The hidden joys of buyer’s remorse

The hidden joys of buyer’s remorse

Everyone knows the feeling. You’ve just committed to a significant purchase, maybe you’ve clicked “confirm” on an online form, or maybe you’ve signed a contract, and then you get that uneasy feeling that says “Should I have done that?” This is what we know as buyer’s remorse, or if you want to use a bloated intellectual label, post-purchase cognitive dissonance.

Buyer’s remorse is extremely common. With big ticket items like houses or cars, it’s pretty logical that buyers have second thoughts. But two-thirds of us actually suffer from it in the lead-up to Christmas, and a massive eighty-two percent of shoppers have experienced it at least once after buying online.

If that’s starting to sound a little grim, take heart in the fact that this is an affliction you can easily treat. In fact, it’s actually an excellent opportunity to strengthen the relationship with new customers so they can become much more valuable down the track.

That’s where some marketers miss the mark by focusing purely on customer acquisition. The customer begins a whole other journey once they make the decision to buy and that journey needs to be carefully curated by marketing so that customer develops into the best customer possible, delivering all of their potential value.

 

Buyer’s remorse triggers & opportunities

 

Typical thoughts that trigger buyer’s remorse are:

• “Did I pay too much?”
• “Can I afford this?”
• “Is it really the best brand?”
• “Do I really need this?”
• “I wonder what [peer/friend/family member] thinks about it?”

 

Once these thoughts surface the customer tries to find some information that negates them. Now, this is important, in most cases they are looking to reassure themselves they did the right thing, not try and nuke the deal.

Customers pay the most attention to brands immediately after they purchase. They will never be more engaged and open to communication than they will in this honeymoon period. But now if you add a bout of buyer’s remorse into the mix, you’ve got an attentive customer actively searching for positive information on the product/service and brand they’ve just purchased.

If brands provide this reassurance the customer is looking for, and if it’s done smartly enough, the customer goes on with a much stronger conviction about the brand and that relationship is tremendously strengthened. That’s the huge silver lining with buyer’s remorse!

 

The post-purchase emotional roller coaster

 

Once a purchase is made the game changes. Now we want to build a happy customer, one we can rely on for repeat purchases and brand advocacy. To do that we need to understand the phases they go through emotionally and the feelings they desire to get to that place.

 

Desire 1 – Satisfaction

The customer needs to know they made the right decision in purchasing. For some this will be a brief revisiting of the pros and cons, for others a deep struggle with buyer’s remorse.

 

Stage 2 – Performance

Once satisfied with their decision to purchase, the customer’s attention turns to getting the most out of that product or service. They want all the value they paid for.

 

Stage 3 – Belonging

They’ve been a great customer, they’ve engaged with the product or service, now they want the brand to recognise this and value them.

 

The Satisfaction stage is obviously the most crucial of the three post-purchase emotional states. If the customer isn’t happy with the purchase they made then they are hardly going to develop into an advocate for it.

 

Lifecycle marketing generates satisfaction

 

When you overlay our lifecycle marketing model with the customer’s emotional desires you see the first two modules “Acquire” and “Onboard” are key to generating customer satisfaction.

 

 

The “Acquire” phase should be full of useful information the customer can refer back to. This could be straightforward as naturally the key selling points will be given to the customer to get them to convert. More consideration might be given to the format of this information, how it can be accessed later etc so that it may play a part in quieting buyer’s remorse.

The “Onboard” phase is the critical one. It’s one job is to get the customer up and running with their new product or service and to do that it must first ensure they are satisfied with the purchase. The amount of focus onboarding outs on countering buyer’s remorse is wildly variable as it is heavily product or service dependent.

Below are a couple of examples where onboarding is needed to combat buyer’s remorse and you can see how different they are in terms of what is required to make the customer satisfied.

 

Example 1 – New Car Purchase

 

There’s a perfect storm brewing in the automotive industry when it comes to buyer’s remorse and new car buyers. The first problem is that purchase is often the second biggest the customer will ever make in their lives (behind real estate) so right away there are the ingredients for anxiety. Compounding that is the problem of delayed gratification, you sign your life away and literally get nothing in return as most new cars need to be configured or shipped so it is not uncommon to have to wait two weeks between putting pen to paper and taking receipt of the vehicle.

Some unfortunate customers start those two weeks by stewing over the decision. In terms of dealership support, the salesman has his or her sale and associated commission, they aren’t interested in hand holding the customer further. And the service team is only interested once they have the car. So, you have a customer that has spent a heap of money, gripped by anxiety and with nobody really looking after them. That’s when they start Googling.

The might discover the same vehicle cheaper somewhere else. A rival brand might be having a sale they missed and a vehicle they discounted is now affordable. They might find a story on a recall for a previous model or make. They could find any number of things to worry them and they may take those worries to social media so unqualified and uninformed people can give their unverified opinion. You can see where this is going, the last thing you want is a new customer tainting others by broadcasting how much they regret their purchase, it clearly won’t end well.

