Search Results | "Buying Pain"

Do Your Customers Feel Ignored?

Do Your Customers Feel Ignored?

No business intentionally ignores its customers. In fact, most managers think they do a reasonably good job of listening. But, if a customer feels ignored, big trouble lies ahead.

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What’s in YOUR Wallet?

What’s in YOUR Wallet?

How you pay – credit card vs. cash – actually affects how you think about the products you are buying, according to new research published in the Journal of Consumer Research. That, in turn, means that marketers need to review how they are marketing to credit and cash customers. Although it’s been a maxim in [...]

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Closer to the Buy Button?

Closer to the Buy Button?

A specific part of the brain responsible for making decisions about value has been identified by neuroeconomics researchers at the University of Pennsylvania. Using fMRI, psychology professor Joseph Kable has shown that the ventromedial frontal cortex, or VMF, plays a key role in decisions involving value.

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Love Your Returns!

Love Your Returns!

I hated returns when I was in the catalog business. I viewed returns, not without reason, as margin-killing time-wasters. The returned merchandise was often unsellable due to customer damage, missing items, or shopworn packaging. I had employees who did nothing all day but handle returns. In our lower-margin lines, I calculated I’d have to sell [...]

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Replies Can Change Customer Minds

Replies Can Change Customer Minds

It’s axiomatic that you find out how good a business really is when it has already screwed up once; the speed and nature of the fix show the firm’s true nature. After shipping you the wrong item, do they just offer to refund your return shipping? Do they overnight the correct item to you, no [...]

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Make Buying Difficult?

Make Buying Difficult?

Marketers expend a great deal of effort making it easy to buy their products. They expand distribution channels, offer financing alternatives, and when possible ensure the customer can leave with the product at time of purchase. After all, if you think of the sales process as a funnel (or perhaps a leaky funnel), every little [...]

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Painful Games Companies Play

Painful Games Companies Play

Does your company play painful games with your customers? I’m not talking about physical pain, but brain pain. More specifically, what has been termed buying pain or the pain of paying. According to research conducted by George Loewenstein of CMU and others, this pain is triggered when we are presented with a product and price [...]

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Neuro-Menus and Restaurant Psychology

Neuro-Menus and Restaurant Psychology

Restaurants are great test labs for testing neuromarketing techniques. It’s easy to change offerings, menus, and pricing, and one gets immediate feedback on what’s working and what’s not. Today, many eateries are employing sophisticated menu psychology to maximize sales and profits.

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The Neuromarketing of Burgers

The Neuromarketing of Burgers

There’s hardly a shortage of places to buy hamburgers in the US, but the restaurant chain Five Guys has opened 300 stores in the last five years, and has contracts for many more. Locally, I’d been hearing about the fantastic hamburgers and fries at Five Guys for months, and finally ventured inside to see what [...]

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Brain Fight: Who’s the Decider?

Brain Fight: Who’s the Decider?

One of my favorite chapters in How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer is The Brain is an Argument. In this chapter, Lehrer highlights how complex our decision-making process really is, and how competing options battle for supremacy.

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