The Ultimate Guide to Consumer Behavior Surveys

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The Ultimate Guide to Consumer Behavior Surveys Data Cleansing
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Every customer has a unique set of buying patterns, thus businesses must understand consumer’s behavior towards your product offering, before launching them on the market.  The customer behavior questionnaire lets you gauge the success or failure of your product and business by uncovering the reason or motivation behind their behavior.

So let’s learn about what consumer behavior is and what are the benefits of conducting customer behavior surveys!

What is a consumer behavior survey?

In a consumer behavior survey, a company asks questions to customers concerning current preferences and potential future purchases of a product. The survey also asks about the earning potential and general opinions on the product to get the customer’s perspective.

It gives you clear guidance on how to improve your products and services, which products would be well accepted in the market, and also reach out to potential customers by comprehending the areas for improvement.

So as we have learnt what consumer survey behavior is, now let us learn about different types of consumer behavior.

What are the different types of consumer behavior?

There are four different forms of consumer behavior: 

  1. Complex buying behavior
  2. Dissonance reduction
  3. Variety seeking
  4. Habitual buying behavior

The kind of product a consumer needs, their level of engagement, and the variations between companies all influence the many types of consumer behavior. Let’s look at each of these types in detail.

1. Complex buying behavior

Consumers often exhibit complex buying behavior while purchasing expensive goods. 

When purchasing a costly product or a product they are unfamiliar with, consumers respond quite differently. They seek advice from friends, family, and professionals before purchasing an unknown or expensive product. 

For instance, when a consumer purchases a car for the first time, it is a significant decision because it carries a high level of financial risk. A lot of consideration is given to how it seems, how his friends and family will respond, how his social status would alter after purchasing the car, and other factors.

A learning process will be included for the buyer in complex buying behavior. They will first form opinions about the product, then attitudes, and finally a deliberate decision to buy.

A consumer behavior survey with help you gain a deepr understand of customers with complex buying habits. It will help you assist the customer in influencing their decision by crafting personlaized messages.

Customers' shopping attitude is the key driver behind the actions that they take while purchasing a product/ service, be it online or offline.

Download our FREE guide to learn how uncovering customer’s buying attitude can help boost ROI.

2. Dissonance reduction

Dissonance, or dissatisfaction, can occur when the consumer is worried that they would regret the decision if it turns out that the same product is offered by a different brand in higher quality and affordable price.

Such conduct is largely focused on eliminating post-purchase dissonance, because of the dissatisfaction caused by previous purchases.

Because of this, the consumer is very invested in making the purchase but finds it challenging to distinguish between the products supplied by various companies. There is also a limited selection, which also influences decision-making. Before making the final purchase, they gather information from many sources, compare, and assess the choices.

Factors such as price, specifications, availability, and convenience also affects your customer’s behavior.

3. Variety seeking behavior

Customers who are looking for variety often don’t have a particular brand in mind when they enter a store. As a result, people eventually test out various things to learn something new. Typically, they make their opinions on these things after buying them. 

These buyers cannot be regarded as devoted customers either because they will not stick with a single product. Consumer behavior survey can help you identify these customers so you can decide if you want to prioritize them and how you want to cater to them. 

4. Habitual buying behavior

The first thing to remember is that habitual buying is more about meeting a need than spending too much time choosing a brand. Customers will therefore buy something right away without doing any investigation. This is so because their choice to buy an item is based more on their interactions with the product than with the corporation.

For instance, if they are accustomed to purchasing a particular bottle of ketchup, they will continue to do so because they like the taste.

Next we would get to know about the factors that affect customer behavior.

What factors affect consumer behavior?

Understanding consumer motivations can help you influence consumers in specific ways. Use consumer behavior surveys to identify the factors affecting their behavior. 

For example, if your target market is heavily influenced by economic factors and believes that the price of your product is excessive, your company must educate consumers on the value of your product. Instead of lowering your price, you can create campaigns that show how much money your customers save by purchasing your product.

We have listed 5 factors affecting customer behavior.

1. Economic factors: Elements such as a product’s price, the consumer’s income, and the comparison to competing products can all influence how consumers behave. 

