The document discusses understanding customers by analyzing their needs, wants, expectations, and motivations. It distinguishes between customers and consumers, categorizes different types of customers like business-to-business and business-to-consumer. It also discusses reading customers' body language through their posture, eye contact, facial expressions and other cues to understand their interests and diagnose their needs. Salespeople are advised to actively listen to customers and ask open-ended questions to understand price preferences and qualify customers for the right products.

1. UNDERSTANDING
YOUR CUSTOMER
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING
FARIDA BAKKALLA
1ST YEAR TCFS
ROLL NO : 30

2. INTRODUCTION
➤ In marketing world, it is common knowledge that customer is
God or King, and only if you succeed in satisfying your
customers, will your business prosper.
➤ So, to satisfy our customers, we first need to know what are
their needs, wants and expectations. What motivates them to
shop at certain stores and not at others.
➤ For this, we need to have a thorough understanding of
customer motives, i.e. why they buy.
➤ Hence, we come to the topic, Understanding Your Customer.

4. ➤ In marketing, we use the word customer/consumer almost
interchangeably
➤ However, our customer and the consumer are not the same.
➤ A customer is a person or company who purchases goods
and/or services.
➤ A customer becomes a consumer when he or she uses the
good/services i.e where there is some consumption.
PRODUCT CUSTOMER CONSUMER
BREAKFAST CEREAL PARENT CHILDREN
FUNERAL PLAN NEAR DEAD PERSON FAMILY OF THE DEAD PERSON
AN ENGAGEMENT RING THE GROOM THE BRIDE
BUILDING MATERIAL THE CONTRACTOR THE PEOPLE WHO ULTIMATELY
LIVE THERE

5. The term consumer refers to
individuals or households that
purchase and use goods and
services generated by the
economy and tends to be used
by economics.
The term customer used by
businesses, especially support
services refer to individuals or
households that only purchase
the goods and services
generated by the economy. It is
never confirmed if they are the
ones who will end up using this
bought equity. E.g. A mother
buying sweets for her children.

6. CUSTOMERS CATEGORISED
➤ BUSINESS CUSTOMERS
➤ BUSINESS BUSINESS
➤ CUSTOMER BUSINESS
➤ CUSTOMER CUSTOMER

7. ➤ Customers can be categorised as B2C which stands for
Business-to-Customer, for example when you buy clothes
from a retail store.
➤ They an also be categorised as Business-to-Business where
the shopkeeper uses services of an accountant to write his tax
return
➤ Customer-to-Business, C2B. E.g. An individual sells his gold
watch to a jewellery store
➤ Customer-to-Customer, which is C2C is where customers sell
goods to each other.

8. Business — to — Customer

9. Business — to — Business

10. Customer — to — Customer

11. A MARKETING ORIENTED APPROACH
➤ A marketing orientation underpins our focus on the customer
and their needs.
➤ A marketing orientation occurs as a result of all the people
from within our business from managing director to the
receptionist making the satisfaction of the customer needs and
wants their whole reason for being.
➤ A customer is defined as an individual who buys (and
sometimes, uses) a product or service.

12. GREETING THE CUSTOMER
➤ Experienced sales people have been heard to say that they
know exactly who their customers are — just by looking at
them: that is to say that they know just what kind of a person
the customer is and how much they can afford to spend.

13. APPEARANCES CAN BE DECEPTIVE!
Many years ago, a strange-looking character could often be seen walking around a
provincial town. On hot and cold days, he could be seen wearing a thick tweed coat on
one shoulder but off the other and dragging the rest behind him. His unkempt
appearance led many people to believe that he should be avoided.
One day this man walked into a menswear shop and the staff were very surprised
when he requested a white shirt — in an extremely cultured voice! That surprise was
all the greater when he asked to pay by cheque. In the days before credit cards, a
common form of identity was requested (e.g, driving licence) and the customer offered
share certificates in Rolls Royce. The shop manager sanctioned the cheque, and as
the customer departed he asked the assistant the correct time. Having been told the
time, the customer responded by saying: “They will be back soon!” (It transpired that
the man had been an army officer and had suffered nervous trouble ever since losing a
contingent of his men after sending them out on a mission, and that this accounted for
his usual appearance and behaviour.)
Appearance can be very deceptive. This customer was highly educated and entirely
trustworthy when it came to paying the bill.

