Customer Behavior

Customer behavior is the way the average customer, in a specific target group, will act in a given situation.

Customer behavior depends on a host of factors—economic class, psychology, region, culture. Like-minded customers tend to behave in similar ways. That is why ads are targeted to specific groups.

In the short term, customer behavior is fairly stable. Though individual customers have their own personalities, groups of customers typically behave in a certain way (i.e. the percent saying yes to “Would you like fries with that?” stays relatively stable).

In the long term, customer behavior changes as the world evolves. Customers at some point stopped buying buggies and started buying cars.

Keep in mind that what customers say and what they actually do are not necessarily the same.

For example, people routinely complain about how overpriced professional sports games are and yet stadiums are frequently sold out. The reverse is also true. Customers may say something sounds like a good idea, yet their behavior doesn’t confirm that—they don’t open their wallets.

Lean thrives because it focuses on understanding what customers really value. It then helps a company adjust to meet evolving and ever more demanding customer needs such as reduced lead time or improved quality.