Becoming the Intuitive Brand for the Intuitive Customer

Welcome to Why Customers Buy, my weekly LinkedIn Newsletter series that explores how customers make decisions. It reveals ways to unlock what customers really want with new concepts and practical tips that drive value. Subscribe today right here.

We learned in the last issue of Why Customers Buy that our Intuitive System and Rational System work together to make decisions, and, therefore, appealing to both the emotional and logical thinking we all have is essential in your Customer Experience design. Today we explore how you can use the two systems to become the Intuitive Brand for people. 

 As you might remember, the Intuitive System takes less energy to run than the Rational System. It is the most accessible system to access, and so we use it a lot throughout the day to make “pretty good” decisions that are fine most of the time. We favor the Intuitive System from an evolutionary perspective because our mind is always looking to save energy and automate as many decisions as possible. 

 It also means that even when we use our Rational System for a process or a decision, the Intuitive System wants to take it over. The Intuitive System is always looking for a way to switch choices over to an automatic process. 

 For example, have you ever driven home from work, pulled into your driveway or parking spot, and realized you don’t remember the details of the drive home? Of course, when you sit there and think about it a bit, you will remember details, like merging onto the freeway or sitting in traffic at the red light for longer than you felt was fair. However, the drive home, which you make ostensibly five times a week, was not something of which you were conscious every moment. 

 The reason you were not aware of the drive is that your Intuitive System was handling it. Over time and repetition, the drive home became routine. The more routine it felt, the less the Rational System thought it needed to be in charge of it. Over time, the Rational System decided to let your Initial System take the wheel (literally) when driving home. 

 Another reason that the Rational System is content to free up routines is that it needs to focus. The Intuitive System is an excellent multi-tasker, but the Rational System can only do one thing at a time. Whenever you can take a task from the Rational System and send it over to the Intuitive System, then you free up the Rational System to think about other things, like how to do a better job with traffic light synchronization on the drive home! 

 Automation makes things easier for your mind to conserve energy and frees up thinking space for your rational mind. Therefore, whenever it can, your brain will automate a decision or a routine action—including when you are a customer. For me, this behavior manifests in my routine for buying airline tickets. As soon as I decide to fly somewhere, I go to Delta.com.

 Now, would I choose Delta if they were always late, lost my luggage two out of three trips, and were rude to me in my interactions with them? No, I wouldn’t. However, Delta has done a consistent job of delivering an experience that is “pretty good most of the time,” which is what the Intuitive System loves and the Rational System can tolerate. 

 Once I realized I had a satisfactory experience with the Delta interface and benefited from it consistently, I began to trust it, and, perhaps more importantly, return the next time. 

 Here, the Intuitive System noticed I was using Delta.com more than other sites for booking my trips. As a result of the repetition, the Intuitive System took over the decision from the Rational System. The Rational System didn’t object because it saved time and effort and was pretty good most of the time. Therefore, my automatic response to “I need an airline ticket,” is “Book it on Delta.com.”

 This automatic behavior and routine is one reason customers get cranky when you change things. A while back, Delta changed the website. I guess that if you hadn’t been using the site, it was an excellent user experience. However, for me, a routine customer, it was not at first. For example, I used to be able to do a specific function during booking with one click. Now, the same feature requires several clicks. My Intuitive System was confused, which woke up my Rational System, and it was grumpy because it thought we had already booked the flight.

 In a perfect world, all your customers will buy from you automatically with their Intuitive System. However, to get there, you must first provide an experience that satisfies the Rational System’s logical need for receiving perceived value and meeting product or service expectations. 

 You can help this outcome along in the way you design your Customer Experience. My advice is that if your customers buy from you in any repetitive way—meaning it is a repeat purchase—make it as easy as possible for them. Streamline the process and educate the customer about all the ways you make their lives (and buying decisions) more natural. The Rational System will notice, and the Intuitive System will love it. 

 However, you should also remember that if you have established this routine, changing it can lead to customer grumpiness. Change is necessary, I realize. So, if you do need to change the established process, manage the transition properly. An understanding and empathetic ear for hearing customer complaints, an acknowledgment of their concerns, and thorough customer education are two areas that will go a long way to fix any disgruntlement in this area. 

 The next issue of Why Customers Buy will explore how Customer Experience Design and choice architecture work with the two systems to help customers make decisions to buy from you. Price, Product, Promotion, and Placement are still essential to earning your customers’ business. However, stacking the deck in your favor with how you present them is a significant factor, too.

There you have it. No promotions, no gimmicks, just good information. 

We hope you enjoyed this issue of Why Customers Buy. If you have, please forward it to a friend or colleague.

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