Here’s a brief guide to the content of the module, with each of the blocks lasting between four and six weeks.
Block 1: Introducing customer behaviour
In this block, you'll follow the evolution of marketing to its current focus on ‘customer experience management’. You'll find out why marketers now treat customers as partners in value creation, making it more important than ever to understand their needs and motivations. As well as being introduced to the historical roots of everyday practices like shopping, you will learn about cutting-edge developments in how marketers approach customers, such as behavioural economics, consumer culture theory and neuromarketing. You'll also address basic ideas about how organisational customers behave differently from consumers who purchase on behalf of themselves and their households, and what this means for marketing. You’ll have the opportunity to reflect on how to develop valuable digital and marketing skills and how the module will support them.
Block 2: The individual consumer
This block addresses customers as individuals. You'll encounter classic psychological theories on decision making, involvement, learning, memory and perception, and discuss their continued relevance. You'll develop digital and collaborative skills through blogging about aspects of your own consumer behaviour related to what you are learning and commenting on the blog posts of others.
Block 3: Attitudes and motivational processes
You'll continue the exploration of attempts to explain customer behaviour through scientific methods. You'll discover how marketers have taken up models and approaches from social psychology and other disciplines to try and understand processes such as motivation, attitude formation, and how customers select and process persuasive messages. You’ll be encouraged to adopt a critical perspective on these theories and techniques, alongside recent theories on consumption, identity, and gendered aspects of consumption.
Block 4: Consumers in society
Your focus now widens to place buyers in their social and cultural settings. You'll learn to identify different groups (including families and other social formations) and their influence on consumption. You’ll also find out how to tap into opinion leadership and followership in social networks (including online) and how to interpret contemporary trends in consumer research. You'll participate in a peer review exercise that requires you to use presentation software to draft a poster on which you'll exchange feedback with other students on the module. This will hone your digital and collaborative skills, as well as give you invaluable insight into the assessment process, which you can take with you into future study. Please note, this exercise necessitates unmovable deadlines (for submission of drafts and feedback) within the block, so careful advance planning on your part is essential. You will submit your poster in its final version, accompanied by a written reflection, at the end of the block.
Block 5: B2B buying behaviour
The module concludes as you explore organisational buying (also known as business-to-business or ‘B2B’ buying) while revisiting your learning from preceding blocks by comparing business customers and individuals who purchase goods and services for personal or household use. You'll learn to use concepts and tools like buyer typology, the ‘buy grid’ framework, relationship marketing, and branding in an organisational context. What you'll learn in this block will increase your effectiveness at work by making you more aware of internal and external exchange relationships and how they relate to your role.
This module will be relevant to students who work in, or plan to work in, marketing and marketing-related jobs in both commercial and non-profit organisations.
You’ll get help and support from an assigned tutor throughout your module.
They’ll help by:
Online tutorials run throughout the module. While they’re not compulsory, we strongly encourage you to participate. Where possible, we’ll make recordings available.
Course work includes:
You’ll have access to a module website, which includes:
You can study this module on its own or use the credits you gain towards an Open University qualification.
B206 is a compulsory module in our:
B206 is an option module in our:
Understanding customers starts once a year – in October.
This page describes the module that will start in October 2026, when we expect it to start for the last time.
As a student of The Open University, you should be aware of the content of the academic regulations, which are available on our Student Policies and Regulations website.
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If your income is not more than £25,000 or you receive a qualifying benefit, you might be eligible for help with some of these costs after your module has started.
There may be extra costs on top of the tuition fee, such as set books, a computer and internet access.
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Please note: your permanent address/domicile will affect your fee status and, therefore, the fees you are charged and any financial support available to you. The fee information provided here is valid for modules starting before 31 July 2026. Fees typically increase annually. For further information about the University's fee policy, visit our Fee Rules.
