Conclusion: decisions, decisions, decisions…

We don’t like making decisions.  The more choices we have, the sadder we get.  This may sound obvious but it is actually counterintuitive.  If given the choice between having more options or fewer options, people (customers) will tell you they want more.  Unfortunately, their behavior tells a different story. The more choices people have the more frustrated and unhappy they become.  This is perhaps the single most important and insightful nugget that decision theorists have uncovered in the last decade.  Here is how it plays out:

• Suzy decides she needs a red sweater
• Suzy goes to her favorite retailer or shops on-line
• Suzy has to choose between 20 different red sweaters
• Suzy decides she really does not want a red sweater

When people have too many options they tend to do one of two things:

1. Go with the simplest, cheapest, least risky option
2. Enter into a state of decision paralysis where making no decision seems better than the alternative

One of my favorite restaurants is In-n-Out Burger.  If you want a hamburger, fries, and a drink, go to In-n-Out Burger.  If you are in the mood for something else, don’t go to In-n-Out.  In-n-Out can do hamburgers in almost any way you can imagine: covered in chili, stacked 3-burgers high, smothered in onions.  Their menu goes deep (burgers any way you want), but they don’t go wide (burger alternatives).  The same is true for Apple and the iPhone.  Apple sells a lot of cell phones.  Every one of them is an iPhone.  You can get different features (deep) but not different phones (wide).

Fewer Decisions = Happier Customers. This is not what your customers will tell you; this is what their wallets will tell you.

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