The most important thing for any of us is to be treated as an individual and to be made to feel that our individuality is important, after all, that's what makes each of us what we are.

It is both a blessing and a disaster that people are different from one another. On a one-to-one basis, how could we find our partners and friends if everyone were the same? On a macro basis, however, how on earth are we going to conduct business when everyone needs to be treated as an individual? In reality, of course, everyone is different – all 60 million of us in the UK – and it is only for convenience that we seek to pigeonhole people, using devices as varied as astrological star signs and social descriptors such as ‘yuppies’, ‘dinkies’, ‘chavs’ and myriad others. While these are often just phrases of the moment, the constant reinvention of social grouping terminology illustrates our need to find ways of dividing up the galaxy of the population into easily recognisable sections. Some are more tangible, such as age, gender, creed or nationality, while others, such as those which reflect wealth or social standing, are far more difficult to operate in any reproducible form, despite the socio-economic tools that have been designed to assist us.

When economists talk about people belonging to socio-economic groups labelled A, B, C1, C2 or D, this is often only meaningful within the esoteric world of researchers in this field and is often abused when taken out of context. As an example, category A is meant to denote people of high social standing, education and professional achievement, such as doctors, and with this comes the assumption that these people will have high net financial worth. As one who is involved in the veterinary world, you may have a wry smile at this assumption in the case of veterinary professionals!

As you move down the scale through B and C1 to C2 and D, the assumption is that people in these groups are less well educated or trained, are progressively more working class and will have a significantly lower disposable income. Yet, although in today’s world people take early retirement from a myriad of jobs, may have index-linked pensions and even significant savings and may well enjoy a high disposable income, pensioners are still categorised as group D.

Similarly, ithere was a time when tradesmen such as plumbers, electricians and plasterers would have been categorised as being in group C2 but, in today’s world, many self-employed tradesmen have very high earning potential and a high disposable income, live in beautiful houses and send their children to private schools. There are countless thousands of families who are deliberating whether or not to send their children to university as the rules have changed and the acquisition of a degree is no longer a guaranteed passport to a higher income. Clearly, as the old rules are changing so must our automatic assumptions about people and classifying people into convenient groups is no longer a useful or effective way of interacting with people.

As an individual, how would you like to be treated? What about respect, with appropriate recognition of your age, experience and social standing? Of course, we’d all like that, wouldn’t we? What about some acknowledgement that your time is precious? Perhaps. What about some understanding that you may have some experience of the situation you’re discussing, or that you belong to a particular group, whether ethnic, religious or political? For some of us, these things are very important, and in certain situations this understanding will be critical to the successful outcome of any meeting or discussion.

Do you prefer to be addressed by your first name or by your surname with the prefix of Mr, Mrs or Ms? Some people hate the term Ms and prefer Miss; others find Miss to be old-fashioned. Many who have striven to achieve academic or social honours are able to style themselves Dr, Professor, the Reverend, Major or even Sir or Lord. Having worked hard to achieve these prefixes, many people are insistent on others’ recognition of them, while a different sector of the public might consider this pretentious outside any professional encounter.

How do you feel about music? For some, it cannot be considered music unless it has a discernable melody, while others prefer a techno-beat to rattle the dentition. When you listen, second hand, to other people’s music on the train, does it irritate you or soothe you?

Over and above all these social considerations, we have the phenomenon of body language. In the UK, we are rather keen to establish and protect a small area of space around us – we call it our ‘personal space’ – and find those who invade it to be pushy or invasive. If we sit on a sofa in the foyer of a hotel, we don’t expect anyone else to come and sit next to us without invitation. However, in other parts of the world, no such concept of personal space exists and, as Britain becomes an increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural society, these considerations are changing.

So we are all different, all sixty million of us. But every day of our lives, we come into contact with other people and engage in some form of consumer behaviour, even if it’s simply choosing between tea, coffee or a stiff drink to be had alone or in company. Whether reading an advertisement in a journal, watching a holiday programme on TV, eating a chocolate bar, using a mouthwash or picking out clothes from the wardrobe, we are engaging in some form of consumer behaviour. The problem is that we do so seamlessly, with no outward show of selection or choice, with the whole process that supports decision-making taking place somewhere deep in our brain and utilising a series of tests and selection criteria that we may not even be aware of ourselves.

Taking a step back to examine what happens in our minds, and why, has important implications for our business and social success. Understanding how consumers think is an essential part of any proactive business, and discounting the needs and desires of our client base is now a sure-fire recipe for problems.

As suppliers of specialist skills and services, veterinarians are in the same position as manufacturers: if we don’t supply what our consumers want, they will choose to interact with, and buy from, someone other than us. In the past, clients may have been bonded to veterinary practices, but the world has changed dramatically in the last fifty years, with change accelerating even more dramatically in the last decade. In today's world, consumers will only repeat a purchasing experience if they feel good about it – after all, are any of us any different?

NOTE FROM CAROLINE JOHNSON: We are delighted to have a limited number of Ross's book 'What is the soup of the day' on sale at a super-duper, knock-down price for vetpol/vbay members! Normal price £69 - available for just £20 + P&P!!!!
http://www.vbay.co.uk/category/417/Products.html
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