Consumer Behaviour

Following on from yesterday’s post, fitness expert Daryl Pace asked:

That a customer’s answer to a satisfaction survey depends upon the context in which the questions were framed, as well as other possible factors, does seem to make sense. However, if a business did a survey that just asked the question, “are you satisfied overall with the service this business provides you”, it seems that they would get a decent gauge on the general customer sentiment about the business. What do you think?

It’s a great question, and I’m happy to tell you what I think as it gets right to the heart of one of my favourite subjects, consumer research.

The first thing to say is that, if you were going to ask this question, Daryl’s implicit suggestion that you JUST ask this one question (so as to remove the risk of inadvertent framing) would definitely be the best option. 

However, in all my years of consumer research and marketing I’ve never seen a one question questionnaire (although I do use this approach myself sometimes in a slightly different context).  Instead people want to break down an issue into its logical constituent parts or, at the very least, ask people why they think what they do.

In both cases, the fact that you’ve asked other questions or asked ‘why?’ changes the way the brain works, what the person thinks and what they go on to say in reply.

But there are other problems with asking even the single question on satisfaction:

• Asking a question creates a context and influences the respondent’s mindset; different ways of asking produce different results.  How do you know if what you’re getting is a legitimate appraisal of that customer’s satisfaction and not one that is shaped by the dynamic of questioning?  You don’t.
• Asking people to explain what they like and don’t like has been shown to change the overall rating that they give.
• Where you ask and who is asking will change the response.  As will whatever the person was doing immediately prior to your having asked them.  Understanding what is ‘in play’ in terms of response influence is extremely difficult.
• Asking about satisfaction presupposes that satisfaction is a salient issue for the consumer.  If you ask you will get an answer, but customers may very well not be processing the experience in a way that reflects our conscious notion of satisfying or dissatisfying experiences.

Supposing you go ahead and ask and learn that 80% of people are satisfied; how do you interpret that data.  OK, you could look at how that number has changed, but does a drop of 20% mean you have a problem, or are people just becoming accustomed to something that was previously perceived as satisfying?  Over time you have created your own context and people have unconsciously moved the satisfaction goal posts because of what you’ve done for them!

What if satisfaction scores increase but sales decline?  Does that mean you shouldn’t look at your product or service because it’s satisfying people?

I’ve conducted research where people were satisfied with a customer service help desk.  But I knew that they weren’t satisfied at all.

How?

I’d watched them have their customer experience.  It was unpleasant.  They were unhappy and uncomfortable throughout the interaction that was taking place.

I told my client the good news, “Everyone’s satisfied with your customer help desk.”  And then the bad news, “They’re only satisfied because their expectations of you are so low that, provided they get a positive outcome in the end, they’ll accept it.”

So, I think the whole concept of measuring customer satisfaction is misjudged.  Yes you get a number and companies love numbers, but it’s a meaningless one and it doesn’t, or more to the point shouldn’t, make any difference to how a company appraises what it’s offering to customers.

There are better ways of gauging satisfaction.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer research, Customer Service consumer behaviour, consumer research, customer satisfaction

With so much consumer behaviour, not to mention human behaviour, happening at an unconscious level, it’s all too easy for something that you say or do to not register in your own consciously accessible memory as significant.

One friend of mine was asked in a survey what brands of lager he purchased.  He wasn’t a big drinker, but would probably make a lager purchase (always of the same brand) every month or two. 

But faced with an interviewer’s question, and without the unconsciously filtered visual prompts of the packaging he couldn’t recall the brand he’d bought all these years (a little-known brand called Budweiser!).  How do I know the visual prompts were unconsciously filtered? Because faced with a bottle, even with a large proportion concealed he would recognise it and name it every time. 

But he couldn’t describe the bottle’s design, because if he could summon up a similar small proportion of the pack detail consciously, he would have been able to recall the name too.

Had the interview been conducted on a different day, or in a different place, he might have seen a visual cue that reminded him. 

It’s all a bit haphazard, don’t you think?

Recently I read an internet survey on mobile phone (cell phone) usage.  One of the early questions asked “When you share your thoughts about computers and IT topics how do you do it?”

