Choose as Much as You Wish: Freedom cues in the marketplace help consumers feel more satisfied with what they choose and improve customer experience
(A2023-114511)

AUTHORS

Elena Reutskaja, IESE Business School; Raffaella Misuraca, University of Palermo; Barbara Fasolo, London School Of Economics and Political Science

ABSTRACT

Consumer satisfaction and customer experience are key predictors of an organization’s future market growth, long-term loyalty and profitability but are hard to maintain in marketplaces with abundance of choice. Building on Self-Determination Theory we experimentally test a novel intervention that leverages on consumers’ need for autonomy. The intervention is a message called “freedom cue” (FC) which makes it salient that consumers can “choose as much as they wish.” A 4-week field experiment in a sporting gear store shows that FCs improve consumer satisfaction compared to when no FCs are displayed. A large (N = 669) pre-registered mouse-tracking experiment run with a consumer panel and a global e-commerce company shows that FCs at point-of-sale improve consumer satisfaction and customer experience compared to a message without FC. FCs change the focus of the choice process: they increase the relative focus on chosen alternatives prior to choiceConsumer satisfaction and customer experience are key predictors of an organization’s future market growth, long-term loyalty and profitability but are hard to maintain in marketplaces with abundance of choice. Building on Self-Determination Theory we experimentally test a novel intervention that leverages on consumers’ need for autonomy. The intervention is a message called “freedom cue” (FC) which makes it salient that consumers can “choose as much as they wish.” A 4-week field experiment in a sporting gear store shows that FCs improve consumer satisfaction compared to when no FCs are displayed. A large (N = 669) pre-registered mouse-tracking experiment run with a consumer panel and a global e-commerce company shows that FCs at point-of-sale improve consumer satisfaction and customer experience compared to a message without FC. FCs change the focus of the choice process: they increase the relative focus on chosen alternatives prior to choice.