Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

80 Understanding Rational Decision Making

Although specifi c decision criteria vary depending on the audience and the product or

service, more generic criteria for usage decisions such as quality and price show up repeatedly.

Purchasing agents procuring new products for their organizations routinely use seven decision

criteria: product price, quality, reliability, ease of use, after-sales support, compatibility with

existing equipment or practices, and salesperson responsiveness to questions or problems.^88

Women in the United States tend to choose clothing on the basis of comfort, quality, style, color,

coordination with other clothing, and price.^89 Jewelry shoppers’ top seven criteria for choosing

a piece of precious jewelry are the quality of material, design, workmanship, durability, war-

ranty, comfort of wearing, and price.^90 Furniture shoppers’ prepurchase search criteria include

the price, the quality of the materials used, cleaning instructions, guarantees, and warranties.

Moreover, these criteria coincide with the information furniture shoppers expect to fi nd on

labels for all types of furniture.^91

The following list of questions subsumes many of the user-specifi c decision criteria identi-

fi ed previously and provides a starting point for predicting an expert user’s decision criteria

for any particular usage decision. The list can also serve as an outline for the documents and

presentations professionals produce in order to elicit usage decisions from potential users and

customers.

• What are the benefits of the product, service, or information?


• How much does it cost in terms of time and money?


• What is its quality and reliability?


• How easy is it to use or implement?


• What is the reputation of its manufacturer or provider?


• How compatible is it with prior purchases or information?

When consumers have to choose between products in different product categories, say between

a dishwasher and a refrigerator, they use higher-order, abstract decision criteria that are similar

to the criteria listed previously.^92 Even when choosing among comparable products, consumers

actually use similar higher-order constructs as decision criteria more often than they use product

attributes.^93

To make an informed decision, consumers and other prospective users may also require bench-

mark information about competing products, services, or information, third-party ratings of the

product such as those provided by Consumer Reports , in addition to their own evaluations of similar

products, services, or information they have already adopted.^94

On the following two pages are two versions of a direct mail letter inviting potential clients

to a fi nancial planning seminar (note: the fi rm’s service and its benefi ts, the dates, the names and

address of the fi rm and its owners, and the names of the universities have been changed). Both

versions include a description of the service provider, some of the benefi ts of the service, and a

response form with dates and locations of the seminars. Although the original version was success-

ful in attracting people to the seminar, the revised letter more than doubled the response rate of

the original. Notice how the revision addresses several of the audience’s criteria for usage decisions

that were not addressed in the original including the seminar’s length and the ease of using the

information provided. Notice also how the revised letter highlights what was likely the audience’s

most important decision criterion—the cost of the seminar.