Although customers are bombarded with more choices than ever, they are increasingly less satisfied. Our greatest fear when making a purchase is that we will make a mistake. Whether buying a car, a tube of toothpaste or selecting a can of tomato paste, simple decisions have become time-consuming, complicated and confusing.

Today, there are more than a thousand car models sold in the United States, and each has a variety of colors, plus scores of options. Customer satisfaction demands that the customer knows they made the right decision and they desperately need your help.

Barry Schwartz, author of, The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less describes buying a pair of jeans. “Do you want slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy, or extra baggy? Do you want them stone-washed, acid-washed, or distressed? Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly? Do you want them faded or regular?”

Schwartz spent most of the day trying on his various options, not sure which one was best. “The jeans purchased fit better than his old pair, yet he was less satisfied. After doing so much research, he expected the fit to be perfect, and he was disappointed. He was also worried that he had picked a style that was less fashionable than some of the many other styles he tried.”

I recently needed some three by five note cards and ran into Staples to grab a pack. Twenty minutes later I left the check-out frustrated that it took over a quarter of an hour to filter thru all the varieties to find the plain lined ones I wanted. Do you have to be a Ph.D. to make an intelligent choice?

More choices do not necessarily make people happy or have them leave with a more satisfying shopping experience because they got exactly what they wanted. According to The Boston Globe a recent study on retirement plans revealed that the more choices of mutual funds a company offered its employees, the more likely they are to pick “none of the above.”

According to the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, one group of shoppers was given a choice of tasting six types of jam and another sampled 24 varieties. In theory, the shoppers sampling more flavors would find one they liked and would purchase it. Only 3 percent of those exposed to the wide selection actually bought while 30 percent of shoppers exposed to the smaller display purchased…that’s 10 times more.

College students were asked to evaluate chocolates and given a choice of cash or a box of the chocolates as compensation. One group tried six varieties; another group sampled 30. Those who tested only six gave the candy higher ratings for quality, and were four times more likely to take the chocolate than the students who tested 30.

“Successful companies will refocus themselves,” according to Michael L. George and Stephen A. Wilson, authors of Conquering Complexity in Your Business. People are looking for ways to simplify buying decisions which creates opportunities to devise business models to sort through people’s choices for them.

As a child I remember my uncle Scotty going thru Consumer Reports whenever he was making a buying decision on a new car, refrigerator, toaster or food processor. According to Trends magazine Consumer Reports is now one of the 10 largest paid-circulation magazines in America, and its Web site is one of the most profitable.

The Associated Press reported that Freshdirect.com has seen their customer base expand by 400 percent in the last year by offering a limited selection of premium foods. Business has doubled over the past two years at Safeway.com and the company expects it to double again this year. The reason for the success of both…people don’t have to make as many confusing choices with on-line grocers.

When customers are given too many choices, they usually buy less often or not at all because the decision is too hard. When people have to sort through too many options they don’t fully enjoy what they select because of fear they may have passed up something even better.

The greatest fear that a customer has when making a purchase is that they will make a mistake. The mantra of excellent customer service is “the customer is always right.” You are the expert in the field of the product or service you offer and know more about it than any customer ever could.

By knowing your customer as well as you know your products and services you can help them by limiting choices so they know “they are always right,” and did not make a mistake by buying from you.

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