What is a Customer

A customer is a specific person or party who spends a specific amount to buy goods or services to satisfy needs or desires (Othman et al., 2019). The type of customer who can purchase goods or services from any store or company is known as a particular customer. However, using the product by that specific customer is not a requirement. Therefore, the customer is the one who purchases the good or service whether or not they use it.

In assessing the significance of the customer in any business, including tourism, the essay will focus on the distinction between customers and consumers. The definition of consumer behaviour and the four different types of consumer purchasing behaviour are also the basis of the essay. Similar to that, the essay will show how important it is for information technology to support consumer behavior.

Outline of the Paper

  • Difference between customers and consumers
  • importance of customers in business - Tourism
  • Consumer behavior: definition
  • 4 types of consumer buying behavior
  • Role of IT to evaluate and facilitate consumer behavior
  • Conclusion

Difference between customers and consumers

The person who purchases the good or services is known as the customer. Since the customer will be the final user or consumer of that specific product or service (Hao 2020). The consumer, on the other hand, is the one who purchases the product and uses or consumes it as well.

For example, if someone is buying groceries, they can be both customers and consumers because a customer may buy the groceries for a friend or family member as well as for themselves, or it may be a servant of someone who can buy the groceries for the boss. Customers who have a direct relationship with the shop or brand also have interchangeable definitions for each other because both are different.

On the other hand, it is based on the fact that you are not the product's final user. The person who purchases a product to use it personally is the consumer.

The majority of businesses strive to gain customers in order to become the person's first choice when selecting a product for use (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020). This means that customers who use a product or service and have faith in the brand help business organisations better understand their performance and progress toward understanding other alternative developmental strategies.

Importance of customer in business - Tourism

Customer is a crucial component of any business. Without customers, an organisation or business cannot make any sales, rendering it useless. This is the main reason businesses choosing to invest in the production and manufacturing of their goods or services (de Oliveira Santini et al., 2020). For the tourism sector, a specific lead or client is what drives their industry's primary driver of profitability. The sole foundation of the hospitality and tourism industries is the provision of services.

For instance, a customer may have negative comments about any of the products she has purchased from us. However, due to its features, the same product may be very advantageous to other customers. However, whenever a client from the travel and tourism sector makes the claim that there is no way to refute it because the client is the organization's primary target audience, the opposite is also true.

Consumer behavior - Definition

Consumer behaviour is the study of how consumers behave toward any goods or services; this behaviour is particularly linked to the company or brand, not to mention the consumers' loyalty in deciding they want or need a specific good or service from that brand (Tabrani et al., 2019). 'Buying behaviour' refers to the decision of a consumer to purchase a good or service, either in its entirety or just an aspect of it

Consumer behaviour is the assessment of an individual's or an organization's actions related to their purchasing and disposing of goods and services. It is based on the attitude, emotions, and preferences of the consumer, which influence their decision to purchase a particular good or service.

C

Complex buying behaviour

Complex buying behaviour refers to the specific way a consumer acts when purchasing an expensive product. The consumer is involved in the decision to buy an expensive product because it involves frequent transactions. Therefore, there is a consumer commitment to conduct thorough research prior to making an investment. (Brill et al., 2019) It is very different from other products because customers are interested in getting advice from friends and family before making decisions about their purchases for themselves and their families. Customers need to make a conscious decision before making the expensive purchase

For instance, if a customer is planning to buy a car and it is a significant decision for them due to the financial risk, they will seek advice from their family, friends, and other people who have purchased cars in the past.

Dissonance reducing buying behaviour

There are places where there is limited availability of options and differentiation in differences, so the consumer will buy the product based on the available and insinuating information (de Souza et al., 2020). For example, a good-looking consumer may choose to buy a collapsible table that is the best for camping, so the consumer will decide to purchase the product based on the available and insinuating information. It is the combination of options available and the combinations in which those options are presented that will give consumers the purchasing behaviors.

Habitual buying behaviour

It is a behaviour predicated on the client making a small investment to buy the product. As a result, the consumer uses this product frequently in their regular activities (Kumar and Reinartz, 2018). For instance, a customer who plans to purchase bread must have the brand that he or she has been paying for over a long period of time. Therefore, everyday items like sugar, salt, toilet paper, eggs, and others fall under this category.

Variety seeking buying behaviour

This is the typical buying behaviour of the consumer, which includes actions like the desire to purchase a cookie. But the following time, the customer was perplexed and chose to purchase the same item from another brand or store without consulting or taking any action (Anshari et al., 2019).

Role of IT to evaluate and facilitate consumer behavior

Consumers now have higher expectations from businesses regarding their ability to purchase goods and services. Due to social media's involvement and technological advancements, consumers are now easily accessible on these platforms to receive comments and recommendations from friends and other social media users about any goods or services.

Consequently, information technology is having a bigger impact on how we understand consumer behaviour as social media trends grow (Gil-Gomez et al., 2020). Additionally, it facilitates customer behaviour by providing them with products that have more sophisticated features in an effort to draw them to a specific brand or company. The degree of commitment a consumer has to a given purchase of a good or service is used to assess that consumer's purchasing behaviour.

Through the use of information technology, businesses can understand and evaluate the feedback from customers for their purchases of the products or services. For instance, there are reviews available on various sites like Amazon or Netflix to buy the products or services, giving the business the chance to organise a strategy based on the feedback of the customers and providing a better understanding of the behavior.

Since the majority of businesses place a major emphasis on consumer behavior, which is changing daily due to the various features in various products, most organisations use information technology or social media platforms to go for mass marketing of the products and services. This is done after understanding consumer behaviour for the different products and services. 

Information technology therefore plays a crucial role in understanding consumer behavior, especially for the tourism sector. It also has a significant impact when informing customers who are tourists about the availability of hotels and other travel destinations, so it is important to provide website platforms for customers' visitors so that they can assess what they need and then proceed.

Therefore, there are some businesses that are solely focused on providing services. When a customer is dissatisfied with the service, he or she may leave a negative review, which may have a greater negative impact on the minds of other people. As a result, for any business—including tourism—to have happy customers, the customer plays a crucial role. As a result, there is no such product that customers can offer; rather, tourism is solely based on the provision of these services. A major role in any industry, including tourism, is taking into account the customer.

Conclusion

In conclusion, a customer is defined as a person who intends to purchase a good or service, regardless of whether they actually use it or not. This essay has evaluated the distinction between the two and discussed the importance of knowing your customer for all types of businesses, including tourism.

Additionally, the essay evaluated the four distinct categories of consumer purchasing behaviour as well as the definition of consumer behaviour for businesses. As a result, there are four different types of consumer purchasing behaviour: complex, dissonance-reducing, habitual, and variety.

The goal of the essay's final section was to evaluate and comprehend how information technology influences consumer behavior. In order for the organisation to understand consumer behaviour and develop strategies that will benefit further development and improvement, the business' overall strategy has adopted consumer, customers and consumer behavior. Information technology is highly developed, and has changed the industry to evaluate the consumer behavior.

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