Last week, we started a short series on the consumer decision making process. We’ve already gone through need recognition and information search, and today we’re going to talka little bit about alternative evaluation.
Decision Making Process:
- Need recognition
- Information search
- Alternative evaluation
- Choice (or purchase)
- Consumption / evaluation
Today overlaps significantly with Friday’s topic – information search. The main difference between these two topics is that the point of the information search is to narrow down the choices to the “consideration set”. The consideration set being the set of options that will be considered for the final purchase.
The overlap being that the same factors that got you into the consideration set (or out) affects the evaluation process. Your credibility, website, reviews, quality, and more are the factors that affect whather or not people end up making a purchase from you. They’ll just be looking closer here and examining more factors.
Details are even more important at this point, because you could get kicked out of the consideration set for seemingly minor issues. Contact form doesn’t work? Missing page on the site? Spelling and grammatical errors in the copy? You might be out. Just keep in mind that the details make a huge difference and people WILL notice them.