The Super Fun, Really Exciting, Incredibly

Useful Consumer Psychology Midterm

What
For this assignment, you’ll be bringing together most of the course concepts we’ve learned so
far and applying them to a speci c company. No ratta, hooray!

Who
You. And a friend or two.

I intend for this assignment to be done in a pair, or at most 3 people in a group.

But if you want to do it alone, you can. I will adjust my expectations depending on group size.

When
This is due on Sunday, 13th March.

As with the other deadlines in this course, there is some exibility as long as what you submit
is high quality work.

There are bonus points for submitting before the deadline.

See, I’m handing out bonuses just for doing what you should be doing anyway.

How
There are 3 questions in this assignment.

Minus the eldwork, it should take you no longer than 2 hours of distraction-free work on each
question. (If you are spending longer than this, you’re going above what is expected)

Here’s what you have to do:

1. Map out a customer journey

2. Do an experience audit

3. Analyze the decision-making process

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1. Customer journey

Part A (5 pts)
First, I’d like you to map out a typical customer journey when engaging with your chosen
product/company/store/brand.

Remember that Prince biscuits from Alfatah example from class? That’s exactly what this is,
except more elaborate.

Here’s a fun, relateable example: https://whimsical.com/the-procrastination- owchart-

AWSGRH7J95DRgrhy3HBvMh

Your journey map doesn’t have to be super comprehensive - skip the irrelevant bits. But don’t
make it too basic either.

Part B (10 pts)

As you are mapping this journey, you’ll start to see that there is an ‘ideal’ journey that should
be happening, and an ‘actual’ journey that is unnecessarily complicated or full of friction.

For example, the ideal journey at Alfatah should involve leaving the store after checkout, but
the actual journey has you fumbling around in your bag/pocket to pull out the receipt that
needs to be stamped (no, I will not stop giving this example every time, it’s stupid and
infuriating).

Identify a few of these ideal vs actual journey points and mention them.

3-5 issues, and one or two paragraphs on each.

See if you can provide visual depictions of some of these journey points (instead of just
mapping it out on paper, go to Alfatah and take photos/videos of the process)

Tools for the job

A journey would be best represented using a tree diagram like the one in the above example.

You could hand-draw it or use a PowerPoint chart tool for this if you want.

I would recommend checking out Whimsical though, it’s pretty easy and fantastic for this
purpose: https://whimsical.com/ owcharts

Summary:
• Make a customer journey chart

• Identify some ideal vs actual discrepancies in this journey

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 2. Experience audit

While in the process of mapping out the customer journey, I also want you to do a mini
‘experience audit’.

Here’s how you do that:

Part A (5 pts)
First, you want to de ne what the intended consumer experience is supposed to be. What are
they trying to do? Who are they trying to be? What experience are they trying to sell? Who is it
for?

Try and gure out the experience motif, and describe it in a short paragraph.

Part B (15 pts)

When you have that experience motif, you want to list the positive clues that add to that
experience; and the negative clues that take away from that experience. This is similar to your
rst assignment.

Go out and take photos/videos* of these. You can probably reuse many of these photos/videos
to help with your customer journey mapping as well.

Remember that design video I showed in class? Maybe you could do a rst-person video? Or
perhaps you could ask a non-Consumer Psych student to go with you and have them narrate
their experience while you shadow them?

Whatever you do, this isn’t something you should be doing sitting in your bed. Go out and
experience the experience.

*Do this responsibly. Don’t take photos where it is obvious that it will be inappropriate or will make others feel
uncomfortable.

Tools for the job

Since this will involve photos and possibly videos, you can do the written stu in your
document, and put the media in a Google Drive or a Powerpoint le or Canva or something.

Summary:
• Brie y describe the intended experience

• Identify positive and negative clues that a ect this experience; try to record them

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3. Consumer decision making
Now that you have a journey map and an experience audit, I’d like you to analyze the decision-
making that goes into buying this product/engaging with this company.

This is where you think about System 1 and 2, biases, the consumer decision making process,
and MAO.

Part A (10 pts)

You’ll want to explain how most people make their decisions when interacting with your chosen
product/company.

• Are they primarily using System 1 or System 2? Why?

• Do they have high, medium, or low MAO?

• What parts of the M, the A, and the O are a ecting this?

• How is this, in turn, a ecting their consumer decision making process? (this is the owchart
in the slides, speci cally this one:)

Part B (5 pts)
How are biases a ecting this decision making process?

For this part, I want you to pick 2 biases and explain either:

• How they are already being used

• Or how you would incorporate them to in uence the decision making

A short paragraph with an explanation will do; visuals could also be useful.

Summary:
• Analyze the decision making process

• Suggest how to in uence these decisions using biases

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A brief example of what this all looks like
Got all that? Not quite?

Here’s an example.

I pick Alfatah as my company (by the way, do not do grocery stores, since we have already
covered them in class)

1. Journey map

Part A
I used Whimsical to map out what the start of the journey might look like (simpli ed):

Part B
I compare an ideal journey in which I don’t have to think about parking; vs the actual journey in
which I have to nd parking and pay for it too.

2. Experience audit

Part A
I propose that Alfatah’s intended experience is to be a helpful, customer-centric one-stop-shop
for upper and upper-middle class Lahoris.

I go to Alfatah and record my experience.

Part B
I notice positive clues that add to that experience: the type of lighting, the width of the aisles,
the cleanliness are all positive clues that add to the experience motif.

But there are negative clues: the checkout process, the rush, the trouble in parking, the lack of
natural light are not conducive to the experience motif.

Maybe I compare these clues to other stores?

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 3. Consumer decision making

Part A
When deciding whether to go to Alfatah, people have to worry about parking space, which
reduces their Motivation and/or their Opportunity. This means they have low MAO, which
means they’re likely to use System 1 and just go to their local store without thinking.

By contrast, most restaurants have valet parking, which means many people never even think
about this decision when choosing a restaurant.

Part B
I could in uence people to visit more often by running limited-time sales and exploiting the
scarcity bias.

And nally…

This is a lot of stu .

And yes, it’s probably confusing.

But I want to assure you that I’m not throwing you into the deep end without any help.

Please reach out to me over email, Slack, o ce hours, however you want.

Help is available. Use it.

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