Robert H Bloom highlights the Four Decisive Customer Moments - and how brands can ensure they create customer preference at these points.
Throughout the history of buying and selling, purchase has been a challenging experience for both buyers and sellers because purchase is a lengthy progression with three phases: consideration, negotiation, and transaction.
Buyers have always been in control of their consideration phase and sellers have always been in control of negotiation and transaction because they 'owned' every bit of valuable information relevant to the purchase. Today’s buyers, no longer dependent on sellers’ information, have taken control of the entire selling progression including negotiation and transaction.
In today’s buyer-dominant selling environment, customers are armed with technological firepower unavailable to any previous generation.
The new generation of internet-empowered customers uses three lethal weapons to secure the benefits they want or need from marketers and sellers of every type and size:
- Instant, comprehensive information from the internet about all products and services - online and offline.
- Immense choice in every segment – a wide variety of options and prices in every local community and from every corner of the world.
- Real-time price comparison at the moment and location of purchase using smarter-and-smarter technology and newer-and-newer apps on constantly evolving mobile devices.
All-too-many sellers do not realise that this permanent, irreversible customer transformation is a severe threat to their business.
Moreover, this unprecedented reversal of power has given birth to an even more dangerous development – this generation of 'new experts' is brand-agnostic. Here is analytical evidence: The New York Times has reported that in 2009, only 36% of business travelers were loyal and only 20% of car buyers were loyal." Customer loyalty, long in decline, has virtually disappeared in every sector of commerce.
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