A prompted list offered nine choices, and an ”other” and “I don’t share thoughts…” options.

Just how much reliving off the recent past the average respondent is supposed to invoke at this point isn’t clear.

A casual comment on an iPhone application mentioned in a car?  A pointer on the bottom of an email?  Telling someone that their blog formatting is off? 

Frankly, I can’t be bothered to give much thought to a question like this.  And I happen to think that the vast majority of other respondents, blasting through the survey so that they get entered for the sweep-stake prize or to receive some other recompense, won’t be that bothered either.

So just how much should faith should a company have in an answer to a question like this from consumer research?

Not much, is my professional opinion.

As you go about your consumer life it doesn’t matter at all that your thoughtless; in fact, it helps make you efficient at what you do.  Imagine buying beer for the first time and trying to make a “good” decision by reading all the packs, analysing the ingredients, and so on.  It would take forever, and you’d be none the wiser in any case!

But when it comes to trying to understand your own consumers it really is important to understand that consumers are, for the most part, consciously thoughtless.  They may well answer your questions, but you shouldn’t confuse the fact that you get an answer with the notion that the answer has any real relevance to them or people your survey is assuming that they’re representative of.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer behaviour, consumer research

A couple of conversations recently have highlighted just how stupid consumers often are.

Case in point, me.

I like to think I’m reasonably capable, astute, switched on, together. But that’s just what I like to think.

You see, I’ve been following this blog on investment (www.greatwealth.com/).  To begin with I felt sort of obliged to stick with it, I’d said to someone that I would look at it.  But it was a bit annoying.

The investment adviser there (Rod) seemed determined to spell out assumptions people have about investing with the implicit message that they didn’t stack up.  Rod did say he would tell us why, but my resistance was, if anything, increasing as the days went on.

You see I know about investing.  Well, when I say “I know” that’s not totally accurate.  It would be more accurate to say that I have invested money in my time, like a lot of people. 

My “knowledge” is really no such thing.  It’s a market-driven, or rather marketing-driven, perspective of how investment works, derived almost entirely from what I see people doing.

If someone said you should do something just because it’s what everyone else does, you would give them that funny look you like to use just before you walk away dismissively.  And yet we make tacit judgments all the time entirely on this basis.

And I should know.

My biggest professional challenge is pointing out to people that, despite the fact that billions of dollars are spent on it, consumer research doesn’t work.  When it comes down to it, and given that even people who use research regularly find bits they disagree with and so could hardly be classed as true research theists, the main reason everyone does it is because everyone does it!

And as I’ve learned from Rod’s blog, it takes time to point out to someone if prevailing wisdom isn’t very wise.  But most marketing happens in moments, not minutes, let alone hours.  And that’s a big challenge.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, consumer research consumer behaviour, consumer research, Marketing

A little consumer behaviour fun with almost moving pictures!

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Video consumer behaviour

When it comes to interpreting consumer behaviour people sometimes aren’t quite sure what they might be looking for, so I put together this audio to provide a starter guide to consumer behaviour, why it’s important and two or three things that are worth looking out for.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Audio consumer behaviour

When it comes to observing consumer behaviour, or any aspect of human behaviour, there is an important tip you would do well to keep in mind.  The process of observation needs to be as detached and objective as possible.

It’s also worth remembering that you will learn the most when your presence as an observer isn’t something the people you’re observing are aware of: “I’ve just come here to watch, you carry on as normal” is not going to work. 

You’ve just raised the question of what “normal” is and virtually guaranteed that someone is going to be consciously aware of their own actions.

Yesterday I had a fascinating insight into sexist behaviour.  You know the sort of thing, putting women down, not treating them as equals, pushing people into gender stereotypes.  It can get you a little cross can’t it.

Who was guilty of this?  Would you be surprised if I said a group of middle-aged men?  Probably not, that’s just one of those things you’ve come to expect.

Oh, I nearly didn’t mention, some boys too.

Oh yes, and some girls.

And some women.  Ranging in age from twenty-somethings to ladies in their seventies.  Including one who is a social worker.

In fact, everybody in the room was at it.  It was like a convention for sexism.  Except, in fact, it was the annual draw for Wimbledon tennis tickets.

