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I often say there is never one thing happening in a Customer Experience; instead, there are multiple things at work. Therefore, one theory or concept will not explain your customers’ behavior; instead, you need the effects of several combined theories.
We have been doing a masterclass series on the podcast about the idea that multiple psychological and behavioral science theories are at work at any given time in your experience. So, you should consider them all as you manage it to your desired outcome.
Today, I am sharing a recent discussion from the podcast about understanding customers’ hidden motivation, meaning the bits they don’t even realize themselves. In particular, we took a deeper dive into the idea of Confirmation Bias, which is one of my favorite topics. So, I thought I should share it with you all too.
What is Confirmation Bias, and Why Does it Matter So Much?
If you ask a customer why they chose what they did or bought something, they can give you an answer. Customers are very good at coming up with answers for why they do what they do. Sometimes, those answers are even useful from a market research standpoint.
However, psychology shows us that there are many influences on customer behavior that the customer often doesn’t realize. So, even when asked, customers might never find the “real” reason why.
Many human motivations center around this desire to be correct. We’re motivated to want to see ourselves as competent or smart and to feel like we understand things.
This desire to be right is why, if you ever get disoriented, it feels unnerving and scary. It is why it feels disturbing when you suddenly don’t recognize where you are or are having trouble following a conversation.
The idea behind Confirmation Bias is the same. We want to feel right, our opinions are correct, and our decisions sound, so we look for ways to reinforce our stance. We feel motivated at an unconscious level to find information that informs and confirms those opinions because we want to hang onto them.
Not only are we likely to seek out similar opinions, but we will also screen or protect ourselves from information that might go against our opinions. We will discount or explain away the info, so it does not influence future decisions. Admitting that there is room for error opinion-wise is a little painful.
If we discover information that threatens that opinion, we will discount it. We will explain it away or underweight it in our future decisions. My explanation is that we like feeling right, and admitting we’re wrong is a little painful.
Taking the Blame Instead of Laying the Blame on Brands
One weird way that Confirmation Bias manifests is in brand loyalty. My love for Apple and its products means I will blame myself if I can’ get a feature to work on my iPhone.
When my coauthor and I wrote our book The Intuitive Customer several years ago, I acquired the most recent iPhone for the time, I don’t remember which model. Whichever model it was, this one had a feature where if you touched the edge of a photo on your iPhone, an additional menu would appear, and you could work with the photo that way.
I was unsuccessful in my efforts to demonstrate this to my coauthor. Every time I touched the edge of the photo, nothing happened. Eventually, I gave up and blamed myself for my ineptitude rather than Apple for having a less-than-perfectly-functioning feature. It never occurred to me that it might not work; it was an Apple feature. It always works.
The funny thing is Apple eventually dropped this feature in later iterations of the iPhone. Even Apple felt the magically appearing menu on the photo wasn’t its best work.
My inability to judge that feature the same way is an example of Confirmation Bias. Even though the feature was cool, the user interface was rubbish. However, admitting that would have made me feel like I was wrong to feel staunch loyalty to Apple. So, I didn’t.
Another example could be the loyal users of the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. People who love X love it even though it has seen increased junk content, notable system crashes, and security problems. These users can screen these shortcomings out and marginalize their significance because they want to continue to love the platform.
And Then There is Politics
A study some time ago looked at the effect of Confirmation Bias regarding politics or social issues. In the study, participants rated their opinions about different topics on scales to determine how extreme their views were on them. Then, the researchers had participants read articles on the subject with different viewpoints represented. They hypothesized that people would become less extreme through exposure to other views.
The opposite happened. Instead of seeing the other side and moving to a moderate stance on opinions, the participants became more extreme following the reading. They didn’t engage with the other side as much as their present viewpoint, and the articles only reinforced their opinion on the topic.
I like to listen to podcasts about politics. One of the things I try to do is listen to a different one to get the opposing viewpoint. While I am not as balanced as I probably should be, I make an effort to listen to ones that aren’t my usual cup of tea.
I noticed that when I listen to people with opposing viewpoints, I am exhausted. I find it much more work to listen to the other side.
Moreover, I have to push myself to keep engaging in this attempt to hear the other side. It’s easier not to do it, but I force myself to listen to some of it—until I just can’t listen anymore because it’s driving me up the wall.
Some of that work and resistance is because it requires increased cognitive effort to listen to the counterargument. I hear things I disagree with, and engaging with them requires work to pick them apart.
Some of that effort is emotional. I feel threatened if the opposing view makes a good point that I don’t like. Both of these energy-spending scenarios find their origins in the need to be right.
It’s a good idea to expose oneself to opposing arguments. Otherwise, we might lack critical information. Ideally, we should work our way to a moderate stance that can see both sides of an issue.
However, our nature desires to be right. So, our natural reaction is to double down on an opinion and get angry about opposing views.
My Experience in Research Shows Confirmation Bias, Too
Let’s take an example of behavior in the business realm regarding Confirmation Bias. We do research for organizations that seek to find the hidden motivations for an organization’s customers called the Emotional Signature®. This research tells you what people value in your experience versus what they might say on a survey.
The example I use to describe how this works is an old Disney Theme Park story about food in the parks. Disney asked guests what they thought about the food and how it could be better. They heard that people wanted the option of a salad at the park. However, Disney knew that people eat junk food at the parks, not salads. So, they dove deeper into what customers wanted rather than invest a lot of capital in a food option that no one was going to pick.
When a company engages us to do an Emotional Signature research project, we typically get findings that don’t confirm the organization’s view. In other words, we discover that what drives the return on investment (ROI) is not the organization’s focus.
