How can the stages of consumer decision making be applied to a person’s decision

Question 1:  What psychological concepts of consumer behavior are relevant to marketing this service? Be specific. 

In regards to psychological concepts, I believe needs, perception, and attitude could fall under this questions.  With needs, running a funeral home is pretty specific so with that said they have to appeal to their clients directly.  Basically, the need for anyone to come to a funeral home would be for the fact that there was a death in the family and plans need to be organized.  Perception comes into play when the reference to the shopping malls was given.  Nowadays more and more people of avoiding high priced full retail stores and are looking for cheaper options to get a lower price with the same great product.  In the case of the funeral home, they were try to get the perceived notion that shopping at a funeral home should be no different.

Attitude was the last of the three, and this is a big deal when there is a death in the family.  You want the customer to know and think that they are the priority and that their needs are important to you.  With the wrong attitude, a funeral home isn’t going to get very much customers if they go there not feeling comfortable and taken care of.

Question 2: How can the stages of consumer decision making be applied to a person’s decision to use a particular funeral home?

In stage one, it will be applied when a finds a need to contact a funeral home, most likely due to a death.  In the second stage of information search and evaluation, the decision making process will stem from information either gathered from friends and family, online reviews, or other external sources (Longnecker, 2012).  This is important to know as a business owner, so you are aware of what perception of your business is currently on these sources.  Next is stage three, or the purchase decision. 

Once a person has an idea of what kind of product they want to buy, this stage is where they will decide how and where to buy the product (Longnecker, 2012).  This can be applied to the scenario because if the customer has a product in mind that the funeral home carries then it has a stronger chances of selling it due to the potential of cheaper prices.  Finally during the post-purchase evaluation, this is where that long lasting impression will ever pay a positive or negative for the owners.  Having a small business, it is essential for every transaction to buy a good experience in order to have a positive word go out about your company.  Though you should never hope for multiple repeat customers in this area of work, one would hope that if they have to or know someone else going through the same situation that they would recommend your establishment to use.

Question 3: Which CRM techniques could be used by this type of business?

Some of the techniques that will help a business is keeping detailed customer profiles in order to find trends and commonalities amongst returning customers.  Another good technique for the business to use would be personalizing the interactions with customers.  If you make them feel comfortable and receptive you will get a lot more work accomplished.