Understanding the 3 Types of Customer Indecision + Why We’re More Like Our Customers Than We Think

As we analyze sales performance, evaluate successful close rates, and further push the bounds of science when it comes to finding out how, exactly, to make people sign on the dotted line—it can be tempting to think of prospects as difficult to understand. Who knows what they’ll do, we may say, perplexed and frustrated at the end of an unsuccessful quarter when deals just aren’t closing. You may throw your hands up and sigh, “It’s a mystery!”

But at the end of the day, your buyers aren’t aliens from another planet. They don’t have six eyes or ten arms or speak a Klingon dialect. (Probably.) As a seller, this is the key thing to understand about customers: they’re just like you. 

As we’ve covered previously, customer indecision is the leading cause of lost sales—and you, the seller, already understand customer indecision because you experience it, too. You may not buy expensive enterprise software on the regular, but you shop for ketchup. You book vacations. You worry about getting the best price on a new car. Those experiences are familiar to you, and you can harness the fears present in those experiences to better understand and overcome customer indecision in your customers. 

Today, we’ll look at the three fears or anxieties that cause the three most common types of customer indecision—and how to understand and overcome each one. 

Anxiety #1: Fear of the Wrong Choice

The first common fear that causes customer indecision is fear of the wrong choice. We can think of this one as options overload. Suppose you are playing the role of your buyer, who is the leader of an engineering team evaluating 3-4 different SaaS tools with dozens of bells and whistles each. In that case, you will likely be overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and iterations available. This is perhaps the simplest anxiety to understand, but let’s look at an example anyway. 

Now imagine that you, the seller, walk into a local coffee shop with the most elaborate menu you’ve ever seen. There are dozens of local roasts to choose from, five different types of dairy-free milk, and a chalkboard covered in sweeteners you’ve never even heard of—all complicating the process of ordering coffee before 8:00 am. 

What feeling do you experience in this moment? Probably something like, “Wow, I wish this were simpler.” In this moment of indecision, now imagine that the barista sees that you’re struggling with the complexity of the menu and steps up and makes a recommendation. She says, “A lot of people enjoy our French Vanilla Latte. Would you like to try that?” 

You smile and accept the suggestion with overwhelming relief. The French Vanilla is wonderful. 

How can we overcome overwhelming options? 

In this scenario, the barista has rescued you from the anxiety of being overwhelmed by options and your fear of choosing the wrong drink combination from the menu. In some ways, she’s even shifted the blame from you to herself—if you don’t like the drink, you didn’t choose it! This makes it easier for you to commit to your choice. 

You can emulate this strategy when you’re selling to software customers or any other kind of customer. While your prospect may be buying something a little more pricey than a morning coffee, they can experience the same kind of anxiety when faced with all the options available. You can combat this by making a recommendation at the right moment based on the needs that the customer has shared with you. 

By doing so, you’re eliminating a major cause of customer indecision and moving one step closer to the finish line. 

Anxiety #2: Fear of Incomplete Homework

The second common anxiety causing customer indecision is the fear of incomplete homework. (And no, we don’t mean studying for a history test.) This can also be thought of as simply information overload. This anxiety occurs when the prospect has consumed a lot of information and done a lot of research about your product, but still feels as if they are in the dark about surprises that may be hiding around the corner. 

To understand this anxiety, imagine that you’re planning a vacation for yourself and your kids. How many hours do you spend looking at hotels, car rentals, and destination activities? How many Chrome tabs do you have open at once? (If you’re anything like us, you may even have an Excel sheet dedicated to this research.) 

It’s a lot, right? You want to ensure you’ve considered every possibility and gotten every deal. 

How can we overcome information overload? 

In the travel situation listed above, if you want to be sure you plan the best vacation, you may be willing to pay for the privilege. This is why travel agents and companies exist—to collect all the best deals, experiences, and opportunities and do all the planning ahead so you don’t have to. Many people prefer to pay for this sort of vacation to save themselves the hassle of planning. 

When it comes to the product, sellers should think of themselves as the prospective buyer’s (travel) agent. You’re not just listing the solution's benefits and expecting your prospect to draw their conclusions. Instead, in this case, we want to take the buyer’s hand and guide them through the “Best Vacation” version of using that solution. 

In that scenario, you’re not sharing information—you’re also making recommendations and even telling the buyer what order to work in and how to maximize the solution. 

Want to learn more about limiting information overload as a buyer’s agent? Take our step-by-step course on the JOLT methodology, where we guide you through how to overcome customer indecision in any scenario. Sign up now!

Anxiety #3: Fear of Not Getting What They’re Paying For 

Finally, the third most common anxiety is a fear of not getting what the prospect thought they were purchasing. This can also be thought of as expectation overload, as it comes down to a fear of a discrepancy between what the buyer thinks they’re going to buy and what they can actually achieve. Often, this isn’t even about the product itself—it’s about the buyer's utilization of the product. 

As a salesperson, you’ve probably heard the objection, “We mess things up all the time; we’ll definitely find a way to mess up this product.” This is a great example of this anxiety. The customer is concerned that they will not meet the expectations placed on them as customers who use your product, which actually gets in the way of them becoming customers in the first place. 

Let’s explore this idea further. Imagine that, as a child, you ask your parents for a dog. They reject your request—but their reason for doing so is not that they don’t like dogs or don’t need a reason to get outside more. Instead, their reason is, “You can’t have a dog because you won’t take care of it.” This objection is based on a fear of future failure, not of current need. 

How can we overcome expectation overload? 

The best way to deal with expectation overload is to find ways to take risks off the table. Let your prospects know that there are mechanisms for failure built into the product so that there is no chance of paying for a product that they may not be able to fully utilize.

In our dog analogy, the child in that scenario might propose a calendar for taking care of the dog regularly, demonstrating responsibility. He might get his sister on board to agree to take part of the animal care. Both are efforts to assure the parent that they can trust that what they agree to in getting the dog will not change after the dog arrives in their home!

In both scenarios, any measure you can take to assure the customer that risk is minimal and that there are no hidden expectations will go a long way toward avoiding this particular case of indecision. 

You Are More Like Your Customers Than You Think 

As a rule, in all these instances of indecision, there is one major thread that we ought to follow, and that thread is empathy. We all struggle with indecision in our own lives, even if we’re not buying software. We’ve all researched to plan a vacation or buy a new pet, and we know the fear that comes with those decisions. 

Use these experiences to inform your sales calls and to learn to recognize those three kinds of indecision when they occur. Your buyers are unlikely to come out and tell you when they’re hesitating! If you can recognize and identify indecision early, however, you will be able to confidently reassure and lead your prospects through indecision—all the way to the closed deal on the other side. 

Your sales team can inspire closing confidence in your customers, too. Contact us to speak with our sales experts and learn more!