ZMET in Customer Centric Marketing, Essay Example

Introduction

Zaltman metaphor elicitation technique (ZMET) can be defined as a patented market research device that enables marketer researchers to investigate the peoples thoughts or perceptions of metaphors. The tool is very important in marketing as it enables the researcher to determine other elements such as perceptions of people and attitudes that are not usually covered by other research tools that have been used in marketing. The device can be used to easily determine the changes in consumer behavior. ZMET can be used to determine interplay between attitude, emotions, behavior and perceptions of consumers. It is the tool that embraces the qualitative approach in marketing and thus ensures researchers in marketing field obtain reliable and accurate results.

Drawing from a pool of researches done in this field, it is very important that organizations in the service industry employ the device in marketing research. Studies show that consumers in the service industry attach the quality of the services to the individual or the persons offering such services, the perception of the consumers towards the person affect their initiative to procure the services offered by the firm. Take a case scenario of a banking sector where banks have relied on the tool to asses how their customer associates their services with the people offering them. Unlike products where consumers may be guided by features such as visual appeal of the product, consumers in the service industry are influenced on how they relate with the people offering the services, their attitudes toward each other and verbal communication comes in to complement the element of perception, attitude, feelings and emotions.

A prediction of future trends show that firms in the service and production industry are now moving towards determining issues that influence particular behavior of consumers rather than designing their products and services for the sake of making sales. Most banking companies have shown this trend by adopting the relevant colors that communicate the nature of their products to the consumers. Businesses have realized that tool was developed on the notion that certain elements that drive the consumer to purchase a product can not be communicated verbally but are vested on the subconscious mind of the consumer. In the light of this fact, the decision to buy a product or a service heavily rooted in the mind of the consumer, and thus showing the disparity between transpiration of thoughts and how they are communicated in action. The tool beats most marketing research tools that rely on verbal communication but doe s not embrace the effects of cognitive facet of individuals.

The trend conforms to what had been predicted by researchers in the field of marketing that for successful marketing research and to improve sales new knowledge on consumers has to be discovered and the ZMET is the new knowledge that will enable firms conduct proper marketing research that that focuses one elements such as imagery, color, shape, feelings, thoughts and emotions. Marketing therefore has to embrace the mental facets in designing a good marketing strategy that is consumer relevant.