Understanding the Irrational Customer: 3 Major Factors You Need To Know

Beyondphilosphy.com’s Colin Shaw recently wrote a great article about how consumers make decisions in the purchase process. Most importantly, the article talks about the need for customer experience (CX) understanding to be put into CX action. Here’s the 3 most important insights and how you can use these factors to improve the CX on your website.

1. Customers make decisions emotionally.

It’s well known that customer emotions are major factors in the decision making process but many companies still fail to realise how much a negative reaction can effect the entire experience. When building your webpage, consider the emotion you want the user to feel and how the design can manifest that in the user. This will ensure users are satisfied and more likely to perform the desired action, whether that be a purchase or simply learning about a product.

(Source: Columbia Business Times, 2016)

2. Customers can be irrational.

A customer might say one thing but do another. They might make decisions that make no sense whatsoever. You need to embrace this. The customer has fast, reactionary decision making led by emotion and slower, more rational decision making to support or counter the quick thinking.

Sometimes the quick response will win out, but if given time, a countering long term decision making process will usually win the internal argument. Consider how your website encourages users to make quick reactions and long-term choices that support each other to eventually lead to a purchase.

3. Recognise where consumers want things to be easy.

You’ve probably navigated your website a hundred times and know it like the back of your hand. But your consumers don’t, especially new ones.

Customers want things to be easy, but companies often don’t know where difficulty arises in their own process. Performing user testing to see where customers become stuck or take longer than expected can be a great way to understand your consumers. From there you can update your site accordingly.

Are you looking to understand consumer behaviour on your website? Get in touch and let us help you overcome these challenges!