Decision complexity or decision simplicity?
I was reading a great book by Jon Picoult – “From Impressed to Obsessed”, and one of the concepts he wrote about is Decision complexity vs decision simplicity. In our world that means are we making it easy or hard for our customers to make a decision, whether it’s for the initial sale, or post-sale choices (menus, colors, music and more).
Listen to this new, 11-minute episode to dig a little deeper into this and see how you can apply the concept to your business and customers.
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– Decision complexity or decision simplicity. Which one are you creating? Listen to this episode and find out what I’m talking about. Hi, it’s Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. I just finished reading a book, or listening to a book because I do audiobooks, by Jon Picoult, P-I-C-O-U-L-T, and it’s called “From Impressed to Obsessed,” “From Impressed to Obsessed,” and one of the concepts that he talks about in there is decision complexity versus decision simplicity, and he is an expert and a speaker and an author on customer experience, customer service, customer experience. The book was referred to me by Shep Hyken, who’s one of the leading experts in the world on customer experience. He’s also a good friend of mine and I said, “If it’s in on his top 10 list of books to read last year, it was on my list as well.”
So what is decision complexity versus decision simplicity? And it’s, just breaking it down, it’s simply are we making it easier or harder for people to make decisions, and that’s by the way we display what we offer, by the way we explain what we offer, by the number of yeses we need someone to make to get to the results that they want, and this is probably something I’ve spoken about just in different words in different ways over the years which is, if you think about it, are you selling a la carte and maybe you could be selling in packages, but you think, “Hey, packages don’t work for me,” because your concept of packages is not what you think works for your business, but yet you just need to really approach it a different way.
Florists tell me everything they do is custom. Well, yeah, I think everybody in the wedding and event industry can say that everything I do is custom because every client is different, every couple is different, every nonprofit is different, every mitzvah or quince is different, right? But what you offer is, if you think about it, a price-fixed menu, right? If you go to a restaurant and you can have an appetizer, entree and dessert for one price or a four-course dinner for one price and then you get to choose what those things are after you’ve said I’m going to have that three or four course and then there are options that might cost a little bit more within that. So if you want the steak, it might cost a little more. If you want a particular appetizer or dessert, it might be an upcharge. The souffle might be a little more or something like that, and you could do the same thing. You could say, “Hey, let me look at what I’ve been offering over the years and what are things that people buy together normally? What are the things that they do that they buy together?”
So, if you’re a dress shop, do they normally buy the dress and some hair jewelry or a veil or headpiece of some kind or a hat? Do they also need cleaning and do they also need steaming and all these other things? And I know shops that have done this. They put them into packages. Increase your average sale but also make it an easier yes for the customer instead of selling all of these things a la carte. If you look at what you’ve been selling a la carte and you did this analytically, do little data science here, and if you’re not good with data science, get an intern from a college or somebody to do this for you and look at the data and say, “You know what? We’ve been selling these things a la carte, but there are some patterns here for sure, that when people buy this, they also buy that.” So why not sell them together and still give them choices? That’s another episode I did on giving people the perception of choice even if you actually reduce their choices, and that’s something else that he talked about in this book, is you want to not give somebody more choices because it makes it harder to decide, but they need to have the perception of choice. They need to know that they still have choices, and that’s again what I love about that concept of a price-fixed menu.
So if you are a florist, you can say, “Here’s package A, B and C,” and please don’t call them that. Give them much better names than that and I’d prefer you also don’t do silver, gold and platinum because it just sounds generic because so many people do that, but if you were to have three different packages and you said, “Listen, I know that people who buy a bouquet for a bride are also going to need these things.” So they’re going to need, maybe they’ll have a minimum of three bridesmaids and three groomsmen. So they’re going to need boutonnieres and they’re going to need bouquets for them, or if somebody buys centerpieces, they’re going to buy these and they’re also going to want some of these other things. Can I put these together in a package and have options that they can upgrade?
