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Retail Business Environment

Notes 2. Provide warranties and guarantees to reduce post-purchase doubt.
3. Ensure good service and immediate follow-up on complaints to provide post-purchase
support.

4. Advertise reliable product quality and performance to reassure recent purchasers of product
satisfaction.
5. Follow up after the purchase with direct contacts to make sure the customer understands
how to use the product and to ensure satisfaction.

Attribution Theory

According to attribution theory (D. J. Bem), consumers seek to determine causes (attributions)
for events, often after the fact. The theory suggests that consumer attitude formation and change
is the result of consumers’ looking at their own behaviour and making judgments about it. For
example, if a consumer regularly uses Colgate toothpaste, looking at own behaviour she/he
may conclude that she/he likes the toothpaste (she/he has a positive attitude towards the
brand). Consumers are also likely to take all the credit themselves for any success (internal
attribution) and attribute failures to others or external causes (external attribution).

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Caution To influence attitudes favorably, marketers should give consumers positive reasons
for their purchases after the act. This requires that marketers offer high-quality products
and allow consumers to perceive themselves as the reason for choosing the right brand.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

9. ………………….. component is the likelihood or tendency of an individual to respond in
a certain manner towards an attitude object.

10. An …………………….. is an enduring organisation of motivational, emotional, perceptual
and cognitive processes with respect to some aspect of our environment.

11. …………………… refer to subjective judgments about the relationship between two or
more things.

12. Consumers’ feelings and emotional reactions to an object represent the …………………
component of an attitude.

13. According to ……………….. theory consumer attitude formation and change is the result
of consumers’ looking at their own behaviour and making judgments about it.
14. ………………….. function facilitates the information-processing task.
15. Changing ………………………. evaluations is the strategy that focuses on influencing
consumers’ overall brand attitudes without any reference to specific attributes.

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