note that, since these desires can be unconscious, customers don’t always know why it appeals to them; they just know it feels right to have it.

This model is unique in terms of application, but it’s relevant to businesses that sell an image that accompanies their products or services. For example, say you sell glasses. We all long to fit in and feel like we’re valued and seen as capable, smart people. Glasses are sometimes a symbol of intelligence, so you’d want to appeal to this desire when crafting a customer experience.

You may instruct marketing to create ad campaigns that display pictures of people wearing your glasses in educational settings or doing things that society labels as ‘smart.’

3. Sociological Model

For instance, C-Suite executives are expected to be professional and formal. People who hold these jobs will make purchases that speak to and uphold this group’s rules, like formal business wear.

This model can apply to most businesses, especially those that create products and services relevant to specific groups. To use the Sociological Model, you’d want to create experiences that speak to how these groups usually act. One example is brands that sell exercise equipment.

You sell to and appeal to consumers that are part of a societal group that likes to work out. To delight these customers, you’d want to sell to their desires, like equipment that improves performance or an insulated water bottle that stays cold and leaves them satisfied during their breaks. By doing this, you’re speaking to the consumer in that specific group and showing them that your product will help them retain their position in that group.

Check out this ad from Nike. They’re selling this shoe to the undefined group of people who like to run, claiming that it will improve their speed and help them fit in with the group.

4. Economic Model of Consumer Behavior

That means that businesses and manufacturers can predict sales based on their customers’ income and their products’ price. If companies offer the lowest-priced product, they may feel that they’re guaranteed a consistent level of profit.

While the economic model is the easiest to understand, it’s also the most limited. A buyer may have other reasons for purchasing a product aside from price and personal resources.

One such example would be prescription medicine in the U.S. healthcare industry. While the price of a prescription drug may exceed the buyer’s resources, the buyer would still have to find a way to purchase it and meet their needs. They might open a credit card or take out a personal loan to pay for the medicine. Thus personal income and price don’t affect the purchasing decision here; instead, need does.

Contemporary Models

Contemporary models of consumer behavior focus on rational and deliberate decision-making processes rather than emotions or unconscious desires. The contemporary models include:

• Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) Model
• Black Box Model
• Hawkins Stern Model
• Howard Sheth Model
• Nicosia Model
• Webster and Wind Model

1. Engel-Kollat-Blackwell (EKB) Model of Consumer Behavior

• Awareness : During this stage, consumers view advertisements from a business and become aware of their need, desire, or interest, to purchase what they've just discovered.
• Information Processing : After discovering a product or service, a consumer begins to think about how the product or service relates to their past experiences or needs and whether it will fulfill any current needs.
• Evaluation : At this point, consumers will research the product they’ve discovered and research options from competitors to see if there is a better option or if the original product is the best fit.
• Purchasing Decision : A consumer will follow through with a purchase for the product that has beat out competitors to provide value. A consumer may also stop the process if they change their mind.
• Outcome Analysis : After making a purchase, a customer will use what they’ve bought and assess whether their experience is positive or negative. After a trial period, they’ll keep a product and maybe decide to become repeat customers or express dissatisfaction and return to stage three.

Overall, EKB says that consumers make decisions based on influencing factors that they assess through rational insight.

This model applies to businesses that have many competitors with similar products or services. If your product market is highly saturated and competitive, the goal is to outshine your competitors by meeting customers at every stage of their journey.

Increase visibility for your business during the awareness stage through Search Engine Optimization . Show them how your product or service will benefit them and give them the resources they need to weigh you against your competitors, like customer reviews and testimonials , free trials, discounts for bulk purchases. Lastly, and provide excellent after-sales support to show them that you care about their business even if they make a return.

2. Black Box Model of Consumer Behavior

It may look complex, but it’s a fairly straightforward path. A consumer comes into contact with external stimuli from your business’ marketing mix and other external stimuli, and they process it in their mind (black box). They relate the external stimuli to their pre-existing knowledge, like personal beliefs and desires, to make a decision.

