"The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand." Robert Valett
The words customer experience continues
to be used more and more today in the business world. I thought for this
post I would introduce a critical component of every business experience.
Emotions. How your customers feel when they interact with your business. Most
businesses even those committed to initiatives to improve their customer
experience, do not consider the emotional side of their experience but focus
instead on just the rational. The physical aspects.(price,product,place,
process) This is understandable as how in the heck do you measure or
quantify emotions as it relates to delivering to your bottom line. There's good news
directly related to this question(see the end of this post) but for now please
allow me to continue.
Love and the heart go hand in hand. Let's face it sometimes difficult to define. Sometimes difficult to understand. But....here's what we do know. The two words love and heart are very much important to your long term business success. What ? If you're thinking right now I'm off my rocker or out of touch with reality, you're probably not alone. I remember being trained years ago in sales, during my corporate career in The Food Industry, on selling features and benefits of all our products. As a sales manager I used to evaluate all my sales team on their ability to sell using this model. Let's face it considering how to evoke emotions in your customer experience strategy is a big time change. It is difficult but either we change or we become dinasors in the business world. Why ? Because over 50% of all buying decisions are made by the emotional side of the brain from THE HEART. How a customer FEELS about you and how your business or brands makes a customer FEEL about themselves. If your customers are happy and pleased with you, trust you, feel safe, cared for and valued by you then you have customers who will not only be loyal to you but recommend you to others. They will tell the world that they Love You. At the opposite end of the spectrum if you frustrate, neglect, irritate, or disappoint them, then you can count on them to share their unhappiness with an average of 9 friends.
Stop for a minute. You are now the customer. What businesses do you advocate to all of your friends and colleagues? Why ? I can think of two for me. 1- Apple-I love my Mac products. Their products not only deliver on marketing & advertising promises but I've always had great experiences with Apple Store Employees. I tell everyone to buy a Mac when the subject of computers comes up in conversation. 2. I love my dentist Dr. Fred Wolpert, his son Ryan also a dentist and their staff. They have always delivered the best in care on a 24/7 basis and done so in a caring way. They've surprise me by giving me professional courtesy(reduced fees) on more than one occasion.
Finally, I said there was some good news regarding the measurement of evoking emotions in a customer experience. In his recent book, The DNA of Customer Experience- How Emotions Drive Value , Colin Shaw, founder of Beyond Philosophy, shares some ground breaking research and real world case studies on how evoking emotions drive value-revenue growth and profits. I think it is a must read for anyone serious about realizing the full economic potential from customer experience staging. What I found exciting in this work was the discussion of specific emotions that both create value(value drivers) and destroy it (value destroyers) along the stages of the customer experience. Colin's and his team's work actually identify which emotions a business must evoke to grab attention, develop loyalty and finally create advocacy.
In closing, in the next post I plan on connecting some of the dots between emotions, the customer experience and another very hot topic in the business world- On-Line Video. (The other hat I wear) Until then my HEARTFELT thanks to you for stopping bye for a visit.
Regards & Let's Stage Great Experiences
Bill
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