14. CUSTOMER MOTIVATION
➤ Motivation is an inner drive that reflects goal-directed arousal. In a
consumer behaviour context, the results is a desire for a product,
service, or experience.
➤ It is the drive to satisfy needs and wants, both physiological and
psychological, through the purchase and use of products and services
➤ Five stages of the motivation process:
1. Latent need
2. Drive
3. Want or desire
4. Goal
5. Behaviour

15. EXAMPLE :
➤ A customer wears rarely worn shoes and unwittingly, steps in a
puddle. Moments later, she realises that one of her shoes has a
hole in it, and that her foot is now wet.
➤ It happens that just around the corner, there is an attractive shoe
shop and so, this time around, she pauses on her way past to
look in the window to see if anything catches her eye.
➤ Sure enough, her attention is caught by an ideal shoe style, at
just the right price. Here is an example of customer's interest
being aroused — initially because the need arose for new
shoes.
➤ This is a motivating need, i.e. it drove her to take some action.

16. CUSTOMER NEEDS, WANTS AND EXPECTATIONS!

17. SEEKING INFORMATION
➤Now that the customer has identified her need, she needs
some crucial information about those particular pair of shoes
and that can only be discovered by going to the store. So the
customer’s next step is seeking information
➤At this point, the customer is still uncommitted to the purchase
and wants to only assure herself that the shoes are/are not
what she expected.
Customers seeking information may need patient and careful handling;
remember that they are probably nervous about becoming to
committed too early and need space and time to arrive at their own
decision.

18. BODY LANGUAGE
Do all these points apply to all customers? The identification of motivating needs
and the search for information applies to most people. However, the customer’s
timing might vary a good deal. For example, the wet-footed customer might be
about to embark on a shopping survey around your town which will involve a
good deal of walking, so the purchase now becomes a “disaster purchase”.
Provided the shoes are comfortable and are reasonably business-like, the
customer will most likely buy them.
How can we tell?
As human “animals” we behave in fairly predictable ways and give off “signals”
in our body language. Many visitors are not even aware that they are doing this
but a skilled sales person will be able to “read” the signals sent and act
accordingly to provide the right level of service.

20. WHAT TO LOOK FOR
Body language can be categorized into the following
groups
•POSTURE
•MOVEMENT
•EYE CONTACT
•TOUCH
•FACIAL EXPRESSION
•GESTURES
•APPEARANCE
•NON-VERBAL SPEECH

21. POSTURE
➤ A great deal of information can be revealed from the ways in
which people might stand, sit or walk.
➤ Our inner feelings may vary from elation and excitement to
downright depression and dismay and our body posture may
reveal some of these feelings.

22. Your posture will also be read by your customers. They may not be too impressed if you
pose leaning against the fixtures. This might be read as a “don’t care less” attitude.

23. MOVEMENT AND SPACE
Visitor’s need to be given time and space — especially those who want to
browse around the merchandise. Positive customers who have a definite
purchase in mind will probably show their feelings by making a direct approach
to the sales person open with a direct question or statement:
“Do you have any …?”
“I would like to see one of those …. in the window.”
Most others are looking for information about their potential purchase and, if the
assistant is too positive, the customer may think them to be forward or pushy.
So, it is important not to crowd the customer. Greeting politely is one thing, but
rushing up close to the customer is quite another.

24. EYE CONTACT
Eye contact — or the lack of it — can be misread as untrustworthy and that our ability to maintain
strong eye contact can be most influential when dealing with customers.
However, our eyes can be most expressive.
For example, surprise can be readily identified when we open our ye wider and, if this is
accompanied by a smile the surprise can be read as a pleasant one. So, what if the customer is a
trifle disappointed with the product displayed in the window now it cam be seen in close-up? Eyes
narrowing or slightly closed, could be signals of disappointment and losing interest.