Each club that’s affiliated to the Lawn Tennis Association receives an allocation of tickets for the championships.  Members of the club were there to watch the draw to decide who would get a ticket.  The earlier your name came out the sooner you got to choose which day of the tennis you would attend.

So the choice people made was a good indication of what they wanted to watch.   What was first to go?  Centre Court tickets on men’s final day, of course.

What was last to go?  Any day the men weren’t playing (ladies’ quarter finals, semi finals and even the ladies’ final).

So whilst the organising bodies in women’s tennis have achieved equal pay in the main tournaments, it seems that the tennis-watching public isn’t seeing things as being equal.  Of course, if you asked the ladies present if the prize money should be equal, they wouldn’t hesitate to say “yes”.  But what people say, and what they reveal through their behaviour are rarely the same thing.

Whilst this was going on I was sitting next to a lady with a baby, just five or six weeks old.  On three occasions she had cause to go up to the board where the choice of tickets was displayed and, on each occasion, she passed the infant to someone to hold.

She always passed it to another woman.  She never asked me.  Nor did she ask any of the other fathers in the room.

Was this all sexist behaviour?  I’m pretty sure it was.

You see, despite what we like to tell ourselves about what we think, our behaviour will give us away.

Our unconscious works ahead of our “nice to have” conscious notions, to find the safest route for us to pursue.

To be honest, the chance of a woman knowing what to do with a baby are much greater than a man; it’s not guaranteed, but it’s a safer bet.

And tennis elitism is a male preserve; fewer errors, better movement, higher quality (this is all statistically verifiable); not that that matters.  People know what they’d rather watch: a first round men’s match featuring a great male player, than a grand slam final featuring two of the best female players.

So if you make sure those conscious pretentions don’t get in the way - your own value judgments and those of the people you’re interested in - you may be surprised (or disappointed) by what you see. 

But however you feel about it, it is the way things are.  You can try and fight it or you can recognise it and tailor your marketing accordingly.

For example, if you put a mixed sex group of people in a room to watch a TV programme, and asked a lady to start the DVD player, but fixed it so that it wouldn’t work, who do you think she would turn to?  Would she look at one of the other women or one of the men when she realised she needed help with something technical?

Trust me, I know plenty of very technically competent women and, for the record, my golf teacher is a woman, but I’m fairly sure most of the time the person would look towards a man.  So if you’re putting a voice-over on your TV ad for an electronics product or retailer, does the choice of a female voice make sense?  I suspect not.

It’s a shame that we should have to choose between pragmatism and idealistic values, but I would never recommend to one of my clients that they embrace the latter over the former.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves Advertising, consumer behaviour, consumer research Advertising, consumer behaviour, consumer research, marketing communication

Yesterday’s article, for all its mediocrity (sorry about that), did spark an interesting question from Yann.  He questioned the extent to which the ads I was discussing would generate business for those companies.

As I mentioned in my reply to Yann, at least part of the way in which advertising works is to “register” a brand or product at an unconscious level.

Given the way in which the unconscious mind works (by associations) I’m convinced that the unconscious benefit is likely to be maximised when unconscious awareness of the ad coincides with positive emotions.  Even if the humour has little or no relevance to the product, the fact that the two exist together at that moment in time can have a positive impact.

Part of the support for my theory comes from the fact that the only meaningful correlation that people who track advertising have been able to identify from the many (it turns out mostly pointless) questions they ask people, is that ads that score well for ‘like-ability’ generate more sales.

Forget unprompted awareness, prompted awareness, accurately identifying the brand, recalling the tag line, remembering what product it was promoting… none of that seems to count for much.

Last year researchers from the University of Maryland discovered that, simply by showing pictures of people going about daily activities near a product (Dasani bottled water in this case), participants were more likely to choose that product over three alternatives; this was the case even when people were unaware of having seen the product in those pictures.

The more pictures they saw containing the product, the more likely they were to select it later.

When alternative versions of the pictures were shown that included either someone wearing a cap from the same university or one from a rival (again with the product present), the presence of someone with an unconscious link to themselves also prompted greater take up of the brand.

