Chapter 6 - Consumer Decision Making

   Ever since the company was started, Motorola was a prominent contender in the mobile phone market. Their success among the consumers was seriously threatened when the iPhone was announced in 2007. Thereafter, Motorola tried various tactics to win back their customer base. Most of them were in vain, since non of them won over the customers that switched to other brands.

    However, after recent acquisitions, it has been introducing products that could change their fate in the mobile phone industry. When you evaluate the customer decision making process for a current Motorola product (Moto X), it would reveal the improvements that Motorola has made to make their products more appealing to the smartphone consumers.

   Today, smartphones have become a necessity, rather than a simple want among the consumers. A barrage of features have allowed consumers to do more than what they have imagined in the palm of their hands. As I have mentioned in the earlier posts, Motorola have taken a different approach to make smartphones. They have allowed their customers to create their own smartphone from the back plate to buttons. Most importantly, they have been able to keep the prices much lower than their competition. Those factors serves as a external stimulus that creates the "need" to buy their product.

   After the "need" is created, most customers do their research before purchasing the product. There are thousands of websites thats dedicated to review mobile phones and tablets, and those media outlets actively cover news regarding those devices. Some website leave it entirely to the customers to voice their opinion about the new phones they bought.

Even though, its labeled as user reviews, it is important to realize that it is difficult to find actual source on the internet. Anyone on the internet could create reviews at will. Therefore, it cannot be categorized as a non-marketing controlled information source, or a  marketing controlled information source.

Besides that, these outlets are being frequently used by smartphone consumers to pick the products they need. Also, YouTube is a popular source to get information about mobile phones.

Since their prices are lower than their competitors, customers are most likely to consider the Moto X over any other mobile phone. Moreover, features mentioned above are only available in Motorola phones. Therefore, it is highly unlikely to see customers evaluate alternatives in that price range.

Finally, after the purchase most customers have been giving positive feedback about the phone, except for some who had complained about the camera quality and other slight issues as you can see in the ratings above. Also, Many customers are glad to purchase this product, because it is an American made mobile phone. Most importantly, they are providing a great customer service from social media websites, and through their hotline. These services , and features that you get after purchase helps to satisfies Motorola customers in the long run.