Dealing With Buyers' Remorse.

What is buyer's remorse?
Buyer's remorse is the sense of regret after having made a purchase. It is frequently associated with the purchase of an expensive item such as a car or house (or a major home improvement like tiling). It may stem from fear of having made the wrong choice, guilt over extravagance, or a suspicion of having been overly influenced by the seller. The point for us in the tiling business is that buyer's remorse can lead to product complaints and unless you are aware of the psychology happening in the customer's mind you may end up pressured into accepting a complaint as real when in fact it is spurious and simply the result of the customer having second thoughts.

Regret.
Although excited at the time of the purchase, once they've spent a lot of money, many people feel a deep regret and concern that they made the wrong decision. Buyer's remorse takes many different forms, most of them typified by a high level of anxiety. The buyer then seeks to reduce that anxiety by somehow regaining control.

The psychology.
Psychologically, buyer's remorse makes perfect sense. A consumer switches from one state to another when making a purchase. In the state before they've made the purchase they have choices and influence, so they experience a degree of power in the world specifically they have purchasing power. After the purchase, however, all options have vanished. They no longer have a choice. Buyer's remorse may set in as they see themselves locked into a single decision, which may or may not have been the best. No longer acting from a position of control, many people react by seeking to distance themselves from the purchasing act, to reaffirm their sense of having had a wide field of choices. Buyer's remorse is, in this way, seen as a very simple state of cognitive dissonance, where the desire to retain complete control and infinite possibilities clashes with the reality of actually exerting that control by limiting those possibilities.

Complaints.
One way in which buyer's remorse may be expressed is a customer returning to the tile store and complaining about the tiles they bought after installation. They may manufacture faults in their mind in order to justify their uncomfortable feelings of buyer's remorse. This can be dangerous for both the supplier and the retailer. Although we should make every effort to evaluate product complaints we should be careful to ensure we are dealing with a real fault and not simply the buyer having second thoughts.

An example.
Here's a real example: A particularly houseproud customer with an impressive and beautiful home recently installed highly polished pure grey porcelain tiles throughout  A couple of weeks later they submitted a complaint that the tiles were stained and dirty looking. On investigation they did indeed appear dirty looking. The problem was just that, the tiles hadn't been cleaned properly. The colour and sheen of the tiles were such that the slightest mark was obvious.

Expectations.
The fact is that the customer was having buyer's remorse because the difficult-to-keep-clean tiles were not living up to their expectations. It was turning out to be a major effort to keep the tiles looking perfect. There was no fault in the tiles whatsoever, rather the particular choice; grey polished porcelain was unsuitable for the image the customer wished to create. A less glossy, perhaps patterned tile would not have shown the dirt as readily.

So... beware of buyer's remorse.

All the best in your business and your relations with customers.