In developed and developing economies, consumers have several products or brands to choose from to satisfy a given need or a group of needs. Much depends on what consumers’ perceptions are about the value that different products or services are expected to deliver. The sources that build customer expectations include experience with products, friends, family members, neighbours, associates, consumer reports, and marketing communications.
Customer value is the ratio of perceived benefits and costs that the customer has to incur in acquiring that product or service. The emphasis here is on customers’ perceptions and not the accurate, objective evaluation of value and costs, as customers often do not judge values and costs accurately. Value indicates that a certain product or service is perceived as having the kinds and amounts of benefits (economic, functional, and emotional) that customers expect from that product or service at a certain cost (monetary costs, time costs, psychic, and energy costs).
Thus, value is primarily determined by a combination of quality, service, and cost. The value to the customer can be made favourable either by increasing the total benefits at the same cost, maintaining the same benefit level and decreasing the cost, or increasing both the benefits and the costs, but the proportion of benefits is higher than the increase in costs.
Customers generally experience satisfaction when the performance level meets or exceeds the minimum performance expectation levels. Similarly, when the performance level far exceeds the desired performance level, the customer will not only be satisfied but will also most likely be delighted. Therefore, rewarding experience with a given product or service encourages customers to repeat the same behaviour in future (buying the same brand).
A delighted customer is likely to be committed and enthusiastic about a particular brand is usually unlikely to be influenced by a competitor’s actions and is an asset to the marketer, being inclined to spread favourable word-of-mouth information or opinions. When a customer’s perceived performance level is below expectations, it definitely causes dissatisfaction and the brand (product or service) will probably not be purchased on any future occasion.
In extreme cases of dissatisfaction, the customer might even completely abandon the company and bad-mouth its products or services, a process over which a marketer has no control. In the true sense, marketing starts with the customer and ends with customer.
The key to inducing brand loyalty among customers can only be achieved by delivering higher value to delight customers than competitors. Satisfaction is basically a feeling of pleasure, and marketers should be aware of satisfaction delivered by competitors and try surpass that level in an attempt to delight customers.
Delivering higher value can lead to delighting customers which, in turn, seems to be the key factor in developing loyalty, more so if the brand generates emotional bonding. This emotional bonding is not just a preference based on rational content but is largely feeling-based.
