Consumer Psychology

Most companies understand that customer satisfaction and loyalty are essential to their success. But few companies know how to link their customer's needs with their organization's processes to create the best customer experience possible. Instead, they erect walls between their customer service department and their other organizational functions. Improving Customer Satisfaction, Loyalty, and Profit shows managers how to break down these walls, find out what their customers want, and use that information to produce the kinds of products and services that will keep them coming back. Michael Johnson and Anders Gustafsson have been instrumental in the development of customer satisfaction indexes in the U.S. and Europe. Here they team up to introduce a five-stage process that establishes crucial connections between a company's marketing, sales, product development, and customer service departments in order to deliver both top-quality products and a high-level customer experience. The process begins with measurement. Johnson and Gustafsson walk readers through the steps necessary to determine a customer measurement strategy, observe and communicate with customers, create formal customer surveys, and process and interpret the survey data. Then they show readers how to use that data to build a cohesive plan for quality improvement and ongoing customer management. By helping mid-level managers assemble specific estimates of how increased quality and customer loyalty will impact the bottom line, their process allows upper-level managers to allocate the resources necessary to build a truly customer-oriented company. And by cementing the links between products, patrons, and profits, their book highlights the core competencies companies need to create both happy customers and the organizational know-how necessary to keep them happy.

An enlightening blueprint of the secrets of reaching female consumers from the expert Just Ask a Woman is a powerful book about how to tap into female consumers' needs. Mary Quinlan, the founder of the premiere consultancy dedicated to marketing to women, has personally interviewed 3,000 women in the course of her research for Just Ask a Woman. Women are the decision-makers in an estimated eighty-five percent of household buying decisions, and yet far too often, products marketed specifically to them fail to connect with their needs. Here, Quinlan explores topics such as how women judge brands and advertising, how they make decisions, the effects of stress on their consumer behavior, and their increasing demands for service and communication. Quinlan rejects the traditional focus group approach in favor of highly energized and intimate talk sessions where women reveal their deeper feelings about products and services. In Just Ask a Woman marketers, brand managers, and advertisers will find a revelatory resource filled with ideas and action steps for building your brand with women-from a woman who has walked in a marketer's shoes. Mary Lou Quinlan (New York, NY) is the founder and CEO of Just Ask a Woman, a marketing consultancy dedicated to building business with women. Just Ask a Woman is a division of bcom3, a $15 billion global communications firm whose clients include Citigroup/Women & Co., Lifetime, Saks, Hearst Magazines, Toys "R" Us, and Time Inc. Known as a brand-turnaround expert, she has helped to remake brands like Avon and Continental Airlines. Quinlan has been quoted in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Fast Company and Advertising Age and appeared on ABC, CNN, CNBC, Lifetime LIVE, Fox and nationally syndicated news shows. Her articles have been published in Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping, Redbook, and More, among others.

The buying habits of baby boomers really do differ from those of their parents. The authors show how marketers can use each group's consumption patterns to reach both markets most effectively. Another insight: buying habits of these groups differ according to the product or service offered. By analyzing each cohort's buying habits in various purchasing situations, the book dramatizes the need for customized marketing strategies. Based on two national surveys conducted by the Center for Mature Studies, Georgia State University, the book will be essential for marketing professionals and their academic colleagues.