Changing Customer Behaviour and Expectations

Today's consumers are increasingly sophisticated, educated, confident and informed. They have high expectations of service they want to receive. They want greater choice and will not be 'sold to' or manipulated.

Organisations are now moving from product focused to customer focused and now to customer centric.

Why to we say that? With the increase of technology, customers are now looking for value for time, their consumer rights and personalised service.

Customers are increasingly mobile and are looking for value for time. Therefore, home shopping service allows people to order goods over the internet; the web page displays each customer's most frequently purchased items at the beginning of the list to aid selection and order is relayed to a computerised trolley. This service increase efficiency in shopping as it is time consuming, rather than walking down isles looking for stuff, or even to every different shops to purchase what you need. After purchasing, a centralised collection point or home delivery service can come in place. This process has resulted in increased level of productivity and customer and employee satisfactions.

As consumers are now moving towards a more technology world, they become more empowered. Today's customers know their rights and are more likely to make their opinions known if they feel that these have been violated. This is due to the main factor: The internet. One of the greatest drivers of change is the range of possibilities opened up by the increased use of technology. From buying products to services online to using the internet to pay bills via a mobile phone, the use of technology can potentially revolutionise organisations' interface with customers.

With the increase in the use of technology, this has led to the rising of power of the customer in the fate of consumer brands. Today's web enabled consumers has access to instant price comparisons and sites where customers can express their views. The shift in power has led to a realisation from corporations that they cannot market and sell to the customer like they use to any more. Today the success of a brand is a co-creation between the consumer and the company. The customer now has a far stronger hand in the development and success of products and services.

In the long term trend, it would appear to be the growth in the need for organisations to listen to and involve their customers in the development and the promotion of their products and services.