I will explain about the flow or step of people become buyers of your product or service as well as the process after they buy your product. This information is important to be known by every marketer or sales team. Why? The answer is : you can easily perform marketing optimization if you know all the steps above. I emphasize the phrase optimization here, it means you must do marketing or sales activities as a whole instead of partial.

The process of interaction between buyers and sellers

 

1. The emergence of the need

In this phase, one begins to demand the goods or services which he needed. After that he will think, seek information, and decide what brand he will buy.

This phase is very complex phase. There are many factors a person decides to buy a particular brand. These factors are:

- Cheapest price
- Famous brand
- The person closest to him recommend the brand
- Because of the store is close to his house
- Good after sales service
- Because having experience using it and having a good impression
- Pushed to buy a particular brand (eg, because other brands are not available in the store)
- Ads that attract potential buyers

As the marketing team, you have to do marketing research on this. You can create an action plan based on this research, and implement it in several activities such as pricing strategy, social media marketing, provide ease of buying and selling process, and others.

2. Buying process

In this phase, the prospective buyer usually do the following steps:

- Request or ask for more detailed information regarding products or services. Or they can also directly purchase products or services without asking.
- Questions can be done via telephone, email, contact form on the website, social media, come to the office or store directly, and so on.
- Purchases can be made via the internet or directly go to the store or company.

As a marketing team, you have to encourage the sales team in order to respond to prospective customers quickly with empathy. The response is : give an answer as much detail as possible and answer as soon as possible and give a good impression on prospective customers so they decide to buy your product.

3. Utilize products and services

In this phase, buyers start to use the purchased goods. They will compare their perceptions of the goods before buying and the actual condition that he find after buying. If perception and actual condition are the same state, then they will be satisfied. If the actual condition is better than the perceptions, they will be more satisfied. This situation makes them will recommend this product to their relative.

Conversely, if they find the bad thing of the product, then they will do one of these actions:

- Stay consume, and do not intend to buy this product in the future.
- Stop using and complain to the seller.
- Perform negative WOM in social media.

As the marketing team, you should have a good system to implement a good after-sales service. For example: after people buy and use your product, it is better to contact the buyer and ask about his experience. His answer is a feedback for you. You should know this information first before they do complain and make negative WOM in a variety of media.

4. Post-purchase

In this phase, you should get a feedback from the buyer. Perform measurement and evaluation of positive and negative feedback. By implementing a good after-sales service, it is expected that they will become loyal customers. Advantage of gaining loyal customers is that they will recommend the product and services to their relative.