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How is Your Business Dealing with the Paradox of Choice?
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How is Your Business Dealing with the Paradox of Choice?
Home 5 Blogs 5 How is Your Business Dealing with the Paradox of Choice?

Has it happened to you that you went to the supermarket thinking you’ll be in and out quickly and spend half an hour choosing a wine? Or that you buy a dress, shirt, shoes and only an hour later you already feel sorry about that? This latter one is called “Buyer’s remorse”.  That post-purchase anxiety about a decision is a common affliction for Customers.

 Some experts say that too many choices are one of the factors that can cause these feelings. Reducing choices isn’t the answer though, as customers are attracted by large assortments; i.e.. they like the feeling of having an abundance of choice. It is a paradox to be sure, and one commonly referred to as the Paradox of choice.

Resolving the paradox of choice should be a priority for most organizations that want to design a Customer Experience that creates a feeling of satisfaction instead of one of angst and remorse.

The Paralysis of Too Much Choice

The New York Times had an interesting article on the power of too many choices.  Both psychologists and economists agree that too many choices can paralyze consumers so they can’t make a choice at all. This concept was well illustrated by Columbia University’s Professor Sheena Iyengar’s famous jam study.

The jam study took place in a gourmet market in California. The researchers had set up in the store a free sample table of Wilkin & Sons jams. When they had only six options, only 40% of the visitors approached the table, but the ones that did were more likely to buy the jam e.g. 30% of those who tried samples.. When they had 24 jams to sample, more people came to the table (i.e. 60% of visitors) but fewer bought the jam (only 3%).  Professor Iyengar had this to say in the article, “The presence of choice might be appealing…but in reality, people might find more and more choice to actually be debilitating.”

Barry Schwartz, professor of psychology at Swarthmore College and author of “The Paradox of Choice” did a TED talk on this important concept.

Schwartz discusses how choices represent freedom, but that they imprison us with indecision because we want to make the perfect choice. When we feel that we haven’t done that, then we have buyer’s remorse. The conclusion was that he thought that we should stop looking for the perfect selection and instead be happy with “good enough.”

But how do you get to good enough? How do you help customers make a decision they are satisfied with and not one they wish they had done differently? These questions are good ones and perhaps best answered by the concept of “Choice Closures.”

What is a Choice Closure?

Buyer’s remorse is at its essence a feeling that we could have done better. It comes from feeling that you didn’t have all the information to make the perfect choice. It is common enough that I’m sure if you think about you can recall a time when you felt it, too.

Choice closure, a concept that helps minimize buyer’s remorse and maximize satisfaction with the decision, can help organizations create better outcomes for their customers. According to neurosciencemarketing.com, choice closure involves removing the choices physically from view to promote the eventual satisfaction with their decision. I found myself also to be removing the dismissed choices when I shop online. Because of the abundance of choice I narrow down my search by adding 3-4 items to the cart and then compare them just visually or by reading more information about them and then make a decision. 

Another example of this concept in action was closing the menu at a restaurant, which the authors compare to “closing off” a choice. Closing off the choice physically by closing the menu gave diners an emotional closure to their decision and led to their satisfaction with their order.

So helping your customers make decisions by giving them subtle acts of closure is one way that you can help reassure them that they are making the right choice. When they feel more confident in their choice, they will feel less remorse and be happier overall with their decision.

Wine Buying Closures

Wine stores play music to put their customers in a happy and relaxed mood. Research shows that classical music boosts wine sales the most, but an experiment showed that playing French or German music can have a huge boost on the sales of the wines originating from that country.

 Now, there are plenty of choices at most wine stores. The good news is here that if you have a bad case of remorse, you can always drown your sorrows with your purchase! All kidding aside, there are ways to help wine customers make decisions on which choice to make.

These could include:

  • Price reduction in yellow on a big price reduction label.  Price tags in yellow, discounts, etc. are ways to ease the customer decision making. 
  • Employing a reduction of choices in each category. By reducing the options within a category, you reduce the chances of overwhelming the customer, but still provide freedom of choice, e.g., Cabernet varietal, but one for a high price, medium price, and low price.
  • Nice picture, packaging, quality of the label paper. Making the purchase seem more attractive empirically can appeal to some Customers, helping them feel satisfied they made the right choice.
  • Including a long history of the producer, country of origin, etc. The right level of information is also a factor that eases decision making. For real wine connoisseurs information can appeal to their sense of tradition.

Each of these tactics represents a choice closure for the Customer, giving them relief from the idea that they are making the wrong choice or missing the perfect option. Each of these in their way gives the Customer a reasonable option to arrive at a decision that was “good enough.”

The circle of choice, or needing to have many choices available but not too many to create confusion and buyer’s remorse for their Customers, creates a paradox for many organizations in their Customer Experience design.

Understanding the power of choice and the pitfalls of it, however, can release an organization from this circle as well as help them define closures that can help consumers feel better about their decision. In this way, organizations can resolve the paradox of choice and create a Customer Experience that results in customers that make choices with them again and again.

Sources:

Tugend, Alina. “Too Many Choices: A Problem That Can Paralyze.” www.nytimes.com. Web. 27 February 2010. < http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/your-money/27shortcuts.html?_r=2&>

Carvalho, John. “The Simple Way to Minimize Buyer’s Remorse.” www.neurosciencemarketing.com. 16 July 2013. Web. 19 August 2014. < http://www.neurosciencemarketing.com/blog/articles/buyers-remorse.htm>

“Does Music Influence Your Wine Buying?” www.winepleasures.com. 29 July 2011. Web. 19 August 2014. < http://www.winepleasures.com/2011/07/29/does-music-influence-your-wine-buying/