How often have you regretted having just invested in a new car, motorcycle, fridge, airconditioner, or what have you?

Suddenly all the other brands seem so much better in almost every way. Some have better features, others seem to be better value, friends and colleagues suddenly seem to know so much better and even though you may have taken forever to decide, that gnawing feeling of discontent just seems to grow.

Why?

More importantly, when you are the one selling the product or service, how do you prevent—or at least minimize—the impact of this phenomenon that goes by the term “postpurchase cognitive dissonance”? One of the causes of this, ironically, is if the job of selling the brand is done too well. This raises expectations, sometimes to unreasonable levels, that become very difficult to fulfill. Maximum effort is made to complete the sale and once that is done the attention of those involved in making it goes to the next victim —sorry, customer!

Rupin Jayal

This does not mean that the pre-sales effort needs to be reduced. That would be like suggesting that children should be starved so they don’t become obese. When creating the pre-sale package it is critical not to oversell. Exaggerated claims, over-generous promises and ardent courting become millstones around the neck of the brand once the customer becomes a purchaser. Tailoring the promise to what can be reasonably delivered is absolutely critical.

There are three reasons for this. The first is the speed with which bad news can be made to travel in today’s connected world. A disgruntled customer no longer influences just his or her immediate community; they can, with a sufficiently well-designed rant, spread the word around the world. The dissonance can rapidly snowball if others have similar experiences to share and the resulting fallout can drown a brand. If you believe this to be an exaggeration, just see what two pranksters were able to do to the Dominos brand recently—and they weren’t even dissatisfied customers. Complaints and even cavilling are not limited to words alone. With the advent of YouTube the issues can be displayed in vivid video and easily circulated widely. Even if the issue is resolved, there could be endless discussion around it and even the unaware have awareness thrust upon them. I hadn’t heard about the Dominos fiasco until I read it in a regular update that I receive every day and while it appears to have been handled well, it still left a less-than-pleasant aftertaste. Unfortunately, few people are so ardent about spreading the news of a job well done unless there are highly unusual circumstances surrounding it. Also, quite amusingly, most brands seem to be poorly designed to handle customer appreciation. As an experiment I sent an appreciative message to the famed Apple via its website. Even one of the world’s most admired brands seemed to be unable to respond to such good feedback and chose to just ignore it. You may rest assured that I will now only express myself to Apple if I am dissatisfied as that is all that they seem to be willing to acknowledge! So not only does bad news travel rapidly via the Internet—and now increasingly the mobile phone—good news often goes unnoticed even when expressed articulately.

The second reason is that someone who actually owns or has had first-hand experience with a brand is an oracle in most categories. It has been seen in innumerable cases that for consumer durables, almost without exception, the most powerful force is word-of-mouth. The word of someone with experience of the brand is invaluable or severely injurious, depending on his or her experience. That word-of-mouth depends entirely on the post-purchase experience. It would be difficult to find someone who says that they loved the brand because of its advertising and that made up for a disappointing or even indifferent post-purchase experience. The exact opposite of this was a recent personal experience. I made a purchase that I believed to be wildly extravagant. I did not suffer from mere dissonance—I was attacked by a severe sense of guilt. The entire purchase experience was excellent and very much what I expected from a luxury brand, so that was not at fault. It was just the sense of extravagance that caused it. However, ever since I made the purchase I have been made to feel that I am a part of an exclusive club. I have been given discount offers beautifully delivered from the desk of the brand’s senior management personally signed, not just a printed mailer. Information on upcoming styles and offers keep coming my way. Now I know the cynics would say that the brand is merely trying to sell me more stuff—and they would be right. But surely, the task of any brand is to sell. What matters here is the way they have done so. The feeling that the brand’s messaging gives is one of “informing” me rather than trying to “sell.” The distinction is a very important one. It requires an understanding of tone, the form with which the information is delivered and an understanding of who the brand is seeking to address. Most importantly, my post-purchase experience means that I willingly accept that my extravagance was at least inspired by a brand that I feel is worth every rupee that I spent on it.

The third reason is that many times the dissonance is created by emotional disappointment. And this emotional disappointment becomes fact as perception is reality because brands largely dwell in the realm of emotions. While they may have tangible foundations, the ultimate decisions that people make to choose or reject a brand are usually driven by emotion. Whether they are happy, just satisfied, or disappointed is also driven by the emotional value delivered by the brand. It is said that human behaviour is heavily influenced by emotions, not solely by reason. Consumers are often highly emotional and intuitive in their behaviour, operating through the emotional centers of the brain, dictated by their “heart” or “gut feel,” and often independent of conscious control. They operate on autopilot, pausing only when the emotional radar identifies something loved or different. If the foundations of consumer behaviour are emotional, so it follows that the strongest foundations of the consumer–brand relationship are similarly emotional.

“The essential difference between emotion and reason is that emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions” (Calne, 2000, quoted in John Pawle and Peter Cooper, “Measuring Emotion-Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands”, Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 46, No. 1, 2006). This disappointment can, therefore, be driven by a host of reasons, many of which are intangible. If your new luxury car is delivered with just enough petrol to go to the nearest petrol pump, you might quite justifiably feel that the brand is less than caring. If your valet-parked car at a five-star hotel is returned with a note thanking you for visiting the hotel along with a box of chocolates, it might make you feel that this a brand that genuinely cares about your patronage. A tank full of petrol or a box of chocolates are minor things when compared to the price of the purchase, but they can speak volumes about the way a brand feels about its customers. As sales become increasingly difficult to come by and people become ever more knowledgeable, discerning and activist, training those on the sales’ frontline will make the difference between brand success and failure. Making promises that the brand can keep and tempering people’s expectations will be critical and in many cases are critical already.