25. FACIAL EXPRESSION
We are all very sensitive to facial expression and find ourself trying to read another
person’s thoughts through their expressions. With some people this is easy. They
are extremely “open” people and react quickly to situations with smiles, frowns,
puzzlement, surprise and so on. The most sensitive part of the phase in conveying
expression is the eyebrows and they often reveal inner thoughts more quickly than
our mouths. (Some people are ultra cautious when it comes to conveying smiles
incase the signal is misread as over friendly).
After eye contact, facial expression is the most powerful method of conveying
feelings to another person. Skilful sales people control their negative feelings and
try always to project a positive, likeable, extrovert image to customers (even when
they really feel like frowning or scowling).

26. Facial Expressions

27. GESTURES
As we have seen, many people “talk” with their hands and bodies and the experienced sales
person quickly learns to interpret these messages. We could categorise the common gestures
as follows:
•Openness — A customer who’s attempting to convince you about something he or she is
saying may accompany their speech with open handed gestures. This is really saying ‘I have
nothing to hide’.
•Anger and aggression — Complaining customers may be angry and an obvious giveaway is
the way in which their hands may shake or are even clenched.
•Personal discomfort — Customers may feel physical discomfort as a result of temperature
changes; this is often noticeable in the winter, when the heating is turned up inside the
business to benefit staff who may choose to wear rather less than they would outside.
Customers with outdoor clothes on may become very hot and you may notice them constantly
wiping their foreheads. This level of discomfort may discourage customers from spending time
trying on clothes or spending much time in the business at all.

28. APPEARANCE
➤ Many mistakes have been made in trying to assess customers
from these “signals”.
➤ Appearances will probably tell us what the customer’s choice
of clothing to wear on that particular day is, but not very much
about the individuals taste, needs or interests in this particular
shopping endeavour.

29. NON-VERBAL SPEECH
Customers may use a lot of nonverbal speech and this can also convey their inner
thoughts. For example, a person who sighs a lot may be expressing frustration
(could they be in a hurry, or perhaps they are irritated by the sales person’s
presentation?). People sometimes grunt or make noises like ‘Mmm’; they might
also use simple words to indicate they are listening — but not much more. For
example, responses like “Yes”, “Right” or “I see” may not progress the sale very far
but they may indicate that the customer is listening to you. Complete silence, by
contrast, can be quite disconcerting and experienced sales people can feel most
uncomfortable if the customer goes silent. As a result they sales person may simple
babble on and on until the customer gets bored and leaves.
Customers sometimes use the silence method to encourage the sales person to
create special offers, just to close the sale.

30. DIAGNOSING CUSTOMER NEEDS
The skilled sales person has to “qualify the customer” — i.e. probing the
customer’s likes and dislikes, desire and preferences so that he or she can
steer the customer towards a selection. This process can be quite lengthy,
especially with customers who find it difficult to decide what they like or
have a mental picture of their desired merchandise but find it difficult to
describe it. This stage is called “Diagnosing Customer Need”
Here are the skills needed by the sales persons :

31. THE APPROACH

32. When we visit our doctor, what happens? After the initial greeting — something like “How can I help
you?” — you may have given the doctor a brief description of some ailment or the other. The doctor will
probably have listened actively to your situation (giving you plenty of eye contact and nodding and
responding with “I see” or “Yes” to show that he or she understood) and tried to discover more
information to narrow down the possible causes of your discomfort.
Many customers need a similar approach. While they are interested enough to come into business in the
first instance, they are not sure what they want — and, even, when they see it, they might change their
minds. This does not mean that they will lose interest in buying anything: with the sales person’s careful
help and guidance they may choose another option and a sale may still result!
As a customer, how many times have we had a purchase in mind and, when we have seen the product
close to (or tried it on), decided that it does not suit us? Sometimes customers only have to see
themselves in the mirror to see that the product is unsuitable and sometimes this realisation comes as a
result of some friendly advice from the customer’s partner or friend (and it might also be through the
sales person’s advice).
Many customers may think they know what they want, but they may actually need something different.