Effective onboarding shepherds new customers through the two-week waiting period by not letting them wallow in their doubts. They need to feel like a customer as quickly as possible, to start looking forward to their benefits as a new owner, not back to the purchase decision. The only catch is they need to do this without the actual vehicle.

Assuming the car is quality and was bought for the right reasons, the moment where the dealer hands over the keys is exciting enough to wash away any lingering remorse, it’s the job of marketing to sustain their excitement to some degree and deliver them back to the dealership with their positivity intact.

 

Lifecycle marketing tactics

 

Onboard – Welcome Pack

When you collect the keys it’s common they come in an ornate presentation box with some supporting information for new owners. How about breaking that up and sending something right after purchase that begins the ownership process? It could work in digital format via email but the surprise and delight element of direct mail is enticing too.

The welcome pack would:

• Welcome the customer to the family.
• Tackle the most common triggers for buyer’s remorse – “Congratulations on buying Canstar’s best value small car and Drive’s Car Of The Year Best Small Car …”
• Outline all the benefits and services that are available.
• Include a surprise bonus offer like
• Connect them with existing owner communities online or in social media.
• Direct them to an exclusive owner’s website (more below).

 

Onboard & Retain – Owners Portal

A web presence just for owners that reinforces the benefits of being an owner with exclusive services built right in. Toyota has a great one that facilitates service bookings and log book records, giving the customer a reason to stay in touch with the brand as they mature as well.

 

Onboard – Order Tracking

Some of the buyer’s remorse anxiety for new vehicle buyers stems from the fact a lot of money has just changed hands and then they are left in the dark until their vehicle is ready. If the brand can give the customer some visibility over that delivery process it can take a worry and turn it into a spot of fun. Toyota and Skoda offer this to their customers, and here is a customer so keen to head off his own buyer’s remorse he took matters into his own hands.

 

 

Example 2 – Consumer Electronics Purchase

 

Consumer electronics are a good recipe for buyer’s remorse. They can be expensive, there is incredible price competition, product differentiation can be an issue and the technology can be daunting.

Unlike the new car purchase, there’s no waiting period to get the mind churning the customer usually walks out with the product or there is a short delivery window. But the product can be more of a discretionary purchase, the customer might question if they really “need” a new TV.

Or the technology can be too daunting. Something like a high-end digital camera (DSLR) might be a passion purchase, a step toward getting a bit more serious with photography

I was lucky enough to spend some time working with Sony and one of the interesting pieces of research they gave to me was that the average consumer only ever understands 20% of the features of any complex consumer electronics product. If you can get that person to 50% then that’s advocate level! Essentially people are willing to sing the praises and recommend a product they understand 50% of.

 

Lifecycle Marketing Tactics

 

Onboard – Email Series

Sony developed and onboarding email series that triggered once users registered for the MySony owners program. A bespoke series was built around seven product lines – DSLR Camera, Point & Shoot Camera, Video Camera, Tablet, Reader, TV, VAIO laptop. The number of emails in the series and the structure of the content was dictated by the nature and extent of the buyer’s remorse experienced.

The Alpha DSLR camera range for example was susceptible because it’s a luxury product for what is a hobby for most, you don’t “need” a new camera. Add to that the complex functionality that scares newbies “I’ll never figure this out” or those with some experience and upgrading “I didn’t need this much camera”. Once the regret sets in, the camera is tucked away into a drawer, never to be seen again and the brand won’t see this happen.

With an onboarding email series, the aim is to get the customer confident and active on the camera as quickly as possible, so any previous misgivings melt away. The interesting thing about the Sony onboarding series is that content didn’t have to be created bespoke, it existed within the digital eco-system, the email series just curated and delivered it directly to new customers.

 

 

Onboard – Phone Outreach

When you are dealing with customers at premium price points, old fashioned phone outreach can be a welcome connection. Ideally, you’d have a technical person making the call, someone that can diagnose and remedy basic issues over the phone but even a contact centre employee that sets up a technician consultation for any struggling new customers is a remorse relieving weapon.

 

Acquire & Onboard – Progressive Profiling

Where different types of customers have different buyer’s remorse triggers for the same product, it’s a great idea to try and segment them in the database as soon as possible. Progressive profiling is a data collection technique where a fuller customer profile is built over time, from both declared and observed data.

Some examples of progressive profiling:

• A dynamic webform that collects essential information first before displaying optional additional modules.
• Quick question in a welcome or onboarding email that is answered with a click.
• Tracking customer behaviour during onboarding emails to determine the emphasis for the rest of the series (choose your own adventure).

 

 

Customer satisfaction is the most crucial stage on the path to advocacy. Even though the reasons for buyer’s remorse can be unique to a product or customer type, lifecycle marketing accommodates this hurdle well. In the Acquire and Onboard modules of our lifecycle model, we have the tools to create effective solutions that can be bespoke in their detail.

Keep an eye on this blog for an upcoming post that discusses what can be done to get the customer through the next emotional phase – Performance.