Pre and Post Sale Marketing Objective for a Marketer?

When it comes to pre/post sale objectives; every Marketer must have one objective in mind and that is to minimize the following two things.

1.     Perceived Risk (Pre Sale Objective)
2.     Cognitive Dissonance (Post Sale Objective)

Perceived Risk

“The level of uncertainty of a consumer, depending upon whether the purchase he/ she is making will be worth it or not.” ⁽¹⁾

In other words the higher the perceived risk the lower the sales and vice versa.

 

Types of Perceived Risk

1.      Quality Risk

Risks related to product/service quality.

Fact: According to a study, 64 to 74% of U.S. customers pointed out the following reasons as the main reasons for their dissatisfaction with any product/service ⁽²⁾.

1.      Poor product/service quality
2.      Irrelevant information
3.      Being responded late/delays
4.      To contact or interact multiple times

2.      Financial Risk

Risks that can affect financial capacity of a consumer, for instance buying a specific item or group of items may cost him significant amount of money and thus will affect his/her financial position to a great extent and so he won’t be able to afford things for instance certain or all basic needs.

Such risks could be both, short or long term depending on the price of the item/service.

You may like to read What does Price mean to the Customer ?

Fact: Research has shown that customer loyalty and satisfaction improves if customer perceives price to be fair ⁽³⁾.

3.      Physical Risk

Risks related to health for instance taking certain medicine (product) or exercise tool (product/service) to improve certain deficiency but that could also carry higher risk of certain side effects or physical injury.

4.      Social & Psychological risk

Risk that can negatively affect ones social status, reputation, for instance buying a certain low-end smart phone or an automobile may give the impression of being miser; to his/her social circle or being too poor to afford thus making the buyer victim of inferiority complex (psychological risk).

Read this interesting article on the above phenomenon How to identify factors that hinder sales and this one too Understand Customer public face to convince them effectively.

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Cognitive Dissonance

In business situation cognitive dissonance refers to a buyer dissatisfaction, discomfort, regret, remorse that arises after purchase due to one reason or another.

The higher the cognitive dissonance the lower the customer satisfaction consequently low sales and vice versa.

Fact: 96% of dissatisfied customers never report about their dissatisfaction ⁽⁴⁾.

That’s it, over to you guys!

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References:

1.      thelawdictionary.org/perceived-risk/ 

2.    http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Global-Consumer-Pulse-Research-Study-2013-Key-Findings.pdf  

3.    Martin-Consuegra, D., Molina, A. and Esteban, A. (2007), “An integrated model of price, satisfaction, and loyalty: an empirical analysis in the service sector”, Journal of Product and Brand Management, Vol. 16 No. 7, pp. 459-468. 

4.    http://www.1stfinancialtraining.com/Newsletters/trainerstoolkit1Q2009.pdf