Try Using Self-Educating Choices To Communicate Your Message

An associate greeted me cheerfully at the ice cream store and told me to walk down to the end of the line where “Megan will tell you how it works.”

I followed her instructions, but I really would rather have looked around for myself and decided what I wanted.

Compare this with fast food places which take great pains to show you a big menu board with combinations of sandwiches, fries and drinks as “meals” to make it easy to order and so you’ll be more likely to spend a minimum amount on the transaction. Of course, you can “unbundle” the combos and make up your own “meal deal” by mixing and matching items from the Dollar Menu. All this is laid out for you on the big screen in front of you, and is powerful in its influence, but no one comes right out and tells you they want to take charge of your experience.

There’s a fine line between providing the right amount of education about a limited number of options and intruding into your customers’ province of selecting for themselves what they want.

Take some time to look at some of the customer experiences you’ve set up. Do they provide opportunities for choices by the customer without too much interference from you?

Sometimes, even when we offer choices, we spend lots of time and words, telling potential customers about the features, advantages and benefits of our products, in the hopes they’ll see how those attributes might have meaning for them.

The menu boards described above introduce choice among products to help customers buy.  But there may be an even more engaging way to tell your story by starting with the customer profile and his or her needs instead of the features of your products.

Check out this website for ukelele strings from D’Addario.  This company makes 4 different varieties of strings.  Instead of starting by describing the strings, they give you a decision-tree — called an Interactive Quiz — so you can self-select your way to the product most appropriate for your needs.  It’s light-hearted and fun, and the questions are all about you and the way you intend to use the product. Sure, they get to the specs of the strings — the materials used, the sound you’ll get — but that’s much later, after you’ve gone through the “you” part.

By the time you get to the actual product, and see how it’s different from the others they offer, it feels tailor-made just for you.

Is there a way for you to educate customers about your products by helping them make choices based on self-described needs?