You know what you want don’t you. You know what you like. It’s like the old saying about art, “I don’t know much, but I know what I like" (usually followed by something resembling, but not convincingly matching, a laugh).
And so it is that, often, organisations will turn to consumers to find out what they want. It seems a sensible enough thing to do after all, what sort of person doesn't know what he wants? Let's do some market research!
Except that, what we think we want and what we ultimately end up choosing to do are completely different things. There are a number of reasons for this:
- Most of
our behaviour is unconsciously
triggered. We react to our
environment in a way that we have learned
is best (safest) for us. But with no
link to the way in which our unconscious
mind works, we are not aware of the
processes involved in directing our
behaviour.
- When we
think to the future we can never do so with
a total view. So when we are asked to
think about one aspect of our future, such
as whether or not we would like a
particular product or service, we react to
it in a totally artificial context.
We are not thinking about the stresses and
strains that will be going on at the time,
the fact that we might be having a bad day,
that we’re in a hurry, or that we really
can't afford to something to go wrong with
what we're buying because of the specific
application we have in mind.
- There’s
no personal risk or opportunity cost
involved in answering a question about
something. But when it comes down to it,
choosing to buy something normally involves
some element of not buying something
else. At the very least it involves
financial outlay and the risk that we will
end up feeling the money was
wasted.
- People
can't envisage what all the consequences of
something they want will be. Being
able to blend fruit into a delicious
smoothie seems like a fantastic thing. But
when it comes down to it, having to get the
heavy machine out of the cupboard each time
to use it, and taking it apart to clean it,
are a major chore.
- People tend to focus on the positive. So when something is presented to them they will work on the basis that what they are hearing is true (and in product development at that stage often there is nothing else to go on; people will assume things will be as they are intended to be). However, the first time they hear that something has gone wrong for somebody else they will be reluctant to take a chance themselves.
Often I find an example helps, so continue to read an example of this with squirrels…. »
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© 2008 Philip Graves Consumer Behaviour Resource. All rights reserved.