The more I see studies like this, the more convinced I am about the importance and power of unconscious associations in determining consumer behaviour.

Perhaps most crucially, it’s important to understand that what the unconscious mind values isn’t necessarily the same as what we would like to think is important to us.

Philip Graves

Source: University of Chicago Press Journals (2008, October 15). Subconscious Encounters: How Brand Exposure Affects Your Choices

Philip Graves Advertising, consumer behaviour, selling Advertising, consumer behaviour, influence, marketing communication, The Secret of Selling

Today I had the last of five or six conversations with my brother about buying a camera.

I’m no Annie Liebovitz!  But I did get into SLR photography many years ago and have had the good luck to take one or two half decent photographs over the years – including one of the Brooklyn Bridge that my brother has in his house.  It’s a good picture, although not so good that he’s ever asked me to sign it or anything.

Probably the best picture I ever took was of a sculpture.  I was in Paris and took a black and white photo of a Rodin work called The Woman Under the Stone (only that in French, I imagine).  By over-exposing the picture perfectly, the dark weathering of the sculpture was magically transformed into a dramatic blend of shimmering shades. 

Of course, this was in the days when you didn’t know what your pictures would look like until you got them developed.  Incidentally, when I said I had been lucky to take some good pictures, it wasn’t false modesty.  The Rodin picture only came out that way because I’d forgotten to change the settings over when I got outside!

All of which is nothing to do with consumer behaviour.  But what I did learn from the many conversations with my brother is how much easier it is to make a clear recommendation when your own money isn’t involved: it’s much easier to help spend someone else’s money.

Don’t misunderstand me, I’d hate to give my brother bad advice.  But the difference is that I don’t have any unconscious rumblings of loss aversion to contend with.  If there’s disappointment down the line I won’t have lost anything personally; it is, after all, still my brother making the final decision about what to do with his money.

So how might this be useful from a consumer behaviour perspective?  Well, if you can find a way to encourage people to recommend your product or service to their friends it’s likely to reap dividends.  Persuading someone to recommend you to someone else (ironically, even if they haven’t used your services themselves) can be more influential and compelling than delivering your sales message to them first-hand!

Everyone is a potential customer.  And even someone who doesn’t buy from you may recommend you to someone else.

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling consumer behaviour, marketing communication, why customers buy

I’d like to pick up on a long reply to yesterday’s post because I hope I can be more constructive than I was able to be yesterday.

Here’s is Pam’s reply to yesterday’s post:

It’s interesting to read how the rational and unconscious minds often pull us in opposite directions. Your point is well taken that people often think they want A but actually choose B because it fulfills an unconscious need, want or desire. It is good to bear this in mind.

If you are looking to invest your money though, at some point – unless you choose to navigate the investment world yourself – you will likely be forced to make a choice between various options and advisers available to you. In essence, you are trusting your future to advice of someone and their investing philosophy and strategy.

The question then becomes in whom do you trust and why do you trust them?

As you have been explaining so well in your blog, our buying decisions must fulfill some type of psychological need. In the case of investing, one must feel comfortable entrusting their life savings.

For some it is purely an emotional investment. They will invest with the person who makes them feel most comfortable or represents a philosophy they feel most comfortable with.

For others, such as myself, our comfort-zone is found by analyzing details and facts. Rod’s approach will likely not persuade the masses. Nor does he intend it to. It’s a targeted niche of investors to whom his strategy will appeal. He knows and understands the demographics of those whom he is targeting.

I have seen first-hand the results Rod’s methods of investing. The process through which he takes his clients is thorough, rigorous and intense. I can speak to this through personal experience as I am one of his numerous clients. And yes, even I had to go through the same battery of tools he uses to devise a plan tailored and targeted specifically to my risk tolerance and time horizon – which I might add is different than the risk tolerance of us as a couple. I would be remiss if I didn’t add that while the market has taken a hit in recent months, my portfolio has weathered the storm quite nicely given the current economic conditions.

