Schiffman & Kanuk's Model Of Consumer Behaviour

This model speaks of the interactions between the marketer and consumer. This process can be seen in the form of three distinct though interactive (or interlocking) stages. 

The input stage in the consumer decision making model consists of external environmental influences, or two major sources of information. These sources are the firm's marketing mix elements (including the product or service, its price, its promotion and location of availability) as well as the external sociological influences on the consumer (family, peer and friends, neighbours, other informal and non commercial sources, social class, group influence, religion and cultural etc.).

The process stage mentioned in the model informs us on how consumers make decisions. There are a few psychological factors existing within each individual (motivation, perception, learning, personality and attitudes) which affect how the external inputs from the input stage influences the consumer's decision making process (recognition of a need, prepurchase information search and evaluation of alternatives). Further, the experience of going through the evaluation of alternatives, in turn, can affect the consumer's existing psychological attributes. 

decision making model consists of two closely linked

The output stage of the consumer decision making model consists of two closely linked post decision activities namely, purchase behaviour and post purchase evaluation. The post decision activities is also dependent upon the type of decision involved. For example, the purchase behaviour for a low-cost nondurable product say a new toothpaste, could be influenced by the free coupon offer and may in fact be a trial purchase. In case the consumer is satisfied with the product after use, he or she may repeat the purchase. The trial forms the exploratory phase of the purchase behaviour, when the consumer evaluates the product through direct usage. A repeat purchase will indicate product adoption by the consumer. 

For a relatively durable product such as 'ipod' (because such products have a rapid rate of obsolescence), the purchase is more likely to signify adoption. 

The above Schiffman and Kanuk's model of consumer decision making is only briefly touched upon here.

Schiffman and Kanuk's Model Of Consumer Decision Making

This model of consumer decision making developed by Schiffman and Kanuk is related to the problem solving consumer and to some extent the emotional consumer model. It provides an overview of the consumer decision making process. The model is made up of three major components: input, process and output.

Input

The input component comprises of the external influences, which are the sources of information used to make a positive influence on the consumer's product related values, attitudes and behaviour. The input component includes the marketing mix elements i.e. the various marketing stimuli used by the organisations and the sociocultural environmental factors, which will also act as a stimuli and influence the consumer's purchase decision.

Firm's Marketing-mix Efforts or Marketing Stimuli

Typically marketing stimuli will consist of the four P's Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Marketers are interested in knowing how consumers will respond to the various marketing stimuli. In the absence of direct contact between the consumers and the organisation, marketers make use of various marketing strategies and programmes to communicate with the prospective customers. These may be in the form of attractive product features, size, packages, suitable prices; mass media advertising, personal selling, direct marketing, other sales promotion measures and the selection of suitable distribution channels to ensure the availability of the product at the market place.

Understanding how these marketing efforts have had an impact on the consumer's mind and to gauge the consumers' behaviour, many marketers are turning to consumer researches.

Socio-cultural Environment

The socio cultural inputs also play a major role in influencing the consumer's decision making process. The social cultural environmental factors can include the family, social class, culture and subculture, informal sources and all the other noncommercial sources. Generally stated the socio cultural inputs will consist of a wide range of non commercial influences.

The family members can exercise a strong influence on the buyer's behaviour. The family can also include a friend. Informal sources will include public's communication (comments expressed) via print media, comments of a friend and so on, these could be the specific noncommercial sources of information.

Social classes show distinct product and brand preferences in areas such as cloth furnishings, leisure activity and automobiles. Social class influences can be seen in tr of the retail outlets, exposure to media etc.

By and large culture has the broadest and deepest influence on consumer behaviour. There are certain unwritten codes of conduct communicated and to be followed by each culture These cultural norms will put restrictions or the 'do's and don't's on the buying behaviour of individuals. In this way culture also influences the buying behaviour of consumers.

Though it should be remembered that unlike the organisation's marketing inputs, the socio- cultural environment will only influence consumers decision to avoid a product; whereas, the marketing efforts will induce and motivate them to purchase the specific product.