Now, this finding is a good thing. The whole reason that we are even doing the project is that the organization couldn’t determine why revenues were flat or declining. They needed a fresh perspective on the situation.
Few organizations feel that the finding is good at first. Whatever information you have, some people want to reinforce their view of the world. So, they start picking at the perceived weaknesses of your findings. They challenge your statistics or find fault with the data sample. They question anything and everything to discredit your findings because to do anything else would be an admission of being wrong.
Customers Have Their Reasons for Things
The social sciences have a lot of studies on reason-based choice. To summarize the findings, research indicates that people provide reasons for choosing what they did because it makes the choice easier to justify.
For example, car purchases often are justified by reasons. Maybe the old car needed replacing or was no longer functioning, and the vehicle purchased was the best option. Perhaps the car scored high on customer satisfaction surveys. Some might tell you they have always wanted a car like this one and bought it now because it seems like the time to make it happen.
Whatever the reason a person has for a car purchase, they will likely share it with you if you talk about it. Explaining the reason behind it makes the purchase, which is large for most customers, easier to justify. Plus, it makes the purchaser feel more confident that they did the right thing.
One way to think about reason-based choices is that they provide you an opportunity to help customers justify their purchase and feel confident they did the right thing. Is there a way you can do that for people?
But Wait, There’s More!
So, one hidden motive is wanting to feel right, but there are more. You might have heard me mention evolutionary psychology before. This field uncovers the deep-rooted psychological motivations.
The Rational Animal is a book that can help with some of these concepts. The authors dig into many of these deeply rooted motivations for customer behavior. Some examples are mate acquisition status, affiliation, self-protection, and disease avoidance.
These underlying motivators drive us on a biological level and can manifest in our choices.
In one story, you learn how researchers encouraged people to use various modes of thinking. Then, researchers watch how that changes the brands people buy, what people buy, and what type of products people choose.
You have probably seen the pyramid graphic of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. As you might remember, at the bottom of the pyramid are the basic needs, and then, as you work up to the higher-level needs. The idea behind this representation is that without those basic needs met, one can never get to the higher-level needs.
Maslow’s hierarchy is excellent to use as a starting point for possible motivators for customer behavior. However, there is a caveat: the data doesn’t support Maslow’s hierarchy. Under scientific scrutiny, scientists report that people often seek higher-order needs even when they haven’t met their lower-level needs. It happens all the time.
One way to think about that model is that it represents a layered network of needs pulling on us at any given time.
For example, if you are hungry, that’s physiological, and you know it. However, if I ask you if you need to eat, you might say no because you also have a self-presentation need; you don’t want to seem unprepared for the present situation, or you feel awkward saying so. Other times, depending on the context and the person asking, you might say yes.
All this to say, it’s complicated. The needs are variable, and their priority is, too. Some needs you will know about; some you won’t. However, known or unknown, physiological or psycho-social, they will all drive your choices in a given context.
Understanding customer’s known needs is important. Understanding customer’s hidden needs is also important. Getting to the bottom of one is easier than another.
When it comes to known needs, customers can tell you. If they are willing to, they will tell you about those. Hidden needs are harder, mostly because customers couldn’t tell you if they wanted to; they’re hidden.
However, these aren’t the only needs that are challenging to discover. Sometimes, customers know what motivates them but don’t want to tell you about them. I have an example that demonstrates what I mean.
We worked with a construction equipment company with a male-dominated customer base. We thought the motivation for this base was reliable and robust equipment at a fair price. However, when we did the Emotional Signature research, we learned that their rough-and-tumble male customer base wanted to know that the construction equipment company cared about them as a person.
We were surprised, and so was the client. However, the shift in the approach we suggested that addressed this hidden motivation made a significant difference in the customer satisfaction scores.
So, What Do You Do With This?
Understanding the hidden motivations is key. Too many organizations think they know what the customer wants, but they haven’t got under the skin of it. I would even argue that’s the reason why we’re near a 17-year low in customer satisfaction. We got off track when we built strategies based on what customers have told us through research and voice of customer data instead of analyzing their behavior.
Hidden motivations are tricky for all the reasons I just told you. It’s important to recognize that you only have a partial idea of customer motivations. Many times, partial ideas are not enough.
Therefore, it is essential to prioritize discovering what drives your customer’s purchase. Part of that effort might require tapping into those hidden motivations. Hidden motivations drive a lot of customer behavior.
Getting at these hidden motivations might require customer research. There are a few different research techniques, and I have talked about them here before.
Many hidden motivations are very interesting. Some of them are rooted in evolution. Others are about self-presentation, meaning that people might subconsciously shy away from wanting their motivation to be out in the open with other people.
That said, a common hidden motivation is our desire to be right and confident in our opinions and the ability to make the right decisions. So, if you can facilitate that by providing them with evidence that buying from you was an excellent idea, you should do so.
However, if you are trying to woo a customer away from a competitor, a different approach is warranted. Attacking their decision to choose the competitor can backfire, with them doubling down on how right they were to do so. Instead, you should frame that in a way that allows them to be right back then and even more right now by making the switch.
Also, it is important to be conscious of one’s Confirmation Bias. Be open and challenge yourself to determine when you are using it instead of hearing other opinions. It’s tiring, but valuable, and could lead you to a new solution you would have never found otherwise.
Colin has conducted numerous educational workshops, on how to improve your Customer Experience, to inspire and motivate your team. He prides himself on making this fun, humorous, and practical. Speak to Colin and find out more. Click here!