In short, this model says that consumers are problem solvers who make decisions after judging how your product will satisfy their existing beliefs and needs. Since consumers only follow through with a purchase after understanding how a product relates to their experiences, this model can benefit businesses selling products that go along with a lifestyle.

Case in point: cars. Different brands sell their cars to specific types of buyers. Jeeps and Subarus are for those that engage in outdoor activities and need a sturdy, reliable vehicle. At the same time, Mercedez Benz and Lexus’ are marketed to those who want luxurious driving experiences. Even though the machinery is relatively similar, these brands speak to the pre-existing life values that customers have, and they promise that purchasing their vehicle will uphold their values.

3. Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying Model

• Escape Purchase : Sometimes called pure impulse, this involves purchasing an item that isn’t a routine item or on a shopping list. Consumers are drawn to these items through appealing visuals.
• Reminder Purchase : A consumer makes a reminder impulse purchase when they come across a product through in-store setups, promotional offers, or a simple reminder that a product exists, like a strategically placed ice cream scoop in the freezer aisle of a grocery store.
• Suggested Purchase : Suggested impulse purchases occur when a consumer is made aware of a product after a recommendation or suggestion from an in-store salesperson or online algorithms. For example, seeing an ad that says, “Other people who bought this shoe you’re about to buy also purchase these socks.” The consumer didn’t know the socks existed, didn’t plan to buy them, but now the suggestion has told them that they need them.
• Planned Purchase : Although planned is the opposite of impulse, these purchases occur when a consumer knows they want a particular product but will only buy it if there is a deal involved. An unexpected price drop could lead a customer to make a planned impulse purchase.

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The Hawkins Stern Model applies to most businesses, as there are no limits to what a customer with this purchasing behavior will buy. Create a tailored customer experience by putting care into product displays, creating AI algorithms for online shopping, or placing items on sale to appeal to your shoppers who are planned purchase impulse buyers.

4. Howard Sheth Model of Buying Behavior

According to this model, there are three successive levels of decision-making:

• Extensive Problem-Solving : In this stage, customers know nothing about the product they’re seeking or the brands that are available to them. They’re in active problem-solving mode to find a suitable product.
• Limited Problem-Solving : Now that customers have more information, they slow down and begin comparing their choices.
• Habitual Response Behavior : Customers are fully aware of all the choices they have and know which brands they prefer. Thus, every time they make a purchase, they know where to go.

We’ve all gone through some version of these stages. Let’s look at an anecdotal example.

When I first started buying glasses online, I had no idea which retailers I should use or whether the glasses sold online would be the same quality as the opticians’ offerings. I searched online to find a high-quality online glasses retailer (extensive problem-solving).

I found a few choices and started comparing them from both a pricing and quality standpoint (limited problem-solving). I eventually chose one, and that’s the retailer I’ve used ever since (habitual response behavior).

But these stages aren’t that simple. According to the Howard Sheth model, I was under the sway of several stimuli during this process:

• Inputs : This refers to the marketing messages and imagery a consumer receives while they’re going through the decision-making process. “Inputs” also refers to any perceptions and attitudes that come from the consumer’s social environment, such as their friends, family, and culture.
• Perceptual and Learning Constructs : This may sound complicated, but this stimulus is simply the customer’s psychological makeup and psychographic information. Perceptual and learning constructs may include needs, preferences, and goals.
• Outputs : After inputs and perceptual and learning constructs are mixed together, you get the output. The output is the customer’s resulting action under the influence of marketing messages, social stimuli, and internal psychological attributes. It can result in the customer paying more attention to a certain brand over another.
• External Variables : This is anything that’s not directly related to the decision-making process, such as weather or religion, that still may sway the customer’s decision.

5. Nicosia Model

While it’s an attractive model because it places all the power on businesses, it’s unwise to ignore the customer’s internal factors that lead to a purchase decision. In other words, while you may offer the wittiest and most effective marketing copy ever, a customer’s internal attributes may have more sway in some instances over others.