It is the cumulative impact of the firm's marketing efforts and the socio -cultural environmental factors which will influence a consumer's decision making process. This is linked by a two handed arrows connecting the input and the process components of the model in the Figure 10.4.

Process

The process component of the model is indicative of the consumer decision making. This starts with the psychological field. i.e., the psychological factors such as motivation, perception, learning, personality and attitudes which will determine the consumers' needs or wants, their knowledge about the various product choices, how they gather more information and then their evaluation of alternatives. From the figure 10.4, we can see that the consumer decision making process consists of three stages:

1. Need Recognition stage.

2. Pre-purchase search stage.

3. Evaluation of Alternatives stage.

Need Recognition

The consumer is likely to 'recognise a need" when he is faced with a 'problem'. The need or problem recognition, among consumers can be of varied types. Some consumers may experience the 'actual state type of problem'. This may occur when they recognise a problem in the form of a product not performing satisfactorily. For instance, the housewife may realise that the mixie she was using doesn't grind properly. Another type of need or problem recognition could be the desired state consumer. Here the consumer may experience the desire for something new, which again may trigger the decision making process. For instance, a young executive may desire to possess a 'mid segment car'. The desired state will be the starting point for the consumer to become involved in the decision making process.

The need or problem recognition can be either simple or complex. Simple problem recognition refers to needs that occur frequently and can be dealt with almost automatically, such as feeling thirsty and not having a 'Pepsi". Complex problem recognition is characterised as a state, when a problem occurs over a period of time and the actual state and desired state gradually moves apart. For example, a man who has been driving a motor bike for many years may consider selling it and going for a brand new car (running on diesel) so as to reduce the heavy maintenance charges.

Pre-purchase Search

During this stage the consumer recognising a need that requires to be satisfied, now is engaged in an information seeking process. In case of having been satisfied with the product in the past, the consumer will make a choice without going for an extensive search for information. On the other hand, in case of no prior experience, the consumer will go on an elaborate information seeking process before arriving at a particular choice.

The consumer will be influenced by his or her internal psychological field before being engaged in an external search for information. Very often, the past experience plays a relevant role in deciding the extent of information that will be sought to by the consumer. If the past experience is good, less will be the external information sought by the consumer to reach a decision. Many consumer decisions will be based on a combination of past experience (internal sources) and marketing and non commercial information (external sources). Perceived risk could be another factor considered at this stage of decision process. If the perceived risk is high, the consumers are likely to be engaged in a complex information search and evaluation. Whereas, when the perceived risk is low, the consumers are likely to use very simple search and evaluation techniques.

As explained earlier, while discussing about the various types of decisions, consumers get engaged in an external search effort when they have the least amount of product category knowledge. This goes to show that when consumers have less information about the product category and it is very important to purchase the product also, they will get engaged in an extensive pre-purchase search activity

The amount of information a consumer will gather also depends on various situational factors. The situational factors can be broadly classified into three:

1. Experience.

2. Social acceptability of the product.

3. Value related considerations.

Experience will be in relation to whether it is a new experience or whether the past experience with the product has been satisfactory or not. Social acceptability will consider whether the product is socially visible and acceptable to the society. In case of value related considerations, the consumer will evaluate and consider whether the purchase is discretionary rather than necessary, all the possible alternatives, family members' assessment of product requirements, reference group influences and all the possible sources of information.

While being involved in a pre-purchase search, the consumer will try to search and gather information from all the possible known sources.

Evaluation of Alternatives

The usual human tendency is to select a brand from a sample of all possible brands. The evaluation of alternatives is carried out by using two types of information:

(a) The Evoked set: A list of brands from which they plan to make their selection.

(b) The Criteria used to evaluate each brand.

The evoked set refers to the specific brands a consumer considers while making a purchase within a product category. Usually a consumer's evoked set will comprise of only a few brands. Since the evoked set will vary from consumer to consumer, the marketer must use promotional techniques designed to impart a very favourable and more relevant product image to the target consumer. At times this may also include a change in product features or attributes.

