Choice navigation

General description:

A mass customizer must support customers in identifying their problems and solutions while minimizing complexity and the burden of choice (Huffman, C and Kahn, B. E., 1998). It is important to remember that when a customer is exposed to myriad choices, the cost of evaluating those options can easily outweigh the additional benefit from having so many. The resulting syndrome has been called the “paradox of choice”, in which too many options can actually reduce customer value instead of increasing it (Desmueles, R., 2002). In such situations, customers might postpone their buying decisions and, worse, classify the vendor as difficult and undesirable. To avoid that, a company can provide choice navigation to simplify the ways in which people explore its offerings. One effective approach is “assortment matching”, in which software automatically builds configurations for customers by matching models of their needs with characteristics of existing solution spaces. Customers then only have to evaluate the configurations, which saves considerable effort and time in the search process. But customers might not always be ready to make a decision after they have received recommendations- They might not be sure about their real preferences, or the recommendations may not appear to fit their needs or taste. In such cases, software that incorporates fast-cycle, trial-and-error learning can help customers interactively conduct multiple sequential experimentsto test the match between the available options and their needs. (Salvador, F. at al., 2009)

References:

Desmueles, R.; 2002; The Impact of Variety on Consumer Happiness: Marketing and the Tyranny of Freedom, Academy of Marketing Science Review

Huffman, C. & Kahn, B. E., 1998, Variety for Sale: Mass Customization or Mass Confusion, Journal of Retailing 74 no. 4, p.491-513

Salvador, F. et al., 2009, Cracking the Code of Mass Customization, MIT Sloan Management Review. 50 (3), 71-78.