<h2>What is consumer behaviour?</h2><p>Consumer behaviour is how individuals and groups make decisions to purchase, use, and dispose of products, services, ideas, or experiences. It involves examining the various factors and influences that shape a consumer's choices, including psychological, social, cultural, and economic elements.</p><h2>Why is understanding consumer behaviour important?</h2><p>By delving into consumer behaviour, you can understand who your customers are, how they behave, and why. It involves examining several key aspects, including:</p><ul><li>Demographics</li><li>Competitor interactions</li><li>Brand loyalty</li><li>Habits</li></ul><p>Understanding how consumers behave can be beneficial in many ways, including:</p><h3>Gaining insights into competitors</h3><p>By looking at how consumers interact with your competitors' products or services, you can uncover their strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge empowers your business to strategically position itself in the market, identifying areas where you can outperform competitors and target unmet customer needs.</p><p>For example, if you're in the smartphone industry and you notice competitor reviews of customers wanting longer battery life, you can focus on developing phones with exceptional battery performance. By aligning your product with this specific customer preference, you can capture their attention in a crowded market.</p><h3>Improving customer satisfaction</h3><p>By identifying customer pain points, preferences, and expectations, you can address them and improve their overall experience with your products or services. This heightened satisfaction not only leads to loyalty but also encourages repeat business and even <a href="https://www.feefo.com/us/business/resources/customer-retention/guide-to-brand-advocacy" target="_self">brand advocacy</a>. When customers consistently receive what they need, they're more likely to choose your brand over competitors, return for future purchases, and even recommend your products or services to others. </p><h3>Targeted marketing campaigns</h3><p>By segmenting your audience based on their behaviour and interests, you can create more personalised and relevant marketing messages that resonate with potential customers.</p><p>This personalised approach to content, recommendations or offers not only increases customer loyalty and retention but also fosters a deeper connection between you and your customers. </p><h3>Reducing wasteful spending</h3><p>Understanding consumer behaviour allows businesses to allocate their resources more efficiently by directing marketing efforts toward channels and strategies that align with consumer preferences. This minimises wasteful spending on ineffective campaigns, ultimately optimising the return on investment. </p><p>For example, if a makeup company identifies that its target audience prefers social media influencers for product recommendations, it can allocate a larger portion of its marketing budget to influencer partnerships.</p><p>To learn more, read our guide on <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-retention/consumer-insights" target="_self">how to succeed with customer insights</a>.</p><h2>The four types of consumer behaviour</h2><p>Here’s a breakdown of the four types of consumer buying behaviour and their implications for businesses.</p><p><p>1. Habitual buying behaviour</p></p><p>Habitual buying means repeatedly buying a particular product or service without much thought or consideration. Common examples include everyday items like toothpaste or laundry detergent. Consumers typically stick to familiar brands or products, making quick and automatic purchase decisions. </p><p>There isn't much brand loyalty involved, as consumers often choose based on convenience and familiarity rather than a strong attachment to a specific brand.</p><p>2. Variety-seeking buying behaviour</p><p>Variety-seeking behaviour happens when consumers actively look for new and different products or services. They enjoy trying out various options and might switch between brands or products frequently. For instance, they might want to try a new crisp flavour or a different brand of smartphone.</p><p>For businesses, this behaviour suggests the need to innovate, introduce new offerings, and create marketing campaigns that attract consumers looking for novelty and variety.</p><p>3. Complex buying behaviour</p><p>Complex buying behaviour is characteristic of situations where consumers face significant purchase decisions that involve high levels of risk or investment. It often occurs when buying expensive products like cars, houses, or advanced technology. Consumers usually undertake extensive research, evaluate multiple options, and consider various factors, like features, pricing, and reviews, before making a decision.