How many choices should you give your customers? Here’s how to best optimise options

Customers are confronted by thousands of decisions a day, so how can you make the process of choosing more straightforward? Well, it’s not only the number of product options you put forward, but the sequence in which they are offered that can make a significant difference. Is it better to reveal your products one by one, like a waiter explaining the daily specials, or all at once like a restaurant menu? Here’s how to optimise options.

How many options should you present?

Spoiler alert, there is no magic answer when it comes to identifying how many options you should present to a customer. It depends on factors like your industry, product, competitive landscape and method of customer engagement.

Behavioural science does tell us, however, that we need to find the sweet spot. Having too few options can trigger ‘single option aversion’, where your customer will keep looking because they don’t feel they’ve satisfied their search, and too many can create ‘choice overload’, where they’ll throw their hands in the air because it is simply too difficult to decide.

When aiming for the sweet spot, consider the following:

• One option — creates a ‘yes or no’ decision. This is best at a brand level when you want to be known for one thing, and customers value the simplicity of the choice e.g. Apple vs Samsung;
• Two options — shifts from ‘yes or no’ to ‘this or that’. The advantage of two options over one is it moves your customer away from a blanket ‘no’ to a preference e.g., ‘Do you want it in red or blue?’ The challenge with two options, however, is that your customer can get stuck trying to decide between different but equally attractive attributes, like safety vs price; and 
• Three options — extends ‘this or that’ to ‘which?’ Having an odd number of options, like three, avoids your customer getting stuck because there is always the safety of the middle. This is known as the ‘Goldilcoks effect’, where customers will tend to steer clear of extremes.

In which sequence should you present options?

When it comes to helping your customer decide, it’s not only how many options you present, but the sequence in which they are communicated.

First, consider the format in which you will share the choices available to the customer. Will they be communicated sequentially — one at a time, one after the other, or simultaneously — all revealed at the same time?

When the waiter in a restaurant explains the specials of the day, for example, they are using a sequential format by revealing one option at a time. Handing the customer a menu, however, is a simultaneous format because they can see all options at the same time, re-reading them as required.

In a work context, job interviews, meetings, pitches and tender processes tend to be sequential scenarios, whereas product displays in-store or online tend to be more commonly simultaneous. 

Neither format is good or bad, necessarily, but each requires you as the business owner to think about how to optimise the choices your customer makes, for you and for them. 

When you are communicating options in a sequential format, the best approach is to focus on the first and final items. The first because it sets the tone, using what’s known as ‘primacy’ to establish expectations, and last because as the most recent, it is what’s best remembered. 

When you are communicating options simultaneously, like in a table on your website or in your brochure, focus on design elements like colours, bolding and boxing to focus your customer’s attention. Like with sequential choice, the first option plays a role here too. Use the first item to ‘anchor’ price expectations so that other options look like great value.