"Prices signal value, but they do not guarantee it." You put this nicely. For most buyers, price is an indicator of quality. Whilst it is not necessarily true, it makes purchase decisions easier and avoids cognitive dissonance. If it has been expensive, it must be good. And you are right, a "returning customer" is not an indicator for the quality he bought. It is only an indicator that he was satisfied. Satisfaction is by definition the balance between the expectations somebody had versus the results he got. Not just related to purchase decisions. This easily explains why in customer satisfaction rankings, premium brands seldom succeed. Discounters are often winning. Not by offering quality, but by beating the low expectations their buyers had, given the affordable price, by offering products with an acceptable quality.
Thanks for your insightful comment, Uwe. It’s so important to distinguish between satisfaction and quality because otherwise development and progress will become unthinkable. While there is dignity to the idea of being content with a modest, frugal approach to life, it can be liberating to discover the best the world has to offer: so many amazing things created by crazy human beings who pushed a little farther, so many astonishing experiences once you leave the narrow horizon of what you were accidentally born into.
I really liked what you said at the beginning, that your interest shifted from the "quality" of products to the "quality" of processes. How you do things, and how you "organize" you life seems to be much more influencial for living a satisfactory life than the things you "consume" in one way or other ...
Thanks, Holm. It was fascinating to learn that many people I met on my book tour were less interested in “the right things” than in the „process“ of finding good stuff and in „living“ with what they discovered. Of course, I agree that a good life requires much more than material objects, and I look forward to writing about „practices“ in future articles.
"Prices signal value, but they do not guarantee it." You put this nicely. For most buyers, price is an indicator of quality. Whilst it is not necessarily true, it makes purchase decisions easier and avoids cognitive dissonance. If it has been expensive, it must be good. And you are right, a "returning customer" is not an indicator for the quality he bought. It is only an indicator that he was satisfied. Satisfaction is by definition the balance between the expectations somebody had versus the results he got. Not just related to purchase decisions. This easily explains why in customer satisfaction rankings, premium brands seldom succeed. Discounters are often winning. Not by offering quality, but by beating the low expectations their buyers had, given the affordable price, by offering products with an acceptable quality.
Thanks for your insightful comment, Uwe. It’s so important to distinguish between satisfaction and quality because otherwise development and progress will become unthinkable. While there is dignity to the idea of being content with a modest, frugal approach to life, it can be liberating to discover the best the world has to offer: so many amazing things created by crazy human beings who pushed a little farther, so many astonishing experiences once you leave the narrow horizon of what you were accidentally born into.
I really liked what you said at the beginning, that your interest shifted from the "quality" of products to the "quality" of processes. How you do things, and how you "organize" you life seems to be much more influencial for living a satisfactory life than the things you "consume" in one way or other ...
Thanks, Holm. It was fascinating to learn that many people I met on my book tour were less interested in “the right things” than in the „process“ of finding good stuff and in „living“ with what they discovered. Of course, I agree that a good life requires much more than material objects, and I look forward to writing about „practices“ in future articles.