</p><p>Businesses encountering complex buying behaviour should focus on providing detailed information, showcasing reviews to build trust, and offering exceptional customer support.</p><p>4. Dissonance-reducing buying behaviour</p><p>Dissonance-reducing behaviour frequently comes into play when consumers begin to feel a bit uncertain or regretful after making a significant purchase. To ease those feelings, they look for reassurance and validation. They might chat with friends, read reviews, or do some extra research to confirm that they made the right choice.</p><p>Businesses may offer warranties or return policies to help ease customer doubts and build trust in their decision. Providing transparent information, like reviews and detailed product descriptions, can also help with this.</p><h2>What influences consumer behaviour?</h2><p>There are many factors that drive consumer behaviour, the main ones being: </p><h3>Personal interests</h3><p>People often gravitate toward products, services, ideas, or experiences that match their personal preferences. </p><p>For example, when exposed to an advertisement for a new camera lens, a photography enthusiast is more likely to make a purchase compared to someone who has never owned a camera.</p><h3>Age</h3><p>Age is a crucial determinant of consumer behaviour, playing a pivotal role in shaping how individuals and groups make choices when buying, using, or disposing of various offerings. </p><p>For instance, <a href="https://www.marketingdive.com/news/gen-z-relies-on-influencers-for-purchase-decisions-kantar-says/582890/" target="_blank">research</a> found that 44% of Generation Z consumers have made purchase decisions based on social influencer recommendations, compared to 26% of other age groups. Therefore, if Generation Z is your target audience, influencer marketing is likely to be particularly effective.</p><h3>Income</h3><p>Income levels are a fundamental component of consumer behaviour as they determine purchasing power and accessibility to different products and services. </p><p>Someone with limited expendable income may tend to exhibit complex or dissonance-reducing buying patterns, which involve more extensive research or occasional post-purchase regrets. In contrast, individuals with higher incomes often have the financial freedom to make more impulsive or diverse purchase decisions.</p><h3>Group influence</h3><p>The opinions of the people around us, like friends, family members, and even colleagues at work, can significantly influence our buying decisions. In fact, <a href="https://www.junglescout.com/consumer-trends/" target="_blank">Jungle Scout</a> found that 56% of consumers are influenced by posts shared by friends and family.</p><p>For example, when someone is planning to buy a new smartphone, their friend's positive experience with a particular brand or model might sway their choice.</p><h2>How reviews impact customer behaviour</h2><p>Reviews are a powerful tool in shaping purchasing decisions, as they provide authentic insights into products, services, and brands. Positive reviews can instil confidence and trust in potential customers, steering them toward making a purchase. In fact, research by <a href="https://www.dixa.com/blog/3-important-statistics-that-show-how-reviews-influence-consumers/" target="_blank">Dixa</a> discovered that 93% of customers will read online reviews before making a purchase. </p><p>Conversely, negative reviews can deter prospective buyers and redirect them to alternatives. <a href="https://www.nosto.com/blog/consumer-behavior-stats/" target="_blank">Nosto</a> found nearly 58% of people won't purchase from an eCommerce store if it doesn't display customer reviews. This is even more significant with Gen Z (64%) and millennials (60%).</p><p>At Feefo, we provide businesses with verified reviews, ensuring that potential customers know they come from people who have genuinely experienced your product or service. According to the <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/customer-retention/consumer-trends" target="_self">Feefo Consumer Report 2019</a>, 50% of consumers are more likely to trust a brand with authenticated reviews. </p><p>Read our guide on <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/resources/business-insights/what-makes-a-review-verified-and-why-it-matters" target="_self">what makes a review verified and why it matters</a> to learn more.</p><h2>Start collecting customer feedback with Feefo</h2><p>To learn more about how Feefo reviews can support your business and enhance your digital advertising efforts, <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/enquiry/get-in-touch" target="_self">get in touch</a> with our team of experts today. </p>

