What Matters Most: Product Info or Consumer Experiences?

Here's a blindingly obvious lead: the way people buy today has changed from years ago. Today, the consumer's appetite for information is enormous. Consumers want to spend hard-earned money wisely. They want to invest in products and services that will bring them value. I'm not talking about buying pizza. I'm talking about high dollar luxury items. Yes, there is still compulsive buying out there - but for the most part, our clients shop and shop and shop. Information is a key component to the value equation. The Internet is the easy source for information.

All in all, I think that trend is good.

The danger though, comes in assigning expertise to a source, without proper verification. Just because you blog on the Internet, have dabbled in a design class, or worked retail for a year - doesn't mean you're now an expert. Yet, the very fact that people put up opinions on the Internet seems to lend credibility. Sometimes, that credibility is unwarranted. I've found countless sites offering conflicting information about a given product or method. I'm guessing you have too.

Now, I fully understand and appreciate the need to research complex and important items like medical procedures. Surely, that's complex stuff worthy of consumer research. By comparison, you would think the less-vital wood flooring world would be a reasonably simple market. You'd be surprised.

Wood hardness, stability, finish cure rates, joinery methods, adhesive properties, volatile organic compounds (VOCs)...well, it isn't so simple after all.

I had a client recently debate one of our field crews regarding how many gallons of finish it would take to put a final coat of finish on his floor. He had read on the Internet that the average yield per gallon of his chosen finish was 500 square feet. So, he was adamant that we needed 4 gallons to finish his 1,600 square foot floor. What he didn't understand was that the early coats applied to a newly sanded floor use more finish, and the later coats require less finish. In the early coats, the floor absorbs more finish. In the later coats, the floor absorbs far less. The final coat on his 1,600 square foot job would require 3 gallons of the finish product to achieve a proper final coat. A professionally conducted debate ensued, and the client went so far as to open our crew's truck to count the available gallons of finish.

In the end, the floor looked beautiful and the client was thrilled. Eventually, our client sheepishly said that perhaps he should have just trusted the crew as they clearly knew what they were doing.

People who research medical procedures eventually have to trust their physician to perform the procedure in question. While the stakes are far less important, you have to trust your less-vital service providers too. Confidence and trust are an essential component in any important purchase.

Consider this - perhaps in our quest for information we consumers should spend more time researching customer experiences and less time focused on product specifications. Building trust is faster than building expertise.

What do you think?