There is no secret that when it comes to increasing the company income, boosting the sales and promoting the goods efficiently, it is crucial to take into account the customers’ behavior, which marketing mix helps not only analyze, but also provide efficient suggestions for. Before Best Buy used some of the recent approaches in marketing mix application, it was another third-rate company. However, when considering what the customers choose, what motivates them to and how the process of choice is run, Best Buy has managed to climb the top of the world’s retailer list. Developing the theory of customer centricity, which split the customers into five key types, thus, helping to predict the behavior of the majority of clients as soon as they were identified with a certain key type: “Anderson adapted the theory to try to understand the needs and behaviors of specific types of customers” (Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers p. 136).
One of the greatest advantages of the adopted approach is that it allows to shape the services according to the customers’ demands and offer each of them exactly what they need. However, it is necessary to admit that the given approach also has its downsides. Among the most obvious ones, the fact of each customer’s uniqueness is not taken into account. For the approach to be more individual and customer-focused, there have to be more customer types, since some of the clients might not fall into any of the categories. According to what Kotler and Keller claim, the segmentation strategy must be much more complicated and include such elements as geographic segmentation, density, climate, age, family size, income, occupation, education, etc. (Kotler and Keller 214-215).
Men’s and women’s consumer behavior in a Best Buy Store
As it has been specified above, gender is one of the key factors in customer segmentation process. As the case study results show, “men ‘typically love technology’” (Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers 136), whereas women search for “a knowledgeable person who can answer their questions in a simple manner” (Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers 136). Therein lies the difference between a male and a female style of shopping.
As the case study shows, men and women have quite different ideas of what kind of services they want to have at Best Buy. Therefore, women’s objective and subjective evaluative criteria of the product quality are rather specific when compared to the ones of men. As for the objective evaluative criteria which women are guided by when buying electronic devices, the research shows that women prefer that the shop assistant should be knowledgeable enough and display decent skills in operating the devices which (s)he sells. Therefore, women’s system of objective evaluations comes from what the shop assistant says.
However, the subjective evaluation system which women resort to when shopping for electronic devices comes from quite the same source – the shop assistant and his skills. As the case study says, typically, very few women rely on their knowledge and skills in electronics, preferring someone to explain them how the device is operated. Therefore, the level of certainty with which the shop assistant speaks is essential. In addition, it seems that women trust female shop assistants ore when buying technical appliance; According to the research results, “Best Bu began to implement many changes that would make Best Buy the place for women to shop (and work!)” (Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers 136).
According to what the case study says, “In the future Best Buy’s customer centricity efforts will continue to focus on understanding consumer behavior and improving the customer experience” (Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers 137). Indeed, as it has been stated previously, the progress which the company has made so far is impressive, yet more has to be done to meet the clients’ requirements and achieve their complete satisfaction. Hence, it can be considered that the company will have to make their customer classification even more detailed and offer specific approaches to the people belonging to other social strata, such as teenagers, businesswomen, mother with several children, senior citizens, etc.
On the one hand, taking into account every single person who uses the services of the company is practically impossible. On the other hand, it is quite simple to conduct a comparative analysis of the people who live in the vicinity and consider what other services should be provided. Once every single customer feels special, the company will meet its goal.
Works Cited
Kotler, Philip, and Kevin Keller. Marketing Manahgement.14th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2011. Print.
Video Case 5. Best Buy: Using Customer Centricity to Connect with Consumers. n. d. PDF file.