The model is comprised of four “fields”:

• One: The business’ characteristics and the customer’s characteristics . What does your marketing messaging look like? And what’s your customer’s perception of that messaging? Are they predisposed to be receptive to your message? The latter is shaped by the customer’s personality traits and experiences.
• Two: Search and evaluation . Similar to the Howard Sheth model’s “limited problem-solving” stage, the customer begins to compare different brands here based on the company’s messaging.
• Three: Purchase decision . The purchase decision will occur after the company convinces the customer to choose them as their retailer or provider.
• Four: Feedback. During the feedback field, the company will determine whether it should continue using the same messaging, and the customer will decide whether they will continue to be receptive to future messages.

6. Webster and Wind Model of Organizational Buying Behavior

• Environmental Variables : Environmental variables refer to any external factors that could sway a purchase decision. Customer demands, supplier relationships, and competitive pressure are a few examples. Broader variables apply, too, such as technology, politics, and culture.
• Organizational Variables : Organizational variables refer to internal factors that could sway a purchase decision, such as the organization’s goals and evaluation criteria.
• Buying Center Variables : Who makes the final purchase decision? Who has the authority to sign the contract, and who influences the buying process? Buying center variables take all of this into account.
• Individual Variables: These variables refer to the demographic and psychographic information of the individual prospect at the business. What’s their education and level of experience? What are their goals and desires?

After taking all of those variables into account, B2B organizations are then able to chart a predictable buyer’s journey for their target customers.

Your Customers Will Inform Your Strategy

If you take the time to create buyer personas, you’ll discover how your customers plan, or don’t, to purchase your products and services. If they say a deal entices them, pay close attention to the Hawkins Stern Impulse Buying Model. If they report strong ties to their social groups, refer to the Sociological Model.

Overall, your customers will inform your strategy and help you create tailored experiences that speak to their buyer behavior and leave them feeling satisfied after every purchase.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in January 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Consumer Decision Making Process: Meaning, Stages, Levels, Models

Meaning of consumer decision making process.

Consumer decision making process involves the consumers to identify their needs, gather information, evaluate alternatives and then make their buying decision.

It is simply a process which depicts the journey of the consumer from starting to end for making buying decisions. Marketers use this process as a source of information for acquiring all important data related to consumers.

Stages of Consumer Decision Making Process

Levels of Consumer Decision Making

Models of consumer decision making  , consumer decision rules, related posts:, add commercemates to your homescreen.

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6.3 Types of Consumer Decisions

As you read through the stages of the decision making process, did you think “Wait a minute. I do this sometimes but not all the time”? That is indicative of the different levels of involvement within the decision making process. In this section, we will examine this difference in more detail and how it may impact the marketing strategy.

Levels of Involvement in Decision Making

As you have seen, many factors influence a consumer’s behavior. Depending on a consumer’s experience and knowledge, some consumers may be able to make quick purchase decisions and other consumers may need to get information and be more involved in the decision process before making a purchase. The  level of involvement  reflects how personally important or interested you are in consuming a product and how much information you need to make a decision. The level of involvement in buying decisions may be considered a continuum from decisions that are fairly routine (consumers are not very involved) to decisions that require extensive thought and a high level of involvement. Whether a decision is low, high, or limited, involvement varies by consumer, not by product, although some products such as purchasing a house typically require a high-involvement for all consumers. Consumers with no experience purchasing a product may have more involvement than someone who is replacing a product.

You have probably thought about many products you want or need but never did much more than that. At other times, you’ve probably looked at dozens of products, compared them, and then decided not to purchase any one of them. When you run out of products such as milk or bread that you buy on a regular basis, you may buy the product as soon as you recognize the need because you do not need to search for information or evaluate alternatives. As Nike would put it, you “just do it.” Low-involvement decisions are, however, typically products that are relatively inexpensive and pose a low risk to the buyer if they makes a mistake by purchasing them.

