The Mattress Interview (& why impulse purchases don’t exist)

In this Switch Workshop, we share with you the very process used to understand why the impulse buy doesn’t exist, with an interview run by Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek of The Re-Wired Group, and Brian Walker, the Mattress Buyer.

About

Takeaways from The Mattress Interview at the November 2012 Switch Workshop, hosted by Jason Fried and The Re-Wired Group at the Basecamp Headquarters in Chicago.

The Mattress Interview was immortalized in the book, Competing Against Luck, where Clayton Christensen summarizes an interview with someone who bought a mattress from Costco as an “impulse purchase”.

In this Switch Workshop, we share with you the very process used to understand why the impulse buy doesn’t exist, through an interview with Bob Moesta and Chris Spiek of The Re-Wired Group, and Brian Walker, the Mattress Buyer.

(Spoiler: not one of the 30+ people in attendance would have guessed we would still be talking about this interview years later!)

Correlation versus causation

We think marketers are taught incorrectly around correlation versus causality.

They try to correlate that I’m 52 years old and I live in this zip code and I have this kind of car and therefore I have a propensity to buy that product or service.

They are triangulating around data but they don’t know what actually causes me to buy something today. They’re almost treating innovation as luck. By doing that, they look at probabilities and everything revolves around this notion of correlation as opposed to causality.

With Jobs to be Done, we actually go back and look at the progress people are making and we understand the dominoes that have to fall for you to say, “I’m buying a mattress today.”

The limitations with the traditional approach

Typical questions that come to mind about why a consumer would select a mattress would be about the features. For example:

Is it soft enough? Is it hard enough?
Is it too deep? Will my sheets fit it?
What else did you consider?
How important is price?

Yet, focusing on the product features leaves consumers’ emotional and social needs unexplored. This approach doesn’t uncover what jobs they want to accomplish or the reasons why they buy.

Why focusing on the product features leaves consumers’ emotional and social needs unexplored.

Focusing on product features leaves consumers’ emotional and social needs unexplored. This approach doesn’t uncover what jobs they want to accomplish or the reasons why they buy.
Bob Moesta

The JTBD approach.

Jobs To Be Done takes a different approach, uncovering the situational context around the decision, constructing the timeline of all the triggers that ultimately led to the purchase decision.

In this interview, at the Switch workshop, Brian Walker opened the story and shared how he and his family were walking through Costco on a Saturday morning and impulsively purchased a mattress. However, deeper discussion brings to the surface a more complex process.

Image shows the Jobs to be Done timeline - the process of making a decision to make progress and switch from one product to another. Image shows several stick people highlighting the seven stages.

The interview uncovered that while he claimed to have purchased the mattress on impulse, he’d been thinking of replacing his mattress for over a year.

He wanted to get a good night’s sleep so he could be a better husband and father when the rest of his life was exhausting him. Each night that he slept on his current mattress, he moved closer to firing it.

Each morning he used Advil to manage his aches and pains and drank Red Bull to keep alert. The purchase of the new mattress was less about how great it was – the pillow top, number of coils, warranty and other its other features – and more about it not being his current mattress.

The interview uncovered that while he claimed to have purchased the mattress on impulse, he’d been thinking of replacing his mattress for over a year.

The Four Forces of Progress. Image shows the struggling moment someone experiences, and the four forces at play that help customers to switch (or not switch) from a product.

Learnings

During the interview there was very little talk about the features of the mattress. Other aspects of the experience were more important to the decision and, ultimately, the moment these challenges were solved, the purchase happened.

Retail experience tension: there was no high pressure sales force present
Switching anxiety – what if my spouse doesn’t like it? How do I get rid of the old one?
Non-traditional category competitors – no longer worth the tradeoff?

That Saturday morning in Costco amongst the chaos, all the forces of progress came together. The push of the situation and the magnetism of the new solution overcome the habit of the present and the anxiety of change.

He had reached the end point with their current mattress, he and his wife were together in the store and Costco’s return policy enabling them to return it if it didn’t work out made it easier to make the purchase at that moment, than any other alternative.

Listen to the interview in full at JTBD Radio .

Learn how to reframe your focus, reduce feature bloat and develop products your customers want to use: talk to our team of product development consultants.

That Saturday morning in Costco amongst the chaos, all the forces of progress came together. The push of the situation and the magnetism of the new solution overcome the habit of the present and the anxiety of change.

Next steps.

To learn what truly motivates your customers to switch from one product to another, you need to flip the lens and see things differently. Get started today.

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