According to Dev Patnaik, Michelle Loret de Mola and Brandy Bates of the Jump Associates, a strategy and innovation consulting firm, there are four categories of consumer behaviour that can help guide businesses in their strategic planning to overcome the issues that may have faced during the pandemic.

These categories, which they have laid out in the Harvard Business Review, have been derived from decades of behavioural research including behavioural economics and technology adaption studies, and they prove incredibly useful for businesses looking to predict consumer behaviour as a result of changing circumstances. 

The first category is called ‘mechanics.’ It has to do with habit-forming and the likelihood of those habits being sustained throughout the socio-cultural changes of the pandemic. If your business relies on the habits of your customers, for example, ordering food deliveries, think about whether these habits can be sustained easily throughout the pandemic, whether they could change (for example, food deliveries may need to become more localised), or whether your business must diversify as the current habits are unsustainable and will ultimately cease, temporarily or otherwise.

‘Motivators’ is the second category, and highlights the qualitative reasons people may perform certain behaviours. Beyond monetary rewards, behaviour that is ‘motivated’ often relies on the emotional pay off of seeing friends and family, going to the cinema, or going out for meals with loved ones. Studies show that more qualitative ‘rewards’ for certain behaviours can influence our actions far more successfully than financial benefits. Companies that offer services or products that rely on customers’ emotive response to influence future purchases should ask themselves how the circumstances have shifted, and how they can offer the same customer experience in innovative ways.

For authoritative bodies, looking at the various pressures on people to act in specific ways will determine their behaviours going forward. The third category concerns all the pressures at play that cause us to act in certain ways. As herd animals, we are more likely to fall into line with common behaviours, even if they impact us negatively, such as drinking too much alcohol or buying fast fashion. To predict how behavioural responses may change with regards to the pandemic, educational or governmental boards must ask themselves honestly about the success of their message. Are they driving or deterring this behaviour? For example, the current push to wear facemasks in shops and on public transport will be far more successful if the behaviour is adopted into social pressure as well as pressure from the government.

Finally, the fourth category of consumer behaviour comprises all elements of behaviour that arise as alternatives. People will cease certain behaviours if a better, easier way to do it is discovered. In this way, adapting to ‘alternative’ behaviours is a seamless transition that offers benefits to productivity and lifestyle. For example, we can predict that far more business meetings will take place on video call platforms like Zoom in the future which will impact the rate of travel. It is safe to say that most behaviours will collapse entirely when an alternative arises that meets the needs of the original behaviour.