Customers’ buying habits are determined by their beliefs about brands and organisations. Changing their purchase pattern can only be done by changing that belief system
The success or failure of a business organisation depends on actions taken by customers – they either buy more or don’t, spread a positive word about the establishment or have negative feedback, etc. The way a customer responds is determined by the beliefs they hold about brands and business organisations. These “beliefs” are formed over a period of time as a result of the customer’s exposure to and experience with different stimuli and communications about the business. Customers choose a particular brand of a product or service over its competition purely based on their beliefs about that brand. Customer beliefs could be: ‘this is the best brand’, ‘I can’t get what I want from any other brand’, ‘this brand gives the best value for money’, etc. Belief system is powerful and it is the primary reason for whatever action a customer takes, including the choice of brands, volume and frequency of purchase.
Here are a few examples of how customer beliefs work and make them buy what they do:
Case 1: An Indian company, which launched Ayurveda products a decade ago in almost every area of FMCG sector, has managed to cross a revenue of ₹10,500 crore (2016-17) employing more than two lakh people. It is giving sleepless nights to executives of some of the MNCs in the same segment. What is the secret of this company’s success? The answer is belief system. The company has managed to build a strong positive belief system among its customers about the company and its many products. The company first changed the behaviour of customers by offering them something they couldn’t resist, the cheap price for “healthy” Ayurveda products, a price which is much lower than the reputed brands from MNCs and established players in the market for similar products. Secondly, by offering these cheap products consistently across the country and forcefully pushing the benefits of being natural and Ayurveda products with no side effects, the belief of the consumer is being built positively over a period of time. The company has identified “natural”, “Ayurveda” and “no side effects” as important attributes to their products, coupled with low pricing, and is aggressively promoting it to the masses via advertising and personal promotions, continuously reminding consumers how well the brands are performing. Over a period of one decade, the company has managed to garner consumers’ faith and build a strong positive belief about its brands.
Case 2: Following the success story of this above cited Indian-grown Ayurveda FMCG company in Case 1, another Indian Ayurveda company, established in the year 2003 with Ayurvedic medicinal products, food supplements and personal hygiene products as their mainstay (owned by a renowned spiritual guru in India), is gearing up for aggressive mass marketing in order to reach out to India’s 1.3 billion population through TV commercials and other promotional activities. Earlier, the products of this company were popular only among the followers of the guru and were made available at select outlets owned by the guru’s followers, at venues of satsangs, at ashrams and places that the guru visited and addressed his followers. The followers believed in the guru, the organisation and the products, and hence purchased them. There were no deliberate marketing efforts made to promote their products among the masses and non-followers till recently. They now plan to reach out to the masses and expand their market size by opening 2500 franchised stores, strengthening online sales and other promotional activities. The company has released three television commercials during the IPL 2018 across all networks that reinforced the essence of purity – purity of thought, purity of action and purity of its products. While this company may not get the first mover advantage, it will certainly stand to benefit from the efforts of the earlier mentioned company as the masses are educated and made to believe that Ayurvedic products are safer and better. And now, this company through its ‘Purity’ campaign is trying to further that belief beyond ‘safety and better’ products, promoting health and wellness to every household. It’s all about playing with the consumers’ belief system.
Case 3: A lady customer, personally known to me, was in the process of buying a hair colour, and I was a witness to this. A not-so-brand-conscious consumer had two choices before her – darkest brown shades from two reputed brands, with no ammonia, one of them believed to be from Paris. Incidentally both these brands are from the same marketer, selling these two brands targeted at two different segments in India, and the customer had no idea about this fact. The customer noticed that both the pack sizes were of same size in appearance; one had a box with purple hues, the other with green. The product with purple is positioned as a premium segment product, whereas the one with green is targeted at the mid segment customer. She examined both the brands, compared the colour shade, the ‘no ammonia’ characteristic and, most importantly, the price of the brands. The ‘green’ was priced at ₹175, whereas the ‘purple’ was priced at ₹199. Obviously, going by the premium brand image enjoyed by the product in the purple box and the fact that the box was of same size, and there was hardly any difference in the price, the lady friend purchased the product in the purple-coloured box. She did not realise that she paid ₹199 for 21g + 24ml of this product and opted against spending ₹175 for 50g + 60 ml. I did not dare interfere in her choice of a personal care product. The reason for buying the product in the purple box, paying a premium price, is the belief of the customer associated with the brand which she purchased. No matter how many brands are introduced in the market, perhaps even much better products, the customer has a particular belief built and attached to a brand and it is difficult for marketers to change such beliefs.
The focal point of the three cases is that the customer’s belief is what makes customers take action to buy and consume. Though it is not easy to change beliefs about products and services, it’s not impossible to change the belief system. It calls for sustained and long term efforts on the part of marketers to change existing beliefs and build fresh positive beliefs towards their brands.
Changing customer beliefs:
A belief is a self-conviction based on past knowledge and experiences that an individual holds as true about himself and his world. These beliefs may be based on knowledge, past experiences, past learnings, observations, faith, or hearsay. Customers normally develop a set of beliefs about a product’s features, quality and attributes and then, through these beliefs, form a brand image, based on which decisions of purchase are made. Thus customers’ beliefs become primary in their purchase decision – making process. Here are a few tips which marketers could use to change customers’ beliefs about their brands and organisations.
Accurate and honest communication:
Care for accurate, specific, genuine and honest communication to customers. Whether this is through brochures, advertisements, websites, or social media, the same message ought to be going out to customers while trying to reinforce values and beliefs the company stands for, in order to persuade customers via this value proposition to form positive beliefs.
Employee customer encounters:
Care for the sensitivity in touch points between employees and customers. Train customers on the values and belief systems of the organisation till they are convinced and personally believe in the company’s beliefs. Thereafter, employees should be consciously involved in only relationship-building encounters with customers at all times.
Customer conversations:
Create more customer conversations; get more opinions, suggestions and useful feedback. Customers should be given opportunities to engage into conversations, as this will create an opportunity to reinforce the positive belief the company stands for.
Offer something tempting:
Offer customers something so tempting that they cannot resist. You may have come out with a great product, but there are competitors’ products already available in the market and the customers have already formed their beliefs around those brands. Then why will a consumer buy your product? So to get the customer to try out your product, offer something so tempting that they can’t refuse. Competitively low prices, exceptional discounts, or schemes could be tried.
One of the sure ways to succeed in the market place and build strong brands is to play with customers’ beliefs and make sure that customers hold positive beliefs about brands and the company image. Many customers don’t know that the organisation believes what the customers believe and this fact has to be consciously demonstrated to customers. Beliefs are strong and form the core of customers’ decision-making process. Hence, care for customers’ beliefs
