Routinized choice behavior occurs after repeated purchases of a brand, leading to habitual buying with minimal decision-making, which is crucial for brand loyalty. Marketers must understand consumer buying patterns to avoid stockouts that may drive loyal customers to competitors, while limited decision-making applies when consumers seek additional information before making a familiar purchase. Extensive problem-solving arises when consumers lack information and must invest time in research for new or significant purchases, necessitating clear communication from marketers to guide the decision-making process.

1. Routinized choice behaviour or routinized response behaviour
occurs after sufficient number of ‘trials’ or purchases of a particular
brand. The decision to again buy the product requires little or no
decision making as the routinized choice behaviour becomes
habitual with each subsequent purchase. Routinized choice
behaviour is a characteristic of being loyal to a brand as well.
With the rapid increase of promotion, the problem lies in
measuring consumer response. An individual’s response to
promotions is indicated by the extent to which promotions play a
role in his or her purchase routine with respect to a brand.

3. • Importance of Routinized Choice Behaviour
• It is important for the marketers so that they avoid marketing
related environmental interruptions such as stockouts that could
force the loyal customers to try their competitor’s brand. In
marketing, it is important to understand the consumer buying
behaviour patterns to increase business and customer loyalty.
The decision making process of customers has different levels
i.e. extensive problem solving, limited problem solving and
routinized choice behaviour.

4. Advantages of Routinized Choice Behaviour
• 1. Consumers stick to your brand irrespective of marketing
promotion.
• 2. Companies avoid stockouts so that consumers don’t switch
their brand
• Disadvantages of Routinized Choice Behaviour
• 1. Matter of concern for other brands or new brands to establish
itself in the minds of the consumers by influencing their choice.
• 2. Consumers become biased about their choices and mayn’t
even try a new brand even if it is be better.

5. • Example of Routinized Choice Behaviour
• Let consider three consumers who purchases cup noodles from
among brand A, B and C. Consumer 1 strongly prefers brand C
and routinely buys C on every occasion as a routinized choice
behaviour. He/she ignores promotional activities of all the three
brands. Consumer 2 prefers both the brands A and C nearly
equally. He/she uses the promotional activities of A and C to
decide which brand to buy each time. Consumer 3 prefers the
brands A and B nearly equally. He/she uses only the promotional
activities of brands A and B only and not C to decide which one to
buy each time.
• Promotions by brand C do not affect the individual and choice
behaviour of consumer 1 and 3. Promotion by brand C is
effective in inducing a purchase for consumer 2. Each individual

6. may respond differently to the promotions of each brand in a
product class. So, the consumer’s routinized choice behaviour
shows that consumers pay attention to the promotional activities
of one brand while ignore that of the others.

7. Limited decision-making can be formally defined as a decision-
making process that does not include much thought or
consideration on the part of the consumer. Simply stated, limited
decision-making is the description of decision-making used by
consumers when purchasing products that an individual is familiar
with but needs to gather more information about which brand or
model will best fit their needs. In limited decision making,
consumers will combine the information they had before with
information they gather about the product to make their choice.
Limited decision-making is usually practiced when a consumer is
familiar with a product or product category but unfamiliar with the

8. used for occasional purchases. A consumer that applies limited
decision-making usually spends a medium amount of time
deciding on the brand from which they wish to purchase a
product. Such a customer could be familiar with the product or
brand but still want to acquire more information before
purchasing.

9. For instance, consumers with sensitive skin may fall under this
category of purchasing process. People with sensitive skin usually
are more conscious about skin care products. Once they have a
specific brand that they been using, it will take some times for the
person to switch to another unfamiliar brand. Product brand such
as SIMPLE skin care products are the specific product category for
women with sensitive skin. The products have been more than 50
years in the global market and the products are working very well.
If someone is using SIMPLE products and the products really work
well on that person, for that person to switch to another brand for
the same solution might requires a careful evaluation and it won’t
be immediate process.

10. • What is Extensive Problem Solving?( levels of consumer decision making)
• Extensive problem solving is the purchase decision marking in a situation
in which the buyer has
• no information, experience about the products, services and suppliers. In
extensive problem
• solving, lack of information also spreads to the brands for the product and
also the criterion that
• they set for segregating the brands to be small or manageable subsets
that help in the purchasing
• decision later. Consumers usually go for extensive problem solving when
they discover that a need is completely new to them, which requires
significant effort to satisfy it.

11. The decision making process of a customer includes different levels of purchase
decisions, i.e.
• extensive problem solving, limited problem solving and routinized choice
behaviour.
• Elements of Extensive Problem Solving
• The various parameters which leads to extensive problem solving are:
• 1. Highly Priced Products: Like a car, house
• 2. Infrequent Purchases: Purchasing an automobile, HD TV
• 3. More Customer Participation: Purchasing a laptop with selection of RAM,
ROM, display etc
• 4. Unfamiliar Product Category: Real-estate is a very unexplored category
• 5. Extensive Research & Time: Locality of buying house, proximity to hospital,

12. • Importance of Extensive Problem Solving
• It is very important for marketers to know the process that customers go through before purchasing.
• They cannot rely upon re-buys and word of mouth all the time for acquiring new customers. The
• customer in general goes through problem recognition, information search, evaluation, purchase
• decision and post-purchase evaluation. Closely related to a purchase decision is the problem
• solving phase. A new product with long term investment leads to extensive problem solving from
• a customer. This signifies that not all buying situations are same. A rebuy is very much different
• from a first choice purchase. The recognition that a brand enjoys in a customer’s mind helps the
• customer to make purchase decisions easily. If the brand has a dedicated marketing communication
• effort, whenever a consumer feels the need for a new product, they instantly go for it.
• To help customers in extensive problem solving, companies must have clear transparent
• communication. It is thus very important for marketers to use a proper marketing mix so that they
• can have some cognition from their customers when they think of new products. With the advent
• of social media, the number of channels for promotion have hugely developed and they require a
• clear understanding on the segment of customer that each channel serves. The communication
• channels should lucidly differentiate themselves from other brands so that they are purchased
• quickly and easily.
• Example of Extensive

13. Example of Extensive Problem
Solving Behaviour
• suppose, that Amber wants to buy a High Definition TV. The problem
being, she has no
• idea regarding it. This is a case of extensive problem solving as the
amount of information is low,
• the risk she is taking is high as she is going with the opinion that she
gathers from her peers, the
• item is expensive and at the same time it also demands huge amount of
involvement from the
• customer. Similarly, buying high price and long-term assets or products
like car, motorcycle, house
• etc leads to extensive problem solving decision for the customers

14. Thanks