Buyer's remorse

Under buyer's remorse (English buyer's remorse ) is understood in the psychology of selling the uncertainty of a customer after the purchase of a service.

So might regret his decision one car buyers after reading a negative test report. However, this repentance must first exceed a threshold in order to lead to an action ( complaint, redemption, renegotiation ). Since this is a form of cognitive dissonance, one also speaks of need to purchase dissonance ( NKD ).

The strength of the buyer's remorse is directly related to a strong emotional argument in the sales pitch. The buyer's remorse is directly related to subsequent doubts about the promised ( emotional ) value of use of the service.

Effects

The doubts about the favorability of a business transaction is a regular psychological phenomenon for the customer. Everyone knows the feeling of falling after a purchase in some doubt as to whether you have achieved the best rate, or perhaps bought over the actual needs.

Customers are urged in the sales call and end the sales process either due to strong emotional argument euphoric or under emotional pressure ( hard selling ) with a degree (eg, fear of deprivation or loneliness ) feel shortly after the decision to purchase a much stronger perception. The feeling of having been cheated, bought over the actual needs or partners involved have not sufficiently taken into account may give rise to the desire for cancellation of the contract.

The feeling, not the best conditions achieved or not bought at the right time, can correspond in retrospect even with rational knowledge. For example, it is possible that customers recognize after the signature that their information on the state of the art were outdated or needs at short notice when they developed differently than planned. The consequences are Storni, that contract cancellations or attempts to interfere with the performance ( delay in acceptance, defect, delay in payment, etc.).

Overall, the image of a brand, a company and / or a seller greatly suffer from these consequences, so it should be the job of the marketing or the seller, cognitive dissonance in general and to avoid buyer's remorse in particular.

Measures

The buyer's remorse can be intercepted by empathic behavior of the seller in the sales pitch. To this end, the seller uses the hedging of preliminary decisions in the course of the conversation by repeated demands of the veritable customer value to the customer and springs so any doubt in the conviction phase already as much as possible from.

Typical questions to consolidate the purchase conviction lead the customer into his own later use and thus secure from the feeling of not being left alone in the future. This phase of the sales pitch is the conviction phase, appear on the exchange of arguments and objection handling. The customer should be based on the sales, nor feel as possible by the gift of a recommendation for the product, so be sure that his buyer's remorse remains low and the exercise of withdrawal rights at the doorstep ( § 312 BGB) and Distance Selling (§ § 312b et seq i. V. m. § § 355 ff BGB omitted ) or payment delays. Since buyer's remorse strongly occurs more or less in principle, the consultant will make the customer in the price negotiation usually included in the calculations concessions in order to give him the feeling not to have been defrauded in the transaction.

Countermeasures

Often, the customer uses advised accordingly not alleged product or performance deficiencies to express his buyer's remorse. This " little man's revenge " is evident in advanced lists of deficiencies, delays in payment or partial payments without any objectively reasonable grounds. The entrepreneur can see that either the product is actually defective or the seller is not able to build an appropriate value proposition to the customer here. Often the entrepreneur recognizes but also that his price targets are not marketable.

Sales remorse

If "real" price concessions are made, and the sellers have sold at a loss, the phenomenon of ( inter) buyer's remorse is of course also on the side of the provider. For this, the sales psychology has so far devised a well-established concept.