So if I say there’s three boutonnieres and three bridesmaids’ bouquets, assuming it’s a bride and a groom because it could be two brides and you might have a mixed bridal party, so you still might need bouquets and boutonnieres or whatever is appropriate for your particular wedding, and could you say, “This is a package, and if you need extra, it’s this much per”? But it’s easier to make that first yes. Same with a caterer. I know a lot of people that are doing pricing where we’re saying now, because the guest counts have gone down, “This is a price for up to X number of guests and each one over is this much,” and now you’re not saying you have to pay this much, I’m sorry, you have to have this many guests. No. Anything up to that is this price. In other words, that’s the minimum we’re going to do for that, but we’re also going to give you all these things for that and then it’s only this much over.
Displaying pricing on your website, displaying pricing in your brochures, displaying even just the packages with or without pricing, how do you simplify it? The longer that bullet point list, the less they can pay attention to anything. So can you display it differently in groups? Can you not say things that are assumed or can you say, “All the packages include this and now here’s what makes these packages different from one another,” and now it’s easier to compare one versus the other. Almost everyone in the industry can do packages of some sort. You don’t have to call ’em packages. Photographers like to call them collections or things like that. It’s okay, but you know if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. You’re just making it easier for somebody to say yes to this group of things instead of individually. The decision complexity is when you’re asking the customer to make too many decisions, to think too hard before they say yes to you. If you haven’t heard me say this before, think about if you’re going to go out to dinner. You choose the restaurant and then what you’re going to eat. Even if you know that that restaurant is known for certain things and even if you’ve been there before and think, “I’m going to have that particular dish,” you might not if they are out of it or have a special or something that’s unique or different they’ve added to the menu. You might change your mind, but you still chose the restaurant. So let them choose you as the band or as the videographer or as the calligrapher. Let them choose you as the officiant. Let them choose you as the venue. Let them choose you and then make those other decisions, and how do you make it easy to make those other decisions? That’s decision simplicity.
Think about yourself as a consumer. Think about where you’ve looked at somebody else’s offerings, looked at their website, couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Is it easier to decide what to eat at The Cheesecake Factory or at Five Guys? Simple answer there, right? Is it easier to decide, with a car, if you go back to the way your grandparents bought cars and it was this laundry list of things and they would build it to the specs versus going in and saying, “I want that package,” or I was just having this conversation with someone. If you go to Honda and you want a sunroof, you’re going to get an EX, and if you say, “Well, I want an LX with a sunroof,” no, not unless they put it in afterwards. It doesn’t come that way, makes it easier to buy, and now it’s, “What color do you want?” Makes it nice and simple. You don’t even choose the interior color. If you choose the exterior, you get this interior color. Easier to buy. They’ve learned that.
Something that happened during COVID is the number of items on menus got cut down which makes it easier to decide. It is so much easier to decide when there’s less choices. I love going to a new restaurant and I open the menu and there’s 6 entrees, not 16, because it’s easier for me to decide what I want to eat instead of going through all those other ones, creates decision complexity. One of my venues I was working with recently, we were looking at their menu and because it was 15 pages long and they had nine chicken dishes. Another one of my clients had 12 chicken dishes. I said, “You know what you need? Chicken, beef, fish, and how will it be prepared? Deliciously, and it’ll be the fish that’s in season, available, because supply chain issues and pricing. It’ll be delicious and the chicken will be deliciously prepared by our creative chefs and the beef will be the best cut that we can get at the time that’s available and it’s going to be prepared deliciously,” because the guests don’t know what they’re going to eat anyway. The guests don’t know what songs you’re going to play anyway. That’s where you come in.
You’re the experts. Make it easier to choose you and then make it easier to make those other decisions which they may not need to make at all, and that’s a whole nother discussion. So decision complexity, decision simplicity. Maybe get a buddy, look at what they’re offering, and have them look at what you’re offering, preferably not in your same industry. So if you’re a DJ, maybe you look at a photographer’s offerings, and a videographer, maybe you look at an officiant’s offerings or somebody else’s so you can see it with a different eye and say, “Wow, this is really confusing,” as opposed to, “Wow, that was really easy.” So how do we make it easier? Get that Staples Easy Button, right? I hope this gave you something to think about. Thanks.
I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is [email protected]. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.
Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:
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- YouTube: www.WeddingBusinessSolutionsPodcast.tv
- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3sGsuB8
- Stitcher:
- Google Podcast:
- iHeart Radio: https://ihr.fm/31C9Mic
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