I saw a nice little post today, Why You Need to Reaffirm Customer Decisions, that made me think about automated systems. Does the system that takes orders from your customers "reassure, comfort, and instill confidence in the customer that their decision was the right one"? Bet it doesn't. I bet it just displays a confirmation that is fixed for every customer and every product. But it could display a page custom built for that customer, for that product, that uses information you have about the customer to instill confidence. If you are the low-price leader, it could repeat the savings your customer got for instance. It could display information about how highly rated the product was. Of course it could also cross- and up-sell products and use time-sequence purchase patterns to set up possible future purchases "buy X in the next 30 days for a great deal" where X is a product often but not always purchased as a follow-on. You could also personalize the confirmation to boost loyalty and make a customer feel you really know them. And so on. I thought the decision as to what to put on a confirmation screen was a great example of a hidden decision - a decision most people miss or a micro decision.
Technorati Tags: customer decisions, Customer Service, loyalty, marketing, micro decisions, personalization, hidden decision
