When we’re at school, we’re taught to make decisions and solve problems under conditions of perfect certainty. But when we leave school, things cease to be this simple. In fact, outside of education, the majority of the decisions we make will be in far less-than-perfect conditions.

A few years ago, I was fortunate to meet the wonderfully clever Rory Sutherland, then Creative Director at Ogilvy. I’m currently reading his book, Alchemy: the Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense. In this, Sutherland breaks down the myth that as humans, we are rational creatures, making logical, evidence-based decisions. The shock news here, he says, is that “we aren’t, and we don’t”.

Unless, of course, you’re still at school. Let’s take, as an example, a typical maths question found in a GCSE paper. “Two buses leave the same bus station at noon. One travels west at a constant 30mph, while the other travels north at a constant 40mph. What time will the buses be 100 miles apart?” This is what’s known as a narrow context problem – it’s precise, straightforward, and has a right answer.

Of course, in the real world, an almost-infinite number of variables means that there are any number of possible answers. There could be bad weather, roadworks, traffic lights or temporary speed limits. One route might take in a dual carriageway, and the other rural back roads. One of the buses might stop more times than the other, picking up several passengers who don’t have the right change to hand. In real life, certainty would be impossible.

Unlikely as it seems, our brains actually prefer a wider context problem. We find it far easier to provide an estimated time than an exact one. To ask a second question, if I need to visit a client 400 miles away, should I get there by train, plane, or car? And what time should I leave?

Many people would find the maths question difficult and the second question easier, even though the first is narrow and computational and the second is wide and more complex. There’s no formula for our second question, and endless scope for many possible “rightish” answers. As with the real-life buses’ scenario, many types of information can be considered when coming up with an answer: whether to stay overnight, how direct the trains or planes are, the average time on one road compared to another, and so on.

Human brains have developed to find blurry decision making more useful than precise logic, because this more closely matches how we need to react most of the time. As Sutherland says, “It’s better to find satisfactory solutions for a realistic world, than perfect solutions for an unrealistic one.” Though education expects perfect certainty, it’s rare that we find it anywhere else. We’re hard-wired, not so much to find a right answer, as to avoid a disastrously wrong one.

In the dental world, training often favours precision, with clear decision making around what is right and wrong for someone’s health. However, problems arise if, in a wider business context, we then try to solve “wide” problems with this “narrow” thinking. In this instance, to quote JM Keynes, “It is better to be vaguely right than precisely wrong.”

As business owners, we fetishise precise numerical answers because they make us look scientific. We crave the illusion of certainty because this provides comfort. In digital marketing, we can optimise spend to a huge degree of precision, but this doesn’t mean we’ve answered the wider marketing questions – such as why people should trust you enough to buy what you’re selling. Fundamentally, people are asking themselves ‘who do I trust to sell me X?’

You can direct as many leads as you like towards your business, but if you can’t build trust, you’re unlikely to build a client base. If people are searching for a dentist to replace missing or failing teeth, unconsciously they’re not asking who they should choose, but who they find trustworthy enough. They’re searching for a dentist who has their reputation at stake, so that they can ask advice and buy from them.

Try this simple thought experiment (courtesy of Sutherland): imagine you’re in the market for a second-hand car. You arrive at the seller’s home, you take a look at the car parked on the street, and you decide it’s worth around £4,000. You go to knock on the door, and it’s answered by, A) a vicar, or B) a man in his underpants. Would you be more likely to buy from one or the other? Would it change your view on the value of the car?

Here, the car itself has not changed, but it’s likely that the experience would alter your thinking. You might imagine that the vicar is a man with a great deal invested in his reputation, whereas the second man is clearly immune to any sense of shame. It’s just one example of how trust informs decision making – and although it’s tempting to regard this behaviour as irrational, it’s really quite clever. People do research and buy on instinct, so it’s up to business owners and marketers to consciously think about this and respond to it.

While making a decision about which practice to choose, patients are looking to you to provide answers to wider context questions, which are usually built around brand position and building trust. So, with this in mind, what can you do to help build trust?

Thinking about the wider context of people arriving on your website, ask yourself: is my brand positioned correctly to build trust for those visitors? Is the information communicating what I can do and how I can solve their problem? Alongside this, you should show empathy and understanding of their situation and the issues it might create for them. Then, you can offer the solution: present information about what the treatment is, before showcasing results and the trust that you’ve built with existing patients. This might be achieved through video testimonials, interviews with clinicians, before and after images, and case studies. Taken together, this clearly demonstrates that you’re invested in your reputation and delivering a brilliant experience for your patients.

And of course, it doesn’t begin and end at your website. Think also about how your team is answering the phone, and whether you’re giving the appropriate response and the right level of customer service. Perhaps you might have an initial call to talk through their situation, before inviting them into the comfortable environment of your practice to make their decision. In this way, you can again show respect, understanding and a strong reputation, which is what ­– logically or illogically – their decision will ultimately come down to.

If you’d like to talk about marketing, or evolving your marketing, contact us for a call.

(Oh, and if you’re still wondering about the answer to the GCSE maths question posed earlier? It’s 2pm.)