The Psychology of How Your Customers Buy Your Product or Service

Posted by in Customer Service





If you are a customer service representative, when it comes to making a purchase from your company, your customer makes a decision based on a number of different factors. In his mind he must justify that your service or product is the best fit for what he wants and needs. Consciously or subconsciously, there are four steps he goes through to do this.

1. Identifies the Criteria: In order to start this process, he must identify all the criteria on which he will base his decision. Some of these include price, convenience, quality, follow up service, trust and payment options. Once he has all of these on his list, your customer is ready to move to the next step.

2. Organizes by Importance: Now your customer must organize this list by importance. Usually it would be one or two major things that would be most important, followed by two to four other considerations. Keep in mind that many times it is not the most important factor. Often he may be able to get your product a little cheaper someplace else, but your location is closer and easier to visit. It could be the fact that he has done business with your company before, and knows and trusts the sales person.

For example, over the years I have purchased my tires and wheels for my classic 1955 Chevrolet from Harlow Tire, located in Westland, Michigan. Harlow Tire is not the closest tire store to me nor is it the cheapest. However, they have the best quality and largest selection of tires and wheels. Most importantly, I like the owner and his sales people who over the years have provided service to me for the cars that I have owned. In addition to that, I have known about them for years and many of my friends have purchased from them as well. In other words I trust them to be the most competent and knowledgeable of what is right for my car.

3. Compares the Best Companies: Once your customer has organized his list by importance, he is ready to move to the next step in the process of making his purchase decision. He will now compare your company to the other competing companies from which he could purchase the same service or product. This may be done very quickly by reviewing in his mind who else is available. It usually is only one to three other companies or organizations.

4. Makes the Decision: Here he finally he makes a decision to purchase the product or service from one of them based on what he considers the best choice. Before he reaches this point, everything you and your company did to positively influence his decision in your favor has been done. The rest is up to him.

Tom Borg is a consultant in leadership management, team building and customer service. Please see more of his blogs at csjobsblog.com and businessworkforceblog.com. To view additional job postings at Nexxt
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