Consumers often engage in routine, or habitual, behavior when they make low-involvement decisions—that is, they make automatic purchase decisions based on limited information or information they have gathered in the past. For example, if you always order a Diet Coke at lunch, you’re engaging in routine response behavior. You may not even think about other drink options at lunch because your routine is to order a Diet Coke, and you simply do it. Similarly, if you run out of Diet Coke at home, you may buy more without any information search.

Some low-involvement purchases are made with no planning or previous thought. These buying decisions are called impulse buying. While you’re waiting to check out at the grocery store, perhaps you see a magazine with the latest celebrity or influencer on the cover and buy it on the spot simply because you want it. You might see a roll of tape at a check-out stand and remember you need one or you might see a bag of chips and realize you’re hungry or just want them.

By contrast, high-involvement decisions carry a higher risk to buyers if they fail, are complex, and/or have high price tags. A car, a house, and an insurance policy are examples. These items are not purchased often but are relevant and important to the buyer. Buyers don’t engage in routine response behavior when purchasing high-involvement products. Instead, consumers engage in what’s called extended problem solving where they spend a lot of time comparing different aspects such as the features of the products, prices, and warranties.

High-involvement decisions can cause buyers a great deal of cognitive (postpurchase) dissonance (anxiety) if they are unsure about their purchases or if they had a difficult time deciding between two alternatives. Companies that sell high-involvement products are aware that dissonance can be a problem. Frequently, they try to offer consumers a lot of information about their products, including why they are superior to competing brands and how they won’t let the consumer down. Salespeople may be utilized to answer questions and do a lot of customer “hand-holding.”

Allstate’s “You’re in Good Hands” advertisements are designed to convince consumers that the insurance company won’t let them down.

Mike Mozart –  Allstate,  – CC BY 2.0.

Limited problem solving falls somewhere between low-involvement (routine) and high-involvement (extended problem solving) decisions. Consumers engage in limited problem solving when they already have some information about a good or service but continue to search for a little more information. Assume you need a new backpack for a hiking trip. While you are familiar with backpacks, you know that new features and materials are available since you purchased your last backpack. You’re going to spend some time looking for one that’s decent because you don’t want it to fall apart while you’re traveling and dump everything you’ve packed on a hiking trail. You might do a little research online and come to a decision relatively quickly. You might consider the choices available at your favorite retail outlet but not look at every backpack at every outlet before making a decision. Or you might rely on the advice of a person you know who’s knowledgeable about backpacks. In some way you shorten or limit your involvement and the decision-making process.

Products, such as chewing gum, which may be low-involvement for many consumers, often use advertising such as commercials and sales promotions such as coupons to reach many consumers at once. Companies also try to sell products such as gum in as many locations as possible.  Many products that are typically high-involvement such as automobiles may use more personal selling to answer consumers’ questions. Brand names can also be very important regardless of the consumer’s level of purchasing involvement. Consider a low- versus high-involvement decision—say, purchasing a tube of toothpaste versus a new car. You might routinely buy your favorite brand of toothpaste, not thinking much about the purchase (engage in routine response behavior), but not be willing to switch to another brand either. Having a brand you like saves you “search time” and eliminates the evaluation period because you know what you’re getting.

When it comes to the car, you might engage in extensive problem solving but, again, only be willing to consider a certain brand or brands. For example, in the 1970s, American-made cars had such a poor reputation for quality that buyers joked that a car that’s “not Jap [Japanese made] is crap.” The quality of American cars is very good today, but you get the picture. If it’s a high-involvement product you’re purchasing, a good brand name is probably going to be very important to you. That’s why the manufacturers of products that are typically high-involvement decisions can’t become complacent about the value of their brands.

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The 5 steps of the solving problem process

August 17, 2023 by MindManager Blog

Whether you run a business, manage a team, or work in an industry where change is the norm, it may feel like something is always going wrong. Thankfully, becoming proficient in the problem solving process can alleviate a great deal of the stress that business issues can create.

