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UNIVERSITY OF MARY HARDIN-BAYLOR

CONSUMER FRAMEWORK ANALYSIS

A Consumer Framework Paper Submitted for Course Number BMKT 3322

Consumer Behavior

By

Brandon K. Payne

Troy, Texas

February 8, 2015

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In the marketing world there are many different ways to measure things, the main reason

behind marketing research is to find the out what is the best value of their products and how they

can be increased. The main way to measure value is to gauge what you get by what you give up,

it is best described in CB, Consumer Behavior. (Babin and Harris, 2014) This dawns another

question for marketers, and that is what is a good way for some direct influence to be placed onto

the customers? What part of the consumer value framework is a good way to have a direct

influence on the buying mentality of the customers? One of the most influences that have a direct

influence over the customers in a most basic approach is the cost and benefits associated with the

products or services associated with your company. In this approach the customer weighs what

he or she will receive from a company. Through some personal experience from studying

customer reactions in the work place like AT&T, people constantly weigh the benefits and costs

when getting ready to buy a phone. AT&T realized this a couple months ago and came out with a

new program that created opportunities for customers to be more in control of their plan, their

phone, and their payments for service. In this program, called the Next program, allows

customers to upgrade on their own pace which a huge benefit is compared to the 2 year contracts

of the older times.

How can these experiences be gauged is a question a person might ask, which is

answered in the way of surveys taken to gauge the customers experience over the visit and their

willingness to recommend after their experience to other customers. Since the benefits program

came out, the willingness to recommend to other customers has increased to a tune of 20%

increase a month. With the recommendation level increasing it is easy to tell that AT&T are

doing extremely well when offering the NEXT program compared to the adamant 2 year

3 contracts. Like mentioned earlier, the flexibility of the NEXT program has paid dividends and

people like having the ability to pay off their phone whenever they want.

What was discovered through time spending around many customers buying and

exchanging phones is that people feel a strong need to have a newer phone or newer product that

makes them feel a higher entitlement of self-satisfaction. Do people working for the marketing

department for companies like AT&T realize through marketing research that at some point

having a new phone is not a want but a need? Through research the marketers found that people

actually needed new phones to fill that void that is self-assurance and crafted the program that

allows not only AT&T to build better customer value with benefits but also made it possible to

create for revenue for the company. This is a win-win situation for AT&T in that a problem in

the phone world which is having a new phone and creating a source of benefits for the customer

in way of the NEXT program.

Marketing efforts have done well in aspects of having record NEXT program upgrade

sells which has led to more happy consumers of the phones. It is concluded that from the efforts

of AT&T and the marketing groups associated with the brand, have come up with this new way

to upgrade devices and making the social need of having the latest and greatest device now a

reality for everyone. Social needs are very important and through offering benefits like setting up

the payment plan for the phone over a set amount of months an having the ability to pay it off

however quick as you want is an easy way to create value with the customer. Alongside with that

is that instead of paying a couple hundred for a new phone, the NEXT only requires on the taxes

of the phone to be paid on date of purchase with on average is around $35 which makes the plan

cost efficient alongside having great benefits as well.