The use of "good-better-best" to sell HVAC products gained popularity after Harvard Business Review published an article in 1998 titled, Versioning: The Smart Way to Sell Information. The authors explained that by offering three versions of the same product, buyers would be psychologically drawn away from the least expensive (good) and most expensive (best) choices and pulled towards the one in the middle (better). Behavioral psychologists call the act of being drawn to the middle option compromise choice or extremeness aversion. The common term for this psychological principle is the Goldilocks effect.
The new minimum efficiency standard has rendered the compromise choice good-better-best sales approach an inferior way to sell comfort to today's consumers. The once high-margin premium product, 13 SEER, is now a basic commodity sold on price in every market in America.