33. UNDERSTANDING OF CUSTOMER MOTIVATION

34. Various approaches have been used to describe buying motives. People are influenced by different
things and, while every customer should be treated as an individuals many are motivated by similar
thing.
There are 5 levels of customer motivation :
1.INTRINSIC OR PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
2.SAFETY AND SECURITY NEEDS
3.SOCIAL OR LOVE AND BELONGING NEEDS
4.SELF ESTEEM NEEDS
5.SELF ACTUALISATION

35. QUESTIONING SKILLS

36. PRICE
There are two schools of thought about establishing a customer’s “price bracket” for a purchase: The assumptive
approach and the factual approach.
THE ASSUMPTIVE APPROACH
This approach works best with smaller value purchases and for businesses whose price levels are well known in
the community. The sales person does not involve the customer in any discussion of price until after specific
products or services have been presented and described. In other words, the customer is assumed to have the
money to be able to afford the products and services available in the business and, all other things being equal, can
be persuaded to spend the money. In reality, customers will normally state if they are concerned or unhappy about
price levels and this gives the sales person the opportunity to justify the product against the customer’s expectations
which were discovered earlier.
THE FACTUAL APPROACH
In other circumstances (such as high-value purchases) it may be preferable to involve customers in the price
discussion and a simple question will draw out their preferences. For example, you could ask:
“Would you be comfortable with a price somewhere between $x and $y?”
The advantage of this question is that it discourages the customer from focusing on the lowest price and opens up
the possibility of exploring different values and qualities in the product presentation.

37. LISTENING SKILLS
There is little point in asking questions if we do not understand what to do with the answers. For a start, it is
vital to listen to your customers — a most obvious task but one which is easier said than done. We are taught
to speak at a very early age but few people are actually taught how to listen.

38. REASONS FOR POOR LISTENING
➤ HASTY CONCLUSIONS
➤ DREAMING
➤ SELECTIVE LISTENING
➤ INTERRUPTING

39. DREAMING

40. REVIEW OF CUSTOMER HANDLING SKILLS
GOOD HANDLING

41. BAD HANDLING

42. SHOPPING BEHAVIOUR
Shopping is the act of identifying the store and purchasing the product. This behaviour of shoppers
differs according to the place where they are shopping and their involvement level with the act of
shopping. Shopping is a function of the nature of the product, the degree of perceived risk inherent in the
product class, and the level of knowledge or amount of information about alternatives. Observations of
shopper behavior in the store show that every purchase involves part or the whole of a process that
follows a consistent pattern of see-touch-sense-select.
Different shopping behaviors have been classified into three categories.
Blinkered Mode -- In this mode, shopping is very automatic. It is characterised by shoppers confidently
and efficiently zooming in on familiar brands, with no time or interest in logical label reading or studying
product attributes. This mode is typically observed in case of low involvement categories and high repeat
purchases.
Magpie Mode -- In the 'magpie' mode, the shopper allows himself/herself to be distracted and attracted
by different brands on display. This mode is associated with situations where the shopper is seeking a
change or a treat. This mode can be observed at food or fixture stores.
Browser Mode -- The 'browser' mode finds the shopper behaving more rationally, reading the 'back of
pack' copy and invariably comparing prices, ingredients, and seeking more information about product
attributes, making piece-value comparisons across various brands. This mode is typical of situations
where there is a greater perceived 'risk' associated with the brand or purchase.

43. TYPES OF SHOPPERS
1. The Expert Shopper
“I know exactly what I want!”
This is the Expert Shopper’s battle cry. They’ve already educated themselves and know exactly
what they want. They will go straight to your search box, type in what they want and
confidently pick out their fitting result.
Expert Shoppers are product-focused. They know exactly which product they want, and if it’s
not easy to find with you – they’ll go somewhere else.
What to offer The Expert Shopper:
➤Effective search function that is fault-tolerant. Auto complete function that supports searching
by product name or product id are some examples for this.
➤Fast and easy checkout with multiple payment options.
➤Don’t ask for too many details. Keep it simple, especially during checkout.

