Increasing Customer Involvement in Product/Service

Imagine if you knew what tempts your customer to take interest in your product/service. Won’t that be great ?!, Indeed it would be, all you will have to do then is to focus on those things to convince your customers and next thing would be sales, profits so on and so forth.

Because the more customers are involved or take interest in your product/service the more chances you will have to make them buy it. After all it’s just about striking the right chords or being on the same page with your customer.

     
So what are the right chords or how to be on the same page, it’s easy, read the post further...

Right Chords

Striking the right chords or being on the same page means understanding the customer attachments (attachments that leads to involvement in your product/service) to a product/service, how these attachments are formed and maintained and how can one use these attachments to target their customers ⁽¹⁾, to tempt them to buy your product/service.

Okay Got It Next ?!

Let’s begin with “How to Understand customer attachments". According to Houston & Rothchild (1978) Consumer involvement framework ⁽²⁾. Customers take interest or get involved in your product/service mainly for three reasons or in other words there are three types of involvement.

1.      Enduring Involvement

In brief, Enduring involvement means involvement on basis of past experience with product/service or brand. Here the customers take interest in your product service because he/she has or had been using your product/service in the past that left him/her quite satisfied.

Now if your customer refers to a past experience with your products/services, brand then that would mean he/she is taking interest into your product/service, brand because of his/her past experience and so you need to focus on reasons that would make their “upcoming past experiences” with your product/service much similar or better than the “previous past experiences”.

2.      Situational Involvement

A type of involvement that is temporary and is evoked in customer because of the situation fit. Situation fit means where product/service fits a situation in which a customer finds him/herself in.

If your customer relates to or points to a situation that is the reason according to him/her for taking interest in your product/service, then in that case you need to present your product/service according to that situation or similar situational reasons, to help your customers to make a decision regarding your product/service, a decision that is good for both parties.

3.      Response Involvement

The third type of involvement in simple words means the level of complexity or extensiveness a customer pursues in collecting information about product/service, brand and the cognitive processing of that information to take decisions regarding your product/service, brand.

The more complex and extensive the information gathering and decision making (cognitive process) is; the more involved the customer is.

If your customer demands more information, takes a lot of mental effort to make a decision, then that would mean that particular guy needs more information to make decision and you have to focus on providing relevant information to make his/her decision making more swift and rewarding (for both parties).

In a Nutshell

Once you identify which type of involvement a customer has, deal with customer from that angle, you can also embed this framework/approach in your marketing strategy , branding strategy to push your target market to take interest in your product/service.

That’s it, speak your mind, share your ideas on customer involvement, what else can be done to improve this approach.

References:

1.        Chae, M.H., Black, C. & Heitmeyer, J. (2006) Pre-purchase and postpurchase  satisfaction and fashion involvement of female tennis wear consumers. International Journal of Consumer Studies

2.        Houston, M.J. & Rothschild, M.L. (1978) Conceptual and methodological perspectives in involvement. In Research Frontiers in Marketing:Dialogues and Directions (ed. by S.C. Jain), pp. 184–187. American Marketing Association, Chicago, IL.