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Mass Customization, Considered Purchases, & Mental Models – Why Usability & Content Strategy Matter

I've been wanting to write a post about Mass Customization, Considered Purchases, and Mental Models for some time, but find it challenging to articulate the divide these concepts create. They are like an oxymoron, of sorts. Here we go:

What is Mass Customization and what are its Benefits?

Mass Customization is the process of providing the low unit costs of mass production with the flexibility of individual customization (definition modified from Wikipedia's Mass Customization entry). Essentially, this means delivering customized products to each end-user based on their own design -- and on a mass-scale. Typically, high-level customization occurs on a small scale due to complexity with technology, manufacturing, supply chain, and/or product design.

Some industries however do benefit from advances in these key functions and are capable of providing mass customization to the masses. The capabilities in and of themselves however, do not automatically equal success. The purchase process also plays a key role in the ability to market, merchandise, and sell mass customized products.

What is a Considered Purchase?

A Considered Purchase is one where the product or service purchased is durable, long-lasting, and of solid benefit and enduring value. Products or services that are a considered purchased are owned over a long period of time (definition derived from http://www.smithdahmer.com/content/difference-and-truth-about-considered-purchase). This means the frequency of purchase is low, but the level of engagement is high when the end-user has arrived at the point of purchase decision.

What is a Mental Model?

A mental model is an explanation of someone's thought process about how something works in the real world. Mental models help shape behavior and set an approach to solving problems and doing tasks (definition derived from Wikipedia's Mental Model entry). Mental models are developed with exposure to a problem or task, so the less frequent the exposure means a more simplistic mental model if the problem or task is complex in nature.

The Role of a Sales Associate in Considered Purchases

In an environment where mass customization and considered purchases are a reality, simplistic mental models interfere with the end-user's ability to successfully comprehend the choices they are presented with and therefore they require a significant amount of help to reap the benefits of mass customization and to achieve satisfaction with their considered purchase. Help may come in the way of a sales associate who is a seasoned expert. This is why many considered purchases are accompanied by a professional sales associate (buying a home, buying a car, buying flooring, etc.) because they are there to remove the roadblocks to purchasing.

Sales associates however, can be expensive to retain and keep trained if products and services that are considered purchases change regularly. Additionally, the departure of an expert sales associate, or a high turnover rate of sales associates can wreak havoc on the success of your ability to sell considered purchase products because when end-users enter your environment trying to understand considered purchases without that associate's expertise to guide them (because of their simplistic mental models), they will be lost.

If not lost, they will not reap the benefits of mass customization in your products and will instead choose the path of least resistance because of their low confidence level and still-simplistic mental model. And at the end of it all, you will lose to lower margin competitors who offer the same basic features at cheaper prices.

Offering More Choice than a Mental Model was Built on

At the crux of mass customization benefits is giving end-users nearly limitless choices. This often means introducing possibilities that end-users previously did not know were available to them requiring them to stop and consider their purchase at each step of the way a new piece of information is presented. Herein lies the dilemma: offering more choice than a mental model was built on. How do end-users take advantage of the choice if their mental model wasn't designed to understand choice? How can you effectively expand the user's mental model without overwhelming them? And how is this all done without relying on a sales associate to facilitate the process?

Enter usability & content.

Why Usability & Content Strategy Matter

Usability is the ease of use and learnability of an object or process. Self-service systems are only successful when they are easy to use. "Easy to use" can take on several forms, and in an environment where simplistic mental models exist, mass customization is available, and the product or service is a considered purchase, usability must not only be viewed as an interface element, but as a means for providing a process around consuming content and further developing a mental model.

Content aids in educating an end-user, and expanding their mental model to develop an understanding of the choices available to them. The content developed for a user experience is as critical as the interface design elements that are responsible for aiding an end-user through a system.

UX Practitioners Will Excel in an Increasingly Digital World

It's not just a "marketing" project to have a website because ultimately, you are architecting a shopping process that draws on many areas of an organization to support. In traditional brick & mortar environments, you have store operations, store merchants, customer service...all experts in their areas of helping a customer through the shopping process in-store. Try and implement a new shopping experience in-store and these functions will be intimately involved and help you avoid land mines.

Vague shopping process familiarity exists in traditional Marketing roles

On the other hand, with Digital we typically see a marketing team with vague familiarity around the intricacies of the touch points of a shopping process trying to build comprehensive shopping experiences.

User Experience is not a marketing campaign

Because the rules of store operations, merchandising, and customer service are different in a digital world, we see little crossover in the expertise of these traditional departments, and marketing departments fall back on what they do best: campaigns. Making a big splash with a new idea, hoping it sticks, and moving onto the next budgeted initiative. The problem is that campaigns have a short life-span, and you never want to treat your digital experience like a campaign.

Enter the User Experience (UX) practioner

UX practitioners will excel now and into the foreseeable future as marketing departments in both retailers and brands work to bridge cross-channel shopping gaps with digital. It's these folks who will help map touch points from the traditional world to the digital world, and vice versa because they see the details so no stone is left unturned.

Experiences are never-ending

An experience is never-ending; campaigns and products do however come to an end. Marketing Departments must rid themselves of this mentality and embrace an era of User Experience design.