Reading Customers’ Minds
Using consumer behavior research to better understand customers
When we shop, our behavior as consumers depends on millions of factors—our age, the weather, if we’re hungry, if we’re in a funk—all of them shifting like tectonic plates and all beyond a store owner’s control. To truly understand why we make the decisions we do and why we purchase the things we do, says Chiara Longoni, an assistant professor of marketing who researches consumer behavior, store owners have to continually study the erratic variables behind customers’ choices. Here’s how to be a mind reader.
Don’t Do That: It’s dangerous to assume that a business model or marketing technique that worked once will work again. “It is very tempting when you have success to think that this idea can be exported and generalized in another context,” says Longoni. For instance, a budget-friendly car is going to be the hot new trend in some cultures, but not in ones where people see their wheels as a symbol of status and success. “Consumers are context dependent, and the assumption that their decisions are stable is very risky and seldom true.” There isn’t a gold standard to how we make decisions, Longoni says, “even when the consumer is the same.”
Do This: “You have to brainstorm possible factors that may impact the specific consumer decision you’re looking at, make predictions, and test them,” says Longoni. Experimentation is critical and Longoni says there are simple tests any business can try to get inside a customer’s mind. If you’re marketing a new flavored water, for example, and you want to find the maximum amount someone is willing to pay for it, you have to consider all the factors at play, from cultural norms—are drinks a refreshing status symbol or utilitarian thirst quencher?—to the weather in your target market. If you think high-end restaurants will sell your fancy water year-round, test that theory with surveys—perhaps their diners will choose your drink in the summer, but opt for a warm tea during the winter. If you think older customers will lap up your product, ask them. You might find that they’d rather chug tap water, but that their kids (who have less to spend) love to be seen swigging from the latest hip bottle.
