Unit II

Services
Consumer
Behaviour for

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 Introduction

Any individual who purchases goods and services from the

market for his/her end-use is called a consumer. This topic
will be helpful to know how service marketer understand

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Nature of consumer behaviour to prepare their marketing
strategy

|Services Marketing | BBA-305|

Book:
Christopher Lovelock, Jochen Wirtz and Jayanta Chatterjee,
Service Marketing People, Technology, Strategy, Pearson, 7e

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 Nature of ConsumerBehaviour

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 SEARCH, EXPERIENCE & CREDENCE
PROPERTIES

 SEARCH QUALITIES: attributes that a consumer can determine

before the purchase

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 EXPERIENCE QUALITIES : attributes that a consumer can
determine only after the purchase

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 CREDENCE QUALITIES : attributes that consumer may find
impossible to evaluate even after purchase & consumption

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• Search attributes: Search attributes are features like style, colour, texture, taste, sound etc.
Which customers can sample before purchase. For instance, customers can visit a hotel room,
or check out the restaurant menu before deciding to purchase the service.

• Experience attributes: When attributes of a service cannot be experienced before a purchase,

the customer has to rely on experience attributes. For instance, a customer can see the menu

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at a restaurant, buy he/she has to taste the food and beverages before making a purchase.
Some restaurants are able to provide customers a free dish which they can sample or
experience before taking the decision to purchase the services of the restaurant.

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• Credence attributes: These attributes of the service cannot be tested even after the
consumption of the service. Hospital surgery. There is no way a patient can know whether the
surgery was done properly. In such cases the customer has no choice by to rely on the
reputation of the surgeon who has performed the surgery. This makes it imperative for service
businesses to enhance the reputation of their business and rely on the word-of-mouth that
customers would spread once they have experienced uneventful services from the service
provider.
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 Customer Service Defined

• Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance

the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a
product or service has met the customer expectation.

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• Logistics plays a vital support role.

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• Pre transaction customer service elements (before sale) :
occur prior to or apart from the sale of products/services.

• Transaction elements of customer service (during sale): occur

during order cycle.

• Post transaction customer service elements (after sale): occur

after the product or service has been sold.
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 Differences amongServices Affect Customer
Behavior

• Consumers are rarely involved in the manufacture of goods but

often participate in service creation and delivery

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• Challenge for service marketers is to understand how customers
interact with service operations

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• Introduce the aspects of consumer behavior that a marketer
must understand in five categories of consumer behavior:
• Need recognition
• Information search
• Evaluation of service alternatives
• Service purchase and consumption
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• Post purchase evaluation
• Role of culture

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Stages in Consumer Decision Making and
Evaluation of Services

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Categories in Consumer Decision Making and
Evaluation of Services

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 1. Need Recognition

• Firstly it is very important to identify the need and then it has

to be analyzed .

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• Need can be recognized on the basis of routine problem,

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planned problem and unplanned problem.

• Need recognition and problem recognition is one and the

same thing.

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 2. Information Search

• In buying services consumers rely more on personal sources. WHY?

• Personal influence

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becomes pivotal as product complexity
increases

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• Word of mouth important in delivery of services

• With service most evaluation follows purchase

• 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.

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 3. Evaluation of Alternatives

• The next step is to evaluate the various alternatives

available in the market.

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• Evaluative criteria are certain characteristics that are
important to you, say for example such as the price of

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the backpack, the size, the number of compartments,
and color.

• An individual after gathering relevant information tries to

choose the best option available as per
• his need,
• Taste preferences and
• pocket.
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 4.Purchase and Consumption

•Service Provision as Drama:-Need to maintain a desirable

impression

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•Service “actors” need to perform certain routines

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•Physical setting important, smell, music, use of space,
temperature, cleanliness, etc

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 5. Post Purchase use and Evaluation of Product

It may be in the form of two states:-

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• SATISFIED:- If the customer is satisfied then he/she will
repeat the purchase and will spread positive word of

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mouth.

• UNSATISFIED:- If the customer is unsatisfied then he/she

will never purchase the service, will spread negative word
of mouth, go to consumer court.

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