Product development by harnessing customer thought process

New product and services are introduced in market every once in while by the companies with the strong foothold hold in the market or energetic young companies trying to create some space. No matter what they are or how they operate one of the main reason for their entrance is to leave a footprint after their each steps and this is not possible unless business makes effective impact through their product or service. So in order to achieve this companies constantly look for ways to maximize their sales. But the sad part is they directly or indirectly focus on those activities that might bring what they wants but necessarily not always right which leads their efforts and all the cost incurred end in fiasco.

The prime focus of any business should be on the consumers because at the end, they are the one who buy your products and service and makes you able to stand in the market. The creation of love and loyalty among the consumers is very essential, and the easiest way to get there is to think how they think and take smart actions.

Behind every purchase made by a customer there is a customer thought process which must be understood by every marketer. It starts with the consumer recognizing his needs , then searching the information and evaluating the alternatives and actually buying the product and ends with the post purchase evaluation which acts as the determining factor whether the customers got the level of satisfaction which will make him repurchase of product or not.

The difference in situation where buyer wants himself to be in and the actual situation he is in triggers need, what buyer perceives as a problem. Not always need or want and desire creates the requirement of the product. The marketing activity pushed by the business in most of the cases is carried out in such a way that it becomes driving element for framing consumer thought to buy the particular product. The needs can be as simple as thirst to drink water to desire to buy a car and length of the buying process heavily depends on the nature of the need which should be marketed in such a way that customer creates the perception and feels the real necessity of the product.

Once the need is recognized and choice is made by the buyer to fill that gap, consumer thought process moves to gather information on it. In the beginning the customer will recall whether they have gone through same problem in the past and their experience with the brands then, often in case of frequently purchased product but for others customer feels the risk is high for wrong decision so they tend to go for various internal as well as external sources of information. The marketing team must be smart enough to pass the marketing message using various relevant media which hammers the nail in customer thought developing the feeling that the product is what they actually need because the collected information will give various options for the consumer which they will evaluate and forward the customer thought process, narrowing down the alternatives and coming down to one which suites and satisfies them the best and eventually make a purchase.

The cycle doesn’t ends here because once the customer derives the utility out of the product they will compare it with the expectation and evaluate level of satisfaction they derived. If the product meets the expectation and derives the satisfaction which customer seeks before buying the product they will consider it for future purchase so it’s important for marketer to understand this and run post purchase communication which may include follow up calls, good after sales service or maybe replacement if needed and other such to influence customer thought that they made a right decision.

To understand the customer thought process, the decision making cycle is not enough because there are different other variants which will influence the buying decision. Psychology behind a purchase decision should be taken care. Human are full of emotions so other than the logic behind, emotional factor should be realized. The customers are always surrounded with the fear of losing something more than the pleasure of gaining something so being a marketer one should keep track of it.

Talking on the logical side the numbers and facts is very important but along with it the visuals and stories carries equivalent importance because it touches the emotions and helps the customers to create the bonding and greater connection with the brand and the business. If it is left by the marketing team, the success of product gets the question mark. And finally rather than what product is there for the consumer, why the product is there for the consumer should be used in marketing message because it helps in better pitching the customer thought and increases the probability of higher sales volume.

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