Understanding the right way to solve problems not only takes the guesswork out of how to deal with difficult, unexpected, or complex situations, it can lead to more effective long-term solutions.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the 5 steps of problem solving, and help you explore a few examples of problem solving scenarios where you can see the problem solving process in action before putting it to work.

Understanding the problem solving process

When something isn’t working, it’s important to understand what’s at the root of the problem so you can fix it and prevent it from happening again. That’s why resolving difficult or complex issues works best when you apply proven business problem solving tools and techniques – from soft skills, to software.

The problem solving process typically includes:

• Pinpointing what’s broken by gathering data and consulting with team members.
• Figuring out why it’s not working by mapping out and troubleshooting the problem.
• Deciding on the most effective way to fix it by brainstorming and then implementing a solution.

While skills like active listening, collaboration, and leadership play an important role in problem solving, tools like visual mapping software make it easier to define and share problem solving objectives, play out various solutions, and even put the best fit to work.

Before you can take your first step toward solving a problem, you need to have a clear idea of what the issue is and the outcome you want to achieve by resolving it.

For example, if your company currently manufactures 50 widgets a day, but you’ve started processing orders for 75 widgets a day, you could simply say you have a production deficit.

However, the problem solving process will prove far more valuable if you define the start and end point by clarifying that production is running short by 25 widgets a day, and you need to increase daily production by 50%.

Once you know where you’re at and where you need to end up, these five steps will take you from Point A to Point B:

• Figure out what’s causing the problem . You may need to gather knowledge and evaluate input from different documents, departments, and personnel to isolate the factors that are contributing to your problem. Knowledge visualization software like MindManager can help.
• Come up with a few viable solutions . Since hitting on exactly the right solution – right away – can be tough, brainstorming with your team and mapping out various scenarios is the best way to move forward. If your first strategy doesn’t pan out, you’ll have others on tap you can turn to.
• Choose the best option . Decision-making skills, and software that lets you lay out process relationships, priorities, and criteria, are invaluable for selecting the most promising solution. Whether it’s you or someone higher up making that choice, it should include weighing costs, time commitments, and any implementation hurdles.
• Put your chosen solution to work . Before implementing your fix of choice, you should make key personnel aware of changes that might affect their daily workflow, and set up benchmarks that will make it easy to see if your solution is working.
• Evaluate your outcome . Now comes the moment of truth: did the solution you implemented solve your problem? Do your benchmarks show you achieved the outcome you wanted? If so, congratulations! If not, you’ll need to tweak your solution to meet your problem solving goal.

In practice, you might not hit a home-run with every solution you execute. But the beauty of a repeatable process like problem solving is that you can carry out steps 4 and 5 again by drawing from the brainstorm options you documented during step 2.

Examples of problem solving scenarios

The best way to get a sense of how the problem solving process works before you try it for yourself is to work through some simple scenarios.

Here are three examples of how you can apply business problem solving techniques to common workplace challenges.

Scenario #1: Manufacturing

Building on our original manufacturing example, you determine that your company is consistently short producing 25 widgets a day and needs to increase daily production by 50%.

Since you’d like to gather data and input from both your manufacturing and sales order departments, you schedule a brainstorming session to discover the root cause of the shortage.

After examining four key production areas – machines, materials, methods, and management – you determine the cause of the problem: the material used to manufacture your widgets can only be fed into your equipment once the machinery warms up to a specific temperature for the day.

Your team comes up with three possible solutions.

• Leave your machinery running 24 hours so it’s always at temperature.
• Invest in equipment that heats up faster.
• Find an alternate material for your widgets.

After weighing the expense of the first two solutions, and conducting some online research, you decide that switching to a comparable but less expensive material that can be worked at a lower temperature is your best option.

You implement your plan, monitor your widget quality and output over the following week, and declare your solution a success when daily production increases by 100%.

Scenario #2: Service Delivery

Business training is booming and you’ve had to onboard new staff over the past month. Now you learn that several clients have expressed concern about the quality of your recent training sessions.