44. 2. The Lister
“I know which features I want!”
The Lister. They know what they want their product to do, they just don’t know which product does it.
These shoppers are the cross-over between The Expert and The Browser.
Listers are clearly feature-focused. If a Lister is looking for a camera, he or she will know that it
should work in a variety of lighting conditions, have a certain zoom range and be within a certain
price range. Of course, many cameras fall into this description.
Your job, is to make sure they can find the product that comes with the required features and allows
them to pick the best one for them – quickly.
What to offer The Lister:
➤Meaningful filters that allow the shopper to reduce their options effectively.
➤Quick way to compare several products and relevant features easily.
➤Clear and intuitive product details and pages.
➤A product advisor that’ll allow them to switch between expert-mode and novice-mode.
➤The one key to remember with the Lister is that their mind is not made up. If you fail to help them
narrow down what they want to a small and easily comparable list, they will not purchase from you.
They’re too undecided. Take them to certainty.

45. 3. The Browser
“I know you’ll inspire me!”
The Browser is someone with no clear direction of where to go next. They begin to browse, as
a past-time activity, trusting that your store will show them what they really like and want.
Browsers are benefit-focused, meaning they’re looking at their purchases with “how will this
improve my quality of life?” in mind. Shopping is an emotive experience for them.
➤What to offer The Browser:
➤Personalised, lean-back experiences that are tied to their purchase history and real-time
behaviour to let them discover products they’ll like.
➤Large, high-quality product pictures that trigger their emotions.
➤Quick-view options that allows them to take a better look at products quickly but doesn’t
disrupt their browsing sessions.
➤Clear and transparent review ratings for products, to show them how others used or enjoyed
certain products.
➤You need to make sure that they’re seeing the personal value in the products that are being
offered.

46. 4. The Novice
“I don’t know … can you advise me?”
The Novice. This is the shopper type you’ll be seeing most frequently, no matter what industry
you’re in or which products you sell. They make up the majority of your audience as a whole,
and they’re the ones that should drive your overall customer experience innovations.
They’re your first-time visitors. They arrive at your store without knowing what they want
exactly and if you have what they need.
Generally, they know their needs and the problem they want to solve, but don’t have a clear
track of preferences to judge. Novice shoppers are pretty vulnerable to choice overload. With
the right approach and by offering the expert advice they need, you can make them feel
confident enough to make a choice.
What to offer The Novice:
➤Expert product advice – Product advisors that ask relevant and easy-to-answer questions.
➤Individual and need-oriented recommendations.
➤Comprehensive information to understand USPs, features and their benefits.

47. CONCLUSION
Building the right customer relationships is essential for any organisation. It not only
increases trust and loyalty, which will result in more repeat business, but also can lead
to customers recommending you to their friends or colleagues.
The most successful businesses have a customer-first mentality ingrained into their
company culture
Knowing your customer inside out is key. Before you do anything with your business,
go on a journey of discovery about your hero customer. Be relentless about finding –
and understanding – your target audience and zero in on your hero customer.
Research everything you possibly can about them; what makes them tick, how do they
measure success, what are their pain points, and how does your solution make their
lives easier and make or save them money?
Taking the time to really get to know your customer and understanding what makes
them tick will stand you in good stead when trying to reach your business goal

48. REFERENCES
1.Danziger, N Pamela. Shopping: Why We Love It and How Retailers Can Create the Ultimate
Customer Experience. Kaplan Publishing, 2006. Print.
2.Fleming, Peter. Retail Selling: How to Achieve Maximum Sales in Shops and Stores,
Management Books, 2000. Print.
3.Sinha, Piyush & Uniyal Dwarika. Managing Retailing: Text and Cases, Oxford University Press
India, 2007. Print
4.Singh, Kuldeep. Retail Management in New Dimension, Global Vision Publishing House, 2011.
Print.
5.Skellett, Colin. ‘Understanding and meeting the needs of our customers.’ Managing Service
Quality: An International Journal, Vol. 5(4),(1995):22-24. Web.
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/09604529510796467
6.Underhill, Paco. Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping, Simon and Schuster, 2009. Print.
7.Vedamani, G Gibson. Retail Management, Jaico Publishing House, 2003. Print.

49. THANK YOU!