Sales Management: Products and Services. Dr Jae K Shim

mind passes through successive stages during the buying process. These stages generally are “attention, interest, desire, action and satisfaction.” The second is the “appeal-response” or “buying-decisions” theory, which maintains that the buyer makes a number of separate decisions in response to the appeals or stimuli presented by the salesperson. The third theory is called the “problem-solution” theory. This theory states that the wants, needs, or problems of the buyer should be the salesperson’s frame of reference; and she gears her presentation to showing how her product or service will fulfill these wants or solve these problems. According to this latter theory, the salesperson does not sell a product or service but rather she sells solutions to problems. Therefore, the more benefits her product can give, the more likely she is to make the sale.

      Regardless of which theory the salesperson may accept, she should recognize that there are different theories for analyzing motivation, and new discoveries are made each year which will help her to better understand the consumer she serves.

      

Indicate whether each of the following statements “is true or false

      1.Psychologists agree that an individual generally responds more favorably to a positive appeal than a negative one.

      2.People have basic wants that are uniform for almost everyone, but they also have acquired wants that vary considerably from individual to individual.

      3.In order to determine why a customer wants a product, the salesperson has only to ask the customer directly.

      4.People always have a major reason for buying a product that is clear in their mind.

       Answer

      1.True. Salespeople are usually more successful when they stress positive benefits, such as the satisfactions received from using a product, than they are when they dwell on negative factors, such as the dangers or problems resulting from not using the product.

      2.True. An individual has certain basic wants such as approval, comfort, food, and mastery over obstacles, safety, and survival. She also has acquired or learned wants. A salesperson must determine how she can satisfy her customers’ acquired wants as well as her basic wants.

      3.False. Salespeople must realize that the reasons given by a customer for wanting a product are not necessarily the real reasons. The salesperson must look for hidden reasons in order to fully satisfy the customer’s needs.

      4.False. It is often a combination of reasons that motivate people to buy. These reasons are complex and difficult to analyze. A salesperson must be flexible and try to plan her presentation to meet the prospects’ different motives.

Perception

      Perception is an important factor affecting the behavior of consumers. It is the process of becoming aware of something through the senses of seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling, and internal sensing. In relating to her environment, each person’s needs, cultural background, past experiences, mental readiness, and motives will have an effect in determining how a given stimulus is perceived, even though the stimulus is the same in all cases. For example, a jackknife may be perceived by a youngster as a toy, by her mother as an object for possible injury, and by the minister as an instrument which promotes violence and killing. How it is perceived greatly depends upon who the perceiver is and her particular frame of reference. No two persons are likely to perceive the same stimulus in exactly the same way. Each individual sees what she wants to see, making perception a subjective and individualized process.

      Perception is also selective, for often we are unable to comprehend or interpret all the sensations that converge on the senses at any given time. When a person looks down an aisle in a supermarket, she does not see the hundreds of items that are actually present. This is because the human mind generally is unable to absorb everything at once, and it selects those items which are of immediate importance. In addition, perception is generally of short duration. When we listen to a particular piece of music, we may respond to it very strongly; but when it is ended, our attention is quickly diverted to other things, and the music fades from our minds.

      Finally, perception is a summarizing experience. Consumers receive many varying sensations and put them together into a single, meaningful whole. For example, the brand name, special features, price, and many other factors will all be considered by a consumer in deciding whether she will or will not purchase a particular product. No two persons are identical in what they see or do, and being familiar with some of the basic processes of perception will help the salesperson to relate more effectively with the customer.

Consumer attitudes

      An attitude may be loosely defined as a person’s state of mind, feeling, or disposition toward something. Such terms as belief, feeling, opinion, inclination, and bias are often used synonymously with attitude. Attitudes are also formed by a person’s personal experiences in life, influences exerted by others, and the particular environment in which she lives. Consumers are not born with a given set of attitudes, for they are developed and formed as one lives.

      Attitudes have a tendency to persist because of past experiences, agreement or harmony associations, and relating one factor with another. An illustration of conditioning by past experience would be when a person responds unfavorably to purchasing a new shirt made of a new synthetic fiber because she was dissatisfied with one previously purchased. This can happen even if the new synthetic fiber has been improved and is superior to the earlier one. Associations that are in agreement or harmony take place when the consumer responds favorably to a particular salesperson because she (the salesperson) is in agreement with the consumer’s attitude. For example, if the consumer prefers conservative clothes and the salesperson also has conservative tastes, the consumer is more likely to respond favorably to the salesperson. An example of the effect of relating one factor with another is a situation where the customer judges the whole store and all its merchandise on the basis of a single unpleasant experience with a sales clerk.

      Factors causing attitudes to change are contradictory influences, strength or intensity of the experience, multiple syndromes of circumstances, and emphasis of a particular factor. An example of an attitude changing because of contradictory influences is when a very thrifty and conservative bachelor buys an expensive, flashy car because her girlfriend liked it and he wishes to impress her.

      The strength or intensity of an experience can cause an attitude to change. An illustration of this is when a person who is completely indifferent to the dangers of smoking suddenly changes her mind because of a heart attack.

      Or the consumer may have an attitude unfavorable to the purchase of a particular product but reverses her attitude and makes such a purchase because of a multiple syndrome of circumstances. The circumstances may be that the product catches her eye, a friend strongly recommends it, almost everyone is currently using it, and she is influenced by a highly persuasive salesperson.

      Changes in an attitude can also occur when there is emphasis of a particular factor or when the consumer makers a decision to purchase on the basis of a single dominant factor which is stronger than several others combined. For example, a person may have definite attitudes regarding the brand name, color, material, and price she wishes to pay for a sport jacket but chooses one almost entirely on the basis of its style because of the attention it will attract. A change in the product or service, new ways of perceiving the product, a change in the type and/or amount of information available on the product, a change in how the product idea is communicated, and a change in the importance of the product are additional factors which can influence and change consumer attitudes.

Learning

      Another important dimension of consumer behavior is learning. There are varying definitions, but generally the essence of learning is that it involves a change in a person’s response or behavior, Human responses can either be learned or unlearned. Examples of unlearned responses are breathing, blinking your eyes, and crying. All other responses