After speaking with both clients and staff, you discover there are actually two distinct factors contributing to your quality problem:

• The additional conference room you’ve leased to accommodate your expanding training sessions has terrible acoustics
• The AV equipment you’ve purchased to accommodate your expanding workforce is on back-order – and your new hires have been making do without

You could look for a new conference room or re-schedule upcoming training sessions until after your new equipment arrives. But your team collaboratively determines that the best way to mitigate both issues at once is by temporarily renting the high-quality sound and visual system they need.

Using benchmarks that include several weeks of feedback from session attendees, and random session spot-checks you conduct personally, you conclude the solution has worked.

Scenario #3: Marketing

You’ve invested heavily in product marketing, but still can’t meet your sales goals. Specifically, you missed your revenue target by 30% last year and would like to meet that same target this year.

After collecting and examining reams of information from your sales and accounting departments, you sit down with your marketing team to figure out what’s hindering your success in the marketplace.

Determining that your product isn’t competitively priced, you map out two viable solutions.

• Hire a third-party specialist to conduct a detailed market analysis.
• Drop the price of your product to undercut competitors.

Since you’re in a hurry for results, you decide to immediately reduce the price of your product and market it accordingly.

When revenue figures for the following quarter show sales have declined even further – and marketing surveys show potential customers are doubting the quality of your product – you revert back to your original pricing, revisit your problem solving process, and implement the market analysis solution instead.

With the valuable information you gain, you finally arrive at just the right product price for your target market and sales begin to pick up. Although you miss your revenue target again this year, you meet it by the second quarter of the following year.

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Boundless Marketing

Consumer marketing, the consumer decision process, need recognition, learning objectives, key takeaways.

• The 5 stages which a consumer often goes through when they are considering a purchase: problem or need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase, and post-purchase behavior.
• Need or problem recognition is oftentimes recognized as the first and most crucial step in the process because if a consumer does not perceive a problem or need, he generally will not move forward with considering a product purchase.
• A need can be triggered by internal or external stimuli.
• Internal stimuli refers to a personal perception experienced by the consumer, such as hunger or thirst.
• Buyer Decision Processes : The Buyer Decision Processes are the decision-making processes undertaken by consumers in regard to a potential market transaction before, during, and after the purchase of a product or service.
• Abraham Harold Maslow : He was an American psychologist who was best known for creating Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a theory of self-actualization.
• need recognition : the first step in the buying decision process, where the problem or need is understood
• John Dewey : He was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology.
• Problem or need recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of alternatives
• Post-purchase behavior

Problem or Need Recognition

Making a Decision : When making a decision, a person first needs to identify and define the problem or need recognition.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs

Abraham Maslow : Abraham Harold Maslow was an American Psychology professor who created Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

• At the bottom of the hierarchy are the "Basic needs or Physiological needs" of a human being: food, water, sleep and sex.
• The next level is "Safety Needs: Security, Order, and Stability". These two steps are important to the physical survival of the person.
• Once individuals have basic nutrition, shelter and safety, they attempt to accomplish more. The third level of need is "Love and Belonging", which are psychological needs; when individuals have taken care of themselves physically, they are ready to share themselves with others, such as with family and friends.
• The fourth level is achieved when individuals feel comfortable with what they have accomplished. This is the "Esteem" level, the need to be competent and recognized, such as through status and level of success.
• Then fifth is the "Cognitive" level, where individuals intellectually stimulate themselves and explore.
• Finally, there is the "Aesthetic" level, which is the need for harmony, order and beauty.

Information Search

• During the information search, the options available to the consumer are identified or further clarified.
• An internal search refers to a consumer's memory or recollection of a product, oftentimes triggered or guided by personal experience.
• An external search is conducted when a person who has no prior knowledge about a product seeks information from personal sources (e.g. word of mouth from friends/family) and/or public sources (e.g. online forums, consumer reports) or marketer dominated sources (e.g. sales persons, advertising).
• Consumer Decision Process : Also known as the Buying Decision Process, the process describes the fundamental stages that a customer goes through when deciding to buy a product. Many scholars have given their version of the buying decision model.
• Information Search : The second of five stages that comprise the Consumer Decision Process. It can be categorized as internal or external research.
• External Research : When a person has no prior knowledge about a product, which then leads them to seek information from personal or public sources.

