Customer experiences happen in the heart, not in the brain - how to evoke the right emotions

The other day I came across an interesting blog about the importance of 'right customer experiences'. The premise was that humans are fundamentally emotional beings, ultimately driven by feelings. We like to think that we are rational in our work, but in fact our emotions always guide our decisions. Instead, thinking is a tool that reinforces or weakens our emotions.

What's interesting about this post is that many companies are quite good at designing rational experiences, but completely lack an approach to the emotional, unconscious experience.