Best Of
The Customer Decision-Making Process: 4 Things You Ought to Know
Article written by Kate Williams
Product Marketing Manager at SurveySparrow
12 min read
23 February 2026
Best Of
Article written by Kate Williams
Product Marketing Manager at SurveySparrow
12 min read
23 February 2026
In a clothing store, you encounter two distinct kinds of shoppers.
There’s Shopper A, who’s impulsive and picks up random items off the rack to try on as quickly as possible.
Then, you have Shopper B. This individual takes their time and carefully reads through the labels before pulling a piece of clothing to try on.
Of these two buyers, who would you say has put the most thought into their purchases? If you are tempted to answer Shopper B, think again! Every customer goes through a detailed process before deciding to purchase. So, here is what you need to know about the customer decision-making process.
If you believe that a sale is when consumers hand over their money, we are here to tell you that it’s not true! Yes, exchanging goods (or services) at this stage is crucial. However, it is only one rung on the mighty ladder of sales and marketing.
Recall your thought process when buying a car, perhaps, or new furniture. You considered your needs, researched, and reviewed your options before taking a call. This is the consumer decision-making process; once you understand it, you can optimize it.
The consumer decision-making process, as we shall see, works similarly. Moreover, each stage of the process reveals crucial information about a buyer. How a company understands this process – the bread and butter of all brands – can make or break them. At SurveySparrow, we often use survey forms because they make tracking, sharing, and compiling information easy.
You can try it for free here.
Before we learn how to influence the buying process, we need to understand what it consists of. To make things simple, we have broken it down into six individual steps and the actions you need to take. Let’s review.
Action: Map out when or why your target audience feels this need so that you can address it with your goods and services.
Action: Understand the channels they use and give access to this information.
Action: Customer reviews are your best friend. Put them at the forefront of your landing page, social media, and marketing.
Action: Optimize your purchase experience so you don’t lose customers before purchasing.
Action: Reach out to the buyer post-purchase. This increases the likelihood that customers will buy from your brand again.
Action: Respond to reviews, both positive and negative. With this, you can close the feedback loop and improve your product/service accordingly.
If you are a fan of theories, we have one for you right here.
According to marketing theory, the advertising campaigns you run for your brand form the backbone of its image. But how do you know what campaign will be the most effective and when?
We shall tell you a secret here – it all boils down to the consumer decision-making process. So, tapping into the information behind their decisions will help you understand your target’s purchase behavior. Online searches are a huge part of this process and give your company unique opportunities for conversion strategies at each stage.
We have compiled a few ways to gain insight into your customers’ decision-making processes to aid you in this mission.
There is no one a customer trusts more than other buyers like them. So, in the first step of influencing the consumer decision process, shower them with honest reviews of your brand.
As most companies do today, use your websites and social media to showcase user reviews. You can also take it to the next level and be brutally, hilariously honest.
Next, deploy the most trusted weapon of marketing – customer feedback surveys. If you have ever been roped into answering such surveys, you may have noticed how many appear drab.
So when it is your turn to ask the questions, ask the right ones. Here are a couple of tips to make your queries more exciting:
Let your customers keep a constant tab on what you’re up to. Even something as simple as a product update or a behind-the-scenes can engage them well.
Also, not everything needs to be about the company – check out this cute release note from Slack!
A little reminder. 💌 https://t.co/gmn13CtkTT
— Slack (@SlackHQ) August 4, 2021
While data drives most purchase decisions, emotions also matter.
Personalized formal and informal conversations can create deeper connections with your buyers. It shows them that there’s more “human” to your brand than they realize. This, in turn, influences the consumer decision-making process.
As mysterious as the mind may seem, three factors affect the decision-making process for most consumers – including you.
Social and cultural factors affect every decision we make. Our friends, our family, our culture, our generation – all of them can affect our purchase decisions.
Example: Buying a camera. There are plenty of companies that manufacture photography equipment. However, will the buyer buy from the big brand store, or will he shop from his cousin’s store just down the street?
These include age, income, likes and dislikes, and personal style. They can also influence attitudes towards certain products or brands.
Example: Your choice of social network. If you’re a Gen Z or millennial in the US, you probably don’t care about Facebook. But you can’t ignore it either – because your parents are on it.
To tackle this factor, your brand can do pilot surveys to understand your people better and which of them are likely to buy your product. Then, you can weaponize this data to improve your goods and services.
Did you know that buying lunch for a client can make you more persuasive? There’s strong evidence that psychological factors, like motivation, perception, beliefs, and emotions, can affect consumer decision-making.
Example: Buying a coffee. If you have gone to a Starbucks, you know how good you feel when you get your coffee cup with your name.
That’s because, as humans, it is hard for buyers to separate emotions from a purchase. So what’s the lesson here? Consistently deliver personalized ‘wow’ experiences for your consumers.
"Let’s take most of the money we would’ve spent on paid advertising and paid marketing.
Instead of spending it on that, invest it in the customer experience/customer service.
Then let our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth."
-Tony Hsieh, Ex-CEO of @Zappos
— SurveySparrow (@SurveySparrow) April 12, 2021
The Customer Journey Map is a vital tool in understanding and enhancing the customer decision-making process, and platforms like SurveySparrow can play a crucial role in developing and refining this map. Here’s why:
Each of these tools serves a different purpose, and the choice depends on the specific needs and goals of the business. Combining several approaches often yields the best results in understanding and satisfying customer needs.
SurveySparrow can significantly aid in creating a robust customer journey map by leveraging its comprehensive suite of survey and feedback tools. Here’s how SurveySparrow can help:
A word to the wise: there is no set path between the first need recognition stage and the final purchase. However, all of these stages have emotions attached to them.
That’s why it is possible to influence the customer decision-making process through brilliant conversion campaigns and experience management. With a constant process of feedback, your brand can work backward through the process, identify the various forces at play, and predict your buyer’s interests – all the knowledge you need for a successful sale!
A personalized walkthrough by our experts. No strings attached!
Thousands of brands trust SurveySparrow to turn feedback into growth. Try it free today!
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