If you want a demo of how Feefo could work for you, or discuss our solutions and opportunities further, get in touch and one of our friendly team will be happy to answer any queries.

Interested in learning more about Feefo?

Start collecting trusted reviews with Feefo 

<p>Reviews are just the beginning. At Feefo, we build lasting relationships with brands around the world who choose us to help translate customer feedback into actionable insight.&nbsp;</p>

<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Fill out your details below and one of our friendly experts will be in touch to show you around Feefo.</strong></p>

At Feefo, we help you choose with confidence because behind every right decision is a reliable review. 

Increase sales and boost conversion rates

Reach new audiences and improve your brand reputation

Drive traffic to your site and grow new consumer confidence 

Why Feefo

Get in touch

The importance of understanding consumer behaviour for business insights

The_Importance_of_Understanding_Consumer_Behaviour_hero-min.png

<p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>So, why are we now talking about recency? Isn’t it enough that everyone is collecting, displaying and reading reviews?&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>Well, it’s for precisely that reason that recency is becoming more important. Reviews are ubiquitous, and while the verified nature of a Feefo review makes it inherently more valuable, the amount of information that consumers have access to as part of their research is considerable. And while there are tools to help filter and sort the information, consumers are increasingly looking at the recency of reviews to help them make a decision.</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>We know from our own research that 44% of consumers go straight to the most recent reviews. And in an ideal world, the vast majority (97%) of consumers said they would like to see reviews that are no more than one year old. Recent reviews are more psychologically compelling – and there’s even a name for it. It’s aptly called the Recency Effect – and it tells us that as consumers, we have a cognitive bias toward information that is presented last. We value recent experiences over historical patterns.</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>Is this true? I think about my own behaviour when I was in Scotland with my family last summer. One of us had a birthday, and we were searching for a restaurant.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>‘This one looks nice,’ suggested my husband.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>‘But they haven’t had a single review for three months,’ was my reply.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>‘What about this one?’ he asked tentatively.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>‘They’re&nbsp;displaying an AA rosette from three years ago, why haven’t they got a more recent one?’&nbsp;&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>Looking back now, it sounds like I was searching for reasons </span><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'><em>not</em></span><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'> to make a booking. But really, all&nbsp;I wanted was a recent recommendation or review to validate my choice.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>Our stats back this up. 64% of consumers in an industry survey said they would be more likely to buy a product with fewer recent reviews, than a product with loads of reviews older than three months. And this number jumps up when it comes to choosing a local business. 73% of consumers cite review recency as a significant factor in helping them decide which business to buy from in their local community.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>At Feefo, helping consumers to make informed buying decisions is part of our DNA. We are constantly looking at ways to improve how information is presented to shoppers, so they can access it in a way that is valuable to them. AI has a key role to play here, and I can’t wait to announce some new features and tools in 2024 that will take the Feefo platform to the next level.&nbsp;</span></p><p><span style='color:rgb(33, 33, 33);'>But for now, recency is the trusted metric that consumers are using – so for companies that rely on consumer feedback, a sustained focus on review collection is critical. If you want to collect more reviews, derive the most value from your feedback, or just need some best practice advice, you can always chat to a member of our team. We’d love to hear from you.&nbsp;</span></p>

Want to find out more about Feefo? 

Why recent reviews matter for your business

why_recent_reviews_matter_(1).png

You may also enjoy reading...