Seeking Information : A consumer seeks information by asking an employee about a product. Asking an employee is external research.

• Examples of personal sources that are marketer dominated, include sales person advice in a retail store.
• Personal sources that are not marketer dominated include advice from friends and family.
• Television advertising and company websites are examples of non-personal sources that are marketer dominated
• Online forums are non-personal sources that are non-marketer dominated.

Non-Personal Source : An example of a non-personal source is a search on the Internet. The search engine provides information about a subject.

Evaluating Alternatives

• During this stage, consumers evaluate all of their products or brand options on a scale of attributes which have the ability to deliver the benefit that they are seeking.
• In order for a marketing organization to increase the likelihood that their brand is part of the evoked set for many consumers, they need to understand what benefits consumers are seeking and specifically, which attributes will be most influential to their decision-making process.
• It is important to note that consumers evaluate alternatives in terms of the functional and psychological benefits that they offer.
• During this stage, consumers can be significantly influenced by their attitude as well as the degree of involvement that they may have with the product, brand, or overall category.
• Ultimately, consumers must be able to effectively assess the value of all the products or brands in their evoked set before they can move on to the next step of the decision process.
• Evoked Set : The number of alternatives that are considered by consumers during the problem-solving process.
• Evaluation of Alternatives : This is the third stage in the Consumer Decision Process. During this stage, consumers compare the brands and products that are in their evoked set.

Exhibition Hall : In an exhibition hall, customers have a range of options to explore and evaluate.

• During this time, the consumer may form an intention to buy the most preferred brand because he has evaluated all the alternatives and identified the value that it will bring him.
• The final purchase decision, can be disrupted by two factors: 1. Negative feedback of others and our level of motivation to comply or accept the feedback. 2. The decision may be disrupted due to a situation that one did not anticipate, such as losing a job or a retail store closing down.
• During this stage, the consumer must decide the following: 1. from whom he should buy, 2. when to buy, and 3. whether to buy.
• Purchase Decision : The fourth stage in the consumer decision process and when the purchase actually takes place.

Making a Purchase : Making a purchase decision is the final stage in the decision process.

• Negative feedback of others and our level of motivation to comply or accept the feedback. For example, after going through the need recognition, information search, and alternative evaluation stages, one might choose to buy a Nikon D80 DSLR camera, but a close photographer friend might share negative feedback, which could drastically influence personal preference.
• The decision may be disrupted due to a situation that one did not anticipate, such as losing a job or a retail store closing down.
• From whom they should buy, which is influenced by price point, terms of sale, and previous experience with or awareness of the seller and the return policy.
• When to buy, which can be influenced by the store atmosphere or environment, time pressures and constraints, the presence of a sale, and the shopping experience.
• This is also a time during the which the consumer might decide against making the purchase decision. Alternatively, they may also decide that they want to make the purchase at some point in the near or far future perhaps because the price point is above their means or simply because they might feel more comfortable waiting.

Post-Purchase Behavior

• How the customer feels about a purchase will significantly influence whether he will purchase the product again or consider other products within the brand repertoire.
• Cognitive dissonance is when the customer experiences feelings of post-purchase psychological tension or anxiety.
• Some companies like to engage their consumers with post-purchase communications in an effort to influence their feelings about their purchase and future purchases.
• cognitive dissonance : This term is used in modern psychology to describe the state of simultaneously holding two or more conflicting ideas, beliefs, values, or emotional reactions.

Cognitive Dissonance : The anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for cognitive dissonance or "buyer's remorse."