For example, if your product costs $500 and is compared to competitive products that cost $600, consumers may perceive your product to be more favorable than if it is compared to products that cost $300.

2. Social factors: Personal values, culture, societal values, social class, educational class, and lifestyle may all influence how your products are perceived by your customers. 

3. Anthropological factors: A person’s history, geographic location, and climate can all influence how they interact with brands. 

Companies that are known to drive farmers out of business, for example, may not be viewed favorably in a country with a long history of farming.

4. Psychological factors: A consumer’s understanding of your company, brand, and marketing campaign will influence how they behave toward your company. 

For example, your campaign slogan may appear offensive to some while completely harmless to others.

5. Personal need factors: If a consumer does not believe they require or want your product, they will not purchase it, even if they have the money and societal support to do so.

 Businesses cannot influence a consumer’s decision to buy or not buy something. They can, however, work to demonstrate why they require such a product in their lives.

Gather data from customers to understand which of these factors motivate their buying decision. By identifying the factor you can design the best action plan to identify your potential market and cater to them.

Walmart exapnads Online Grocery PickUp service and increased product variety to 7000 using customer feedback.

What are the benefits of conducting a consumer behavior survey?

Here’s how conducting a consumer behavior survey can help you with your overall marketing strategy.

1. Aids in the refinement of marketing strategy analytics

When it comes to marketing decisions, analytics can help you determine if your strategies are helping to propel your company forward. If you are a SaaS company investigating the performance of your display ads, website content, and search ads can reveal a great deal about what your customers are interested in.

In addition, your website’s analytics show how consumer behavior affects search engine optimization. Consumer behavior research is essential for determining whether your customers are positively responding to what you want to market.

2. Increases Your Understanding of Globalization

If you decide to sell your products or services in non-domestic markets, you must first understand consumer behavior. Furthermore, conducting marketing research on people from different cultural backgrounds is critical for your business. 

This demonstrates whether your product or service best serves the cultural norms and values of a specific country. Including consumer behavior sureys in your marketing strategy will set you apart from the competition.

3. Maintain Customer Satisfaction

Customer behavior surveys help you understand the expectations your customers have and help you ensure a consistent experience. 

The fact that the deal has been signed and the purchase has been completed does not mean that your work here is finished. Your customer still needs and expects guidance when making a purchase, especially when shopping online. 

  • When will they receive their product? 
  • Is your customer service department ready to handle any complaints or returns? 
  • Is there a manual available that describes how to assemble and/or use the product? 

These are some of the considerations you should make to ensure customer satisfaction. Customers’ needs and expectations are just as important after the purchase as they are before it.

In the previous part  we learnt about the benefits of conducting customer behavior surveys but do you know what kind of questions should be there in customer behavior surveys? So in the next section we would talk about questions that you can use in customer behavior surveys.

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What are customer behavior survey questions?

Every question in a consumer behavior survey can be related to any of the factors mentioned above. So, here are the example questions that you can ask in a survey of consumer behavior:

The questions are divided based on 5 stages of the consumer’s journey: awareness, consideration, purchase, usage, and feedback.

1. Awareness

  • What is the first brand that comes to mind when you think of [Product]?
  • Can you explain why?
  • Are you familiar with [product name]?

2. Consideration

  • What issues are you attempting to address with [product name]?
  • What are your thoughts on our brand as a solution?
  • What would entice you to purchase our brand?

3. Purchase

  • How frequently do you purchase [product name]?
  • Where do you go when you need [product name]?
  • Could you please tell us how much you normally spend on it?

4. Usage

  • What are the three main reasons you chose to use this?
  • How often do you use this product?
  • What do you intend to do with our product? You have several options. 

5. Feedback

  • Write three words that describe the product.
  • Have you encountered any issues with the product thus far?
  • How did you attempt to resolve it? (Customer service, self-help, and so on)

Conclusion

Consumer behavior surveys are unquestionably one of the most important tools for businesses looking to retain customers and expand their market share. Avoid leading questions and other types of questions with inherent biases to get the best data from your consumer survey.

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