Picture this:
You sit down at a restaurant.
You look at the menu and can’t seem to decide what to eat.
The waiter comes around and asks, “what would you like to eat this evening?”
Most of us, when we can decide, ask what THEIR favorite on the menu is.
But let’s be honest here.
THAT’S CRAZY…
We may not share the same taste.
We’ve never met before
We have NO REASON to think they’ll make a decision we’ll be happy with.
More likely it will be some expensive “special” they are offering using food that is about to expire.
But, the fact is we need a decision, we’re starving, and he has the information we need.
Same goes for business.
We can only make so many decisions in a day.
Obama actually has his clothing laid out for him each day so he doesn’t have to choose what to wear…because that’s a decision.
The leader of the free world believes he can only make so many good decisions in a day so he has other people make the smaller decisions for him)
Too many choices leads to mental fatigue.
And when that happens you begin to let your body automatically make decisions for you.
Eventually, you get tired of making decisions and choose the path of least resistance.
I recently watched a great TED talk by Dan Ariely. He taught me about the power of recommendations. And the importance of having 1 default option in case a customer can’t make up their mind.
In other words – can’t figure out which burger to order? Choose the restaurant’s “favorite” burger.
Dan will teach you why you give up and choose the default option:
A default option is simply a recommendation that frames one option as better and more popular than all of the rest.
It’s hard to make a choice with these three options because they look exactly the same. There’s no difference in economic value, and if there is a difference between them we can discern the difference visually. In other words we have to think really hard about what might be behind each of these three doors.
Pretty easy to choose one now right?
Your brain either likes the third option or hates it. If it likes it then you’ll choose the third option. If not, then at least you’ve narrowed it down to the other two options.
Do your customers a favor and make it easy for them to make a decision be offering them a default option.
What’s something you can make easier for your customers?