Licenses and Attributions

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• Curation and Revision. Provided by : Boundless.com. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

CC licensed content, Specific attribution

• Buying Decision Process. Provided by : Wikipedia. Located at : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buying_Decision_Process . License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Marketing/Consumer Behavior. Provided by : Wikibooks. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Buyer decision processes. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Abraham Harold Maslow. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• John Dewey. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Buying Decision Process. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Buyer Decision Processes. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• US Navy 060513-N-5174T-045 Lt.nTaylor Forester makes a few last minute decisions before purchasing a gold necklace from a Navy Exchange vendor aboard the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76). Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Abraham Maslow. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• TU-91.1008 Basics of marketing. Provided by : Wikiversity. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• External Research. Provided by : Wikipedia. License : CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
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The Five-Step Problem-Solving Process

Sometimes when you’re faced with a complex problem, it’s best to pause and take a step back. A break from…

Sometimes when you’re faced with a complex problem, it’s best to pause and take a step back. A break from routine will help you think creatively and objectively. Doing too much at the same time increases the chances of burnout.

Solving problems is easier when you align your thoughts with your actions. If you’re in multiple places at once mentally, you’re more likely to get overwhelmed under pressure. So, a problem-solving process follows specific steps to make it approachable and straightforward. This includes breaking down complex problems, understanding what you want to achieve, and allocating responsibilities to different people to ease some of the pressure.

The problem-solving process will help you measure your progress against factors like budget, timelines and deliverables. The point is to get the key stakeholders on the same page about the ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ of the process. ( Xanax ) Let’s discuss the five-step problem-solving process that you can adopt.

Problems at a workplace need not necessarily be situations that have a negative impact, such as a product failure or a change in government policy. Making a decision to alter the way your team works may also be a problem. Launching new products, technological upgrades, customer feedback collection exercises—all of these are also “problems” that need to be “solved”.

Here are the steps of a problem-solving process:

1. Defining the Problem

The first step in the process is often overlooked. To define the problem is to understand what it is that you’re solving for. This is also where you outline and write down your purpose—what you want to achieve and why. Making sure you know what the problem is can make it easier to follow up with the remaining steps. This will also help you identify which part of the problem needs more attention than others.

2. Analyzing the Problem

Analyze why the problem occurred and go deeper to understand the existing situation.  If it’s a product that has malfunctioned, assess factors like raw material, assembly line, and people involved to identify the problem areas. This will help you figure out if the problem will persist or recur. You can measure the solution against existing factors to assess its future viability.

3. Weighing the Options

Once you’ve figured out what the problem is and why it occurred, you can move on to generating multiple options as solutions. You can combine your existing knowledge with research and data to come up with viable and effective solutions. Thinking objectively and getting inputs from those involved in the process will broaden your perspective of the problem. You’ll be able to come up with better options if you’re open to ideas other than your own.

4. Implementing The Best Solution

Implementation will depend on the type of data at hand and other variables. Consider the big picture when you’re selecting the best option. Look at factors like how the solution will impact your budget, how soon you can implement it, and whether it can withstand setbacks or failures. If you need to make any tweaks or upgrades, make them happen in this stage.

5. Monitoring Progress

The problem-solving process doesn’t end at implementation. It requires constant monitoring to watch out for recurrences and relapses. It’s possible that something doesn’t work out as expected on implementation. To ensure the process functions smoothly, you can make changes as soon as you catch a miscalculation. Always stay on top of things by monitoring how far you’ve come and how much farther you have to go.

You can learn to solve any problem—big or small—with experience and patience. Adopt an impartial and analytical approach that has room for multiple perspectives. In the workplace, you’re often faced with situations like an unexpected system failure or a key employee quitting in the middle of a crucial project.

Problem-solving skills will help you face these situations head-on. Harappa Education’s Structuring Problems course will show you how to classify and categorize problems to discover effective solutions. Equipping yourself with the right knowledge will help you navigate work-related problems in a calm and competent manner.

Explore topics such as  Problem Solving , the  PICK Chart ,  How to Solve Problems  & the  Barriers to Problem Solving  from our Harappa Diaries blog section and develop your skills.