“The word happiness would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness”- Carl Jung
Customer satisfaction, customer delight, and Net Promoter’s Score are useful concepts. However, the new age of marketing is ushering in unexpected possibilities and challenges that will not be addressed by conventional paradigms. At the outset, customer rage is a combination of bad product or service experience, frustration and the sensation of social media. While marketers cannot control consumer rage, they can use a combination of techniques to ensure that the brand authenticity and credibility developed over time does not get impacted by such episodes.
*A frustrated consumer of an electric two-wheeler had burnt his vehicle in front of the brand’s showroom, impacting the brand and giving it publicity of the negative kind.
These may be, at present, one-off incidents but have volcanic potential to erupt unexpectedly when brands are busy with their initiatives to sell the brand. It should be noted that consumer rage may or may not be due to brand transgressions. The powerful histrionics of consumer rage (in this age of social media) can impact a brand despite its record of consumer satisfaction and grievance redressal .
Capturing consumers’ pulse end-to-end
Several social media monitoring platforms have tried to address capturing customer sentiments across social platforms. However, they are restricted to social media platforms only. Marketing departments need a distinct function (a.k.a VOC- Voice of the Customer or Customer Pulse) to ensure consumers’ perceptions about a brand are captured not just based on surveys and discussions but on actual experiences or conversations. These may occur at showrooms, in usage situations, in conversations across social media platforms or through consumer advocacy/ word of mouth about the brand(offline or online). Word of mouth as a concept is nothing new; its application and usage in a rapidly changing context offers a new perspective. The customer pulse function should be responsible for ensuring the pulse of the consumer is diffused internally across the functional areas, as the initiative is just not isolated to marketing area. Pre-purchase expectations
Brands can provide value at a higher or lower price point. It may also provide value with a specific life-stage need that the brand fulfills. Suppose an electric two-wheeler charges a premium price, or there are associated expenses with charging costs, etc., it is important that the consumer is aware of such aspects as they affect the perceived value (tangible aspects) of the offering . From the literature on consumer behavior, the brain has a reward system associated with the brand’s value. It is based on one’s associative experience with the brand (could be at the point of purchase, friend’s usage experience, the selling pitch by the channel, advertisements and word of mouth).
The brain also has a part known as the ‘insula’ associated with pain, and price is the pain factor. Hence, the pleasure aspect (reward) and the pain aspect (price or service expectation) decide the outcome or the value perception associated with the brand. While value includes both intangible and tangible elements, brands must communicate and demonstrate tangible value, especially with categories that rank high on tangible features /benefits.
Prof. Nick Chater points out that consumers have no idea about the value of any object, product or service. They draw inferences only from the comparison of similar things. In a country like India, where hard-earned money is put into safe savings instruments, it becomes essential for brands to communicate their value to overcome the feeling of insecurity and perceived lack of safety, with respect to their life savings.
Post purchase reassurance
Consumers may experience cognitive dissonance after buying the brand in most categories, like consumer durables, for instance. The psychological discomfort experienced by a consumer after the purchase of a brand due to the equally good alternatives missed out by him /her is referred to as cognitive dissonance. This behavioral reaction may be triggered due to individual psychological makeup not explained in this article and only some consumers may experience it. However, given the similarity of features benefits across brands in several categories, marketers may have to consider cognitive dissonance when they view post purchase behavior of consumers. The intense feeling of regret after the purchase of a brand (generally in the purchase of brands that involve investment, ego and effort in purchasing them, especially in a country like India that is known for instalment payments of high value categories) can create frustration with respect to some consumers. As a brand’s consumer base gets enlarged, it needs to prepare itself to address cognitive dissonance. From the marketer’s perspective, cognitive dissonance can be addressed by considering tangible features and benefits; they have little control over individual centric inner mechanisms associated with such dissonance.
A brand needs to think of ‘value-benefit reinforcement’ digital campaigns aimed at consumers who purchased the brand with reassurances about the brand’s experiences and benefits. “Oh, what a feeling” was the ad of a Toyota Corolla brand that was aimed at reassuring consumers and reducing cognitive dissonance.
AI and MarTech can be used as appropriate
An article on AI and marketing strategy that appeared in HBR (2021) suggests the usage of AI in every stage of the consumer’s decision journey. For instance, it suggests “co-browsing” where AI can direct a consumer to a human assistant to navigate the online domain as appropriate. With AI agents getting more sophisticated , brands need to use them beyond just resolution of service dissatisfaction.
Over the pre and post-purchase decision journey, capturing customer queries and expectations before the purchase of a brand, their experiences after the purchase and usage of the brand in real-time can establish authenticity and the intent of brands towards customer-centricity.
Consumers’ interactions need to be encouraged and brands need to be open to constructive criticism, with the objective of strengthening the brand. Such initiatives improve the overall brand image in the long run and exhibition of extreme consumer frustration is likely to affect the brand to a lesser extent.
The new age marketing has a clear message: Brand initiatives that combine strategic thinking with MarTech are prerequisites in this era of unpredictability.
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