Fast Company says that unbundled of products and services is on the rise. FC in the essay argues that this is a trend that is on the rise as technology makes comparison shopping easier. Maybe so, but I am not yet ready to unbundle construction of my house.
My opinion is that as customers, our primary goals are twofold: convenience and peace of mind. Convenience has to do with the fact that most of us hate the info search part of shopping. We are like bees flitting from shop to shop and tasting samples and make decisions on the go. We love it if someone can come along and give us a complete package and take this hassle out of shopping. We love to shop; not to search.
On the other end of spectrum lies peace of mind. This has to do with our self image and social image. All of us love to think of ourselves as savvy, pragmatic and hard nosed customers. We hate it if we get the feeling that we are not in control. The bigger the purchase decision, the more we hate it if we do not know what exactly we get for spending so much money. Think cars, think houses, think spouses. We will never, never buy package deals on these categories. We will always want to break it down (do I have to take the in-laws with the spouse?), itemize it, guesstimate the value of each item and then collapse them back into the package. In such cases, if someone comes along who offers to take the hassle out of this analysis, puts together great credentials to build trust into the process and creates enough safety net, we will be more than happy to buy bundles. Consider the case of multi-specialty hospitals in India. They are growing by leaps and bounds because you go to one place and get every kind of care possible. You are maximized on the convenience dimension. What about peace of mind? All these hospitals have swanky facilities, advertise a lot, hold many conferences and do some good PR so that an average person on the street thinks that he will not be ripped off and given a raw deal if he uses these corporate hospitals.
What does this mean? This means that peace of mind is a hygiene factor in Kano's customer decision model. Unless this is satisficed, convenience cannot play a role. Where this peace of mind is threatened, we want to unbundle everything and dig deep. Once this need is addressed, we hate to unbundle and love to buy in packages.
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