<p>Customer ratings and reviews are great at giving you a ‘snapshot’ picture of how your company is performing. They’re also an invaluable tool to help grow your business by simply letting people see what others think of you and how great your products/services are.</p><p>They’re also proven to increase sales conversions, average order value, and the performance of your paid and organic marketing activity.</p><p>Their powers stretch much further, though, and they’re worth so much more.</p><p>The content of the ratings and reviews that Feefo collects are a source of actionable business insights that can be used to take your organisation to the next level. And as Feefo only collects reviews from verified customers - people who have experienced your services or purchased your product - the data has integrity, and companies can act on the insights they give knowing they are fake-free.</p><p>Let’s take a look at examples of how ratings and review data can be used by businesses elsewhere than promoting themselves.</p><h2>Departmental collaboration and third-party negotiations</h2><p>This is an area where we’ve seen clients across several industries - from retail to travel and more - use the data and insights we’ve provided to their advantage internally. For example, a retail company used live satisfaction scores to highlight the impact of late or missed deliveries on customers to its Regional Delivery Managers, who were unaware of the problems. Mapping the satisfaction ratings against a Lifetime Value model showed the effect this would have on the business over time to reinforce the issue. A solution was put in place, the problem was solved, and satisfaction scores rose.</p><p>Review data and insights from Feefo can be used to renegotiate external suppliers’ contracts and manage their Service Level Agreements too. Plus, where two suppliers are involved, sales data and insights can be used to compare them directly, making it easier to achieve the outcome you’re looking for.</p><h2>Employee engagement</h2><p>Creating employee leaderboards. Identifying training needs. Rewarding high-performing staff and teams. Providing quantified benchmarks. These are all things Feefo enterprise clients have driven using Feefo verified customer Net Promoter Scores (NPS<sup>®</sup>), verbatim feedback, Natural Language Processing sentiment results, and review grades.</p><p>This doesn’t need to be limited to call-centre or online customer service agents either. With our Location Feedback tool, clients can collect customers’ views on their ‘in-store’ interactions with staff too.</p><h2>Sentiment - before and after a change</h2><p>If your business is planning any significant changes in how it operates, verified reviews can be a source of real-time information that lets you evaluate the impact of that change. Mapping <a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/features/nps" target="_self">NPS</a><sup>®</sup> and review scores before and after implementing the change can give a rich source of data on the commercial implications of that change - the positive or negative.</p><p>Depending on your business model, changes and their sentiment/commercial impact can be tested in isolation to subgroups before being rolled out over the whole customer base too.</p><h2>Understanding differentiation points</h2><p>Brand and service reviews collected with Feefo let businesses discover what drives customer delight and the themes and topics important to them. Often this will reinforce what was already thought. But it can challenge perceptions too and expose additional customer experience strengths and weaknesses. This data can also show what sets a company apart from its competitors so it can leverage these differentiation points to its advantage in copy and promotions - both on and offline.</p>

<h2>Product demand insights</h2><p>Review insights can help companies to decide which products to stock and sell. In turn, this lets them identify what products should be considered hero items and which shouldn’t so they can efficiently control their stock levels and warehousing.</p><h2>Refining products or their descriptions</h2><p>Verified customer feedback is an excellent source of insight for product developers and marketers - to do things like improve a product or change its description to manage customer expectations. For example, a retailer determined its second-hand electronic products were getting low scores because the product descriptions weren’t 100% clear. So, it added more details about the quality of the items and how they’d been refurbished on its catalogue pages. The product ratings increased, and that led to better conversion rates.</p><h2>Reports and solutions that can support collecting reviews to provide insight:</h2><p>Here’s a rundown of the reports and solutions that are available within the Feefo Hub you can use when gathering business insights:</p><ul><li>Product Performance: See how your whole product range is performing at a glance and the average rating per product. The tool’s AI technology automatically analyses the content of your customer feedback, helping to paint a more detailed picture of what matters to them. Its sentiment score analysis allows you to accurately measure customer opinion as well.</li><li>Service Performance: In a similar way to Product Performance, this allows you to see how you are performing in terms of service. Again, our AI and sentiment score tools help you analyse customer feedback and understand their opinions.</li><li>Feedback Breakdown: A simple breakdown of your feedback, including your current rating, the total number of reviews, and how many reviews have 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5-star ratings.</li><li>Feedback Summary: View how many reviews are coming in, as well as the star ratings.</li><li>Trends Over Time: The sentiment trend chart allows you to see how your sentiment score changes over time as you collect more feedback.</li><li>Performance Graph: The performance graph groups feedback topics into one of four quadrants - advertise, focus, monitor, and potential - so you can easily identify issues within your business and take the right action.</li><li>Reviews API: Lets you integrate your Feefo reviews seamlessly with your website and match the look and feel of your brand. It also allows you to take review content into your CRM platforms and track the metrics important to your business.</li><li>Feedback Volumes: Visibility of the amount of feedback you’ve received over specific periods.</li><li>Response Performance: See how many feedback requests are being sent out, how much feedback you’re receiving, and your response rate as a percentage.</li></ul><h3>Find out more - talk to us&nbsp;</h3><p>To discover how verified customer reviews can deliver the data and the insights you can build your business on and the tools needed to do it,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.feefo.com/uk/business/enquiry/request-a-demo" target="_self">book a demo</a>&nbsp;with one of our experts.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p><p></p>