Compensatory and Non-compensatory Rules

When firms know that consumers are evaluating alternatives, they make use of advertisements, through which they can suggest the criteria to be used by consumers in assessing the product or service options. This will enable the consumer to go through the experience of comparing or evaluating different brands or models of a product and finding the one that just feels, looks and or performs "right". In this connection, the model speaks of certain decision rules which provide guidelines or routines to make the process less taxing. These decision rules can be broadly classified into two categories: Compensatory and non compensatory decision rules.

According to the compensatory decision rule, the consumer evaluates brand options in terms of each relevant attribute and computes a weighted or summated score for each brand. The computed score will indicate the brand merit as a potential purchase choice. It is assumed that the consumer will select the brand that scores highest among the alternatives evaluated. Another unique feature related to the compensatory decision rule is that it allows a positive evaluation of a brand on one attribute to balance out a negative evaluation on some other attribute.

Whereas the non compensatory decision rules do not allow consumers to balance positive evaluations of a brand on one attribute against a negative evaluation on some other attribute. At times, an individual's or family's decisions may be based on a particular lifestyle followed by them. A consumer's decision making process can also get influenced-when faced with incomplete information, no equally comparable alternatives or when the situation demands making a choice which involves multiple decisions.

Thus understanding the decision rules used by the consumers' in selecting a particular product or service will help the marketers to formulate a promotional programme.

Output

The output component of the consumer decision making is closely related to two kinds of past decision activities.

• Purchase behaviour

• Post-purchase evaluation.

Purchase Behaviour

The consumer may make three types of purchases, namely: first time or trial purchases, repeat purchases and long term commitment purchases. When the consumer is purchasing the product for the first time, he or she may buy lesser quantity than usual. This will be a trial purchase because the consumer would purchase the product to try it out on an experimental basis. The consumer would prefer to evaluate the product through direct use on a first time trial basis. This can happen especially when purchasing a new brand.

If the consumer finds the new brand, after the trial to be satisfactory, he/she is likely to repeat the purchase. When a consumer goes for repeat purchase, it is an indication that the product has met the consumer's approval and that he or she is willing to purchase it again for consumption purpose. Then the firm can look forward to a long term commitment from the purchaser. Of course, in case of certain type of durable goods like refrigerators, washing machines, ovens etc., a consumer will directly move to a long term commitment (through purchase) without being involved in a trial purchase.

Post Purchase Evaluation

There is a general tendency among consumers to judge their experience against their expectations when being involved in a post purchase evaluation process. There are three possible outcomes of the consumer's evaluation of the product's performance in the light of their own (consumers) expectations: These outcomes could take the form of:

1. Actual performance matches expectations, leads to a neutral feeling. 

2. Performance of product surpasses or exceeds expectations, which results in positive disconfirmation of expectations and this leads to satisfaction.

3. Performance of the product falls below expectations, causing negative disconfirmation of expectations leading to dissatisfaction.

A very important component of post purchase evaluation is the reduction of uncertainty or doubt that the consumer might have regarding their selection. Generally consumers, as a part of their post purchase evaluation will try to reassure themselves that their decision was the right one. That is, they try to reduce their post cognitive dissonance by adopting one of the following strategies:

• They may rationalise that the decision is a wise one.

• They will look out for advertisements to support their choice and avoid those of competitive brands.

• They may attempt to persuade friends or neighbours to buy the same brand and thus confirm their own choice.

• They may turn to other satisfied owners for their reassurance.

The degree of post-purchase analysis that consumers undertake will depend on the importance of the product decision and the experience in using the product. The consumer's post purchase evaluation 'feedback' is an indication of the consumers, likely purchase behaviour in the future. If the product performs as per consumer expectation, it is likely that the consumer will buy it again. However, if the product's performance is disappointing or falls below expectations, they will look out for alternative products or brands in the future.