These Boots Were Made by Choices
My husband decided that we needed a working vacation. What is a working vacation you ask? Well, it’s when your husband has to travel monthly and decides that it would be soooo much more fun if you came along on his adventure because you work for yourself and have nothing better to do other than run a business, a house, two kids, a dog, a cat, and a budding social life. Ok. Fine. I’m exaggerating the social life part.
Anyway, after months of begging, I relented and then was promptly told that I would need hiking boots for this ‘vacation.’ “UGHHHH! This does NOT sound like vacation?” I whined as I headed to the store.
I was in that moment a perfect example of how consumers make choices…I’m in a hurry, I’m only half engaged with my purchase, I have a million other things on my mind, I’m annoyed by the number of options out there, and yet I have to pick something.
As I gaze at the options for hiking boots, I’m reminded of how the way we measure choice differs drastically from the way we actually make choices. I pick up boot #1, I weigh it in my hand, I look at the price. It’s too much for a shoe I’m likely to wear only a few times. I pick up boot #2 and it’s a bit heavier but also cheaper. Boot #3 looks better than the others but doesn’t have as much cushion. Cuteness keeps it in the running.
By the time I’m through finishing my first round of selections to try on, I realize that I’ve made a lot of choices and not once have I said…”hmmm…I’ll give the cushion on that one a 7 out of 10 but the colors certainly get a 9.” In fact, I have NOT rated anything at all. I’ve just made comparisons between my options and within a few minutes had eliminated probably half of the boots before I had even tried them on.
And this is really the point…we are conditioned to use short cuts to make quick decisions. Sure you can read book after book on behavioral economics (e.g. Thinking Fast and Slow, Predictably Irrational, or The Undoing Project) or you can go to the store and consciously follow how you make choices. I can guarantee you that at no time will you use a Likert scale in the process.
So why on Earth do we rely on Likert scales so much in marketing research? No seriously. I’m really asking. Why? If they in no way reflect how humans actually make choices, are they the best measurement we can come up with?
No. I think we can do better. I think we have done better and my friends at Sawtooth lead the way. That’s why I am very excited that Harvest has purchased its own Sawtooth Software license to be able to provide clients with more choice-based question designs. We can offer Max-Diff, Conjoint, and TURF analysis, and in coming blog posts I’ll explain the differences and how from hiking boots to business services our choices are far more complex than 1-10 can capture.
