Critical Skill: Learn How to Recognize When People Have Made a Decision

Do you know when in your experience customers decide to buy from you or not? You should. Otherwise, how can you design an appropriate environment to get customers to decide to do what you want? 

It reminds me of the phrase, "Crossing the Rubicon." The Rubicon river was a northern boundary outside Rome in the ancient Roman Empire. The Senate determined if a general crossed the Rubicon with their army, that was grounds for treason. 

There is a famous story that as Julius Caesar crossed it with his army, he said,"Alea iacta est”, which means “Now the die is cast” for those of us a little rusty on the Latin. The quote signifies passing the point of no return. 

This story is more than a Roman history lesson. I mention it because customers also "cross the Rubicon" when they decide things. Psychology refers to this as the Rubicon Model of action phases in decision-making, and it describes our varying mindsets before and after choosing. The deliberative mindset before choosing takes in information; the implementing mindset commits to and maybe defends the decision after choosing. 

In this episode, we take a look at how deciding changes our perspective on things in an experience and how we assign importance to information. We also discuss how your experience design should support and complement these mindset shifts. 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

A buying decision is not the only one a customer makes. All of the little decisions that customers make are part of this mindset shift also, in varying degrees. That means plotting them and understanding when they happen is crucial. Knowing when they occur will help you determine where to design features into the experience that get them to decide what you want them to, which is the how, or critical skill of experience design and customer strategy. 

Here are a few key moments in the discussion:

• 02:15  Colin shares a marital problem he is having with his wife Lorraine about, well, picking wallpaper for their home redecoration project. 
• 05:44  Ryan explains the psychology behind decision making called the Rubicon Model of Decision Making, and a bit of Roman history lesson about the origin of its name.
• 07:59  We explain how your customers essentially “Cross the Rubicon” in your experience, too.    
• 11:49  We discuss the two mindsets of customers in decision making, deliberative and implementing. 
• 17:16   We discuss how all the decisions along the way are also subject to the Rubicon Model.   
• 21:07   The discussion turns into how to strategize in your experience to take advantage of the timing for customer decision-making. 
• 27:59  We share the practicalities of applying this information in your experience design.     

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

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