Everyone has to find their own comfort level – after all its YOUR money and YOUR future that you are banking on. While past performance is not a predictor of future earnings or performance, I know where my comfort-level is an I’m very happy with the results I’ve achieved through Rod’s methodology and strategic investing.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Respectfully,

Pam
Well the first thing I’d like to say is that I’m sorry if Pam took it as an indirect attack on her and Rod’s business, it certainly wasn’t intended to be.

Secondly, Pam’s reply didn’d address the key point of the research I was reporting: it was investment advisers whose judgment was influenced (primed) by what they had just read, although no doubt consumers are susceptible to being primed in the same way.

So how could someone in the investment business use research like that which I referenced, which opens a veritable can of worms regarding the veracity of investment advice?

From the point of view of the investment advice they offer, other research on subliminal influence and priming shows that its effects are reduced, or removed altogether, where people are aware that something could prime them.  So, provided Rod recognises that he could be unconsciously primed to give different advice on the basis of what they read and hear, they are somewhat less likely to do so.

[Incidentally, I'm certain that none of the very rational and analytical investment advisers and accountants that took part in the research believed their advice was the by-product of something they'd just read.  This isn't a reflection on the individual, it's a reflection of how our brains work.]

Perhaps more importantly this information is an opportunity for them to differentiate from their competitors.  In their position this is exactly the sort of information I would communicate to potential clients, along with an overview of the systems in place to make the advice offered as rational and robust as possible (something that seems to be a real strength of theirs).

Rest assured, there is nothing like providing a genuine source of anxiety in your consumer’s mind regarding the risk of using a competitor, for that competitor to seem far less attractive.  Handled the wrong way knocking the competition can be alienating, but when you have scientific studies to quote it’s not you that’s doing the knocking, it’s implicit (or explicit if you point out that “very few other investment specialists are aware of the fact that…”).

I hope that this makes for a more constructive post. 

Philip Graves

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling Add new tag, analysis, consumer behaviour, marketing communication, priming, psychology

Perhaps some of the most interesting blog debate I’ve read recently has been on Rod’s Personal Investment Strategies blog. 

It’s been a while since I did any consumer behaviour research with financial institutions, but in many ways my journey into consumer behaviour and away from traditional consumer research began during a consumer focus group about pension choice, back in the 1990s. 

It was the fourth long and tedious group discussion with people who were considering investing in a pension scheme, during which they told me how they wanted independent advice, a range of funds and a provider with good financial security.  At the end, after everyone was getting up to go, one of the group asked another, who had been a little more vociferous than the rest, where he was planning to get his pension.  The reply led to several of the group soliciting the details of someone who I recognised was an ‘industrial’ insurance salesman (i.e. not independent).  What’s more, they didn’t ask who he represented, how financially secure his company was or how many funds he offered.

I realised that I was going away to write my report on what they’d all said; meanwhile they were all about go and do something entirely different.

I’m aware of studies that have found people tend to like stocks that have readable names (as opposed to abstract or technical-sounding ones), and that people tend to select things in general that begin with the same first letter as their own name. 

These reflect the way the unconscious mind works, by generating a feeling based on familiarity, which is then consciously de-coded (erroneously) as being a ‘good’ choice.

Last week another study shed light on the power of the unconscious mind’s influence in this apparently rational world: a study conducted by the University of Haifa found that the investment selections of a group of investment advisers and accountants  was strongly influenced by what type of article they were given to read before making a selection.

Those who were given an article on someone who took big risks and was successful, rated a stock they were shown as being more attractive (more valuable for investment) than those who were shown the same stock after reading an article about someone who had been successful after avoiding a risky decision.

All the participants gave their assessment of the fund on the basis of the same financial report.

So it seems an investment advisers advice might have just as much to do with what he’s read that morning in the paper, or a story he has heard from someone else, as it does a ‘rational’ assessment of the data for that company.

Studies like these on the power of priming don’t make for particularly comfortable reading for anyone who likes to believe they’re balanced, rational and analytically-minded.  However, understanding the way our brains work is critical to understanding our customers’ behaviour.

Philip Graves

Source: University of Haifa (2009, April 28). Reading Reports Involving Risk-taking Affects Financial Decision Making. ScienceDaily.

Philip Graves consumer behaviour, selling analysis, consumer behaviour, investments, priming, psychology