This fully updated second edition of Understanding Customers is a recommended textbook for the Understanding Customers Certificate CIM paper. It is divided into six parts covering the social sciences, people as individuals, people in groups, people in society and people in organisations. Each chapter of Understanding Customers consists of: * learning objectives and definitions * the theoretical background * exercises * issues to consider * current examples * implications for marketing * recent examination questions. Chris Rice is Senior Lecturer in the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University. He is a CIM examiner on the Understanding Customers paper and has widespread consultancy experience in both the private and public sector.

Understanding customer decisions and behavior is the starting point for identifying market opportunities and formulating a company’s marketing strategy. Without understanding the needs customers aim to fulfill, the ways in which they evaluate the available alternatives that can fulfill these needs, and the decision processes they use to choose among these alternatives, a company is unlikely to succeed in developing an offering that will be embraced by its target customers. Understanding the customer decision journey and the key factors that drive customer behavior is the focus of this note. The discussion of understanding the customer is complemented by an in-depth overview of three additional topics: Maslow’s theory of human needs, the process of joint decision making, and decision heuristics and biases. This note is an excerpt (Chapter 4) from Strategic Marketing Management: Theory and Practice by Alexander Chernev (Cerebellum Press, 2019).

Struggling to ensure that the customer is at the center of all your business does? This book is your guide to putting the "customer" in customer experience. Not sure what that means? Well, for starters, too many executives believe they are delighting their customers. Why wouldn't they think that?! When they focus on growth, those customer acquisition numbers are pretty sweet, but they don't tell the real story. Prioritizing customer retention is critical. But you can't just throw technology at it, give it some lip service, and call it a day. Retention is hard work! You've got to understand who your customers are and what problems they are trying to solve or what jobs they are trying to do. Then you've got to use that understanding to design an experience that helps customers achieve their goals. That's the key to putting the customer in customer experience! Ultimately, you need to bring the customer voice into all meetings, decisions, processes, and designs. The customer must be at the center of all you do. After all, it's all about the customer! In this book, I cover the three approaches to customer understanding: surveys and data, personas, and journey mapping. I could've written the whole book about journey mapping, but there's so much more to building a customer-centric business than journey mapping. The culture must first be deliberately designed to put the customer at the heart of the business. And all foundational elements of a CX transformation must be in place to make that happen. With that knowledge, read this book and: Learn about the three approaches you must use to understand your customers, why you must use them, and how they work together. Create an action plan to ensure insights gleaned from these three approaches are implemented in your organization. Develop and assign personas to your customers in order to better understand their needs, goals, problems to solve, and jobs to be done. Learn the difference between touchpoint maps and journey maps and how touchpoint maps can still be a valuable asset in your customer experience toolbox. Understand why journey mapping is called the backbone of customer experience management - and how to make it so in your organization. Set up and facilitate your own current-state and future-state journey mapping workshops with customers. Set up and facilitate service blueprint workshops with internal stakeholders. Find out how to put the customer at the heart of your business. And more!

This book provides the knowledge necessary for succeeding in a world where companies increasingly work side-by-side with customers to create new products and services. It is a pivotal navigation tool that helps cruise the ocean of customer integration methods and explains how the methods work, when to choose which, and how to seize advantages while avoiding pitfalls.This title is an essential read for research and development managers, marketing professionals, and other practitioners who are involved in new product development to apply customer integration methods effectively and efficiently to drive new product development success. While the application of methods is no guarantee of success, knowledge of the correct selection and appropriate application increases the probability of new product and service development success. Rich in theoretical frameworks, research findings, and practical information about customer integration methods, Innovation Heroes will help the reader appreciate the value of customers as an innovation resource and ways to profit from them.

This edited volume will help business and academic researchers understand the means-end approach to understanding consumers. This is a qualitative marketing research method to gain customer insight into decision making.

In order for food businesses, scientists and policy makers to develop successful products, services and policies, it is essential that they understand food consumers and how they decide which products to buy. Food consumer behaviour is the result of various factors, including the motivations of different consumers, the attributes of specific foods, and the environment in which food choices occur. Recognising diversity between individual consumers, different stages of life, and different cultural contexts is increasingly important as markets become increasingly diverse and international.The book begins with a comprehensive introduction and analysis of the key drivers of consumer food choices, such as the environment and sensory product features. Part two examines the role of consumers' attitudes towards quality and marketing, and their views on food preparation and technology. Part three covers cultural and individual differences in food choice as well as addressing potentially influential factors such as age and gender. Important topics such as public health and methods to change consumers' preferences for unhealthy foods are discussed in part four. The final section concludes with advice on developing coherent safety policies and the consumers' responsibility for food production and consumption.Understanding consumers of food products is a standard reference for all those in the food industry concerned with product development and regulation. - Develop an understanding of buyer behaviour to assist developing successful products - Recognise the diversity between consumers and learn how to cater for their needs - Covers cultural and individual differences in food choice

Wow your customers . . . with "less." Cut costs-it's a common corporate refrain. But if you constantly slash expenditures, what happens to innovation? How can you stay competitive and satisfy customers? Costovation solves the dilemma of how to spend less and innovate more. The book's revolutionary approach broadens the definition of innovation beyond products to the business model itself. With costovation, you let go of assumptions, take a fresh look at the market, and relentlessly focus on what customers really want. Consider Planet Fitness-it grew to 7.3 million members by concentrating on casual exercisers. Those folks don't care about frills. They want easy, low-cost access to good equipment. Although it's inexpensive to run, Planet Fitness ranks highest in gym satisfaction. Gourmet grocer, Picard, sells only frozen food. With less perishable inventory, they compress costs while delighting a discerning but busy clientele. Packed with examples and interactive exercises, the book explores cost innovation strategies that work for big and small companies alike. From open innovation and cost-sharing to simplifying products and turning waste into new offerings-readers learn how rivals are carving out niches, protecting positions, and dominating industries. Innovation and cost-cutting are not opposites. Combined, they expose untapped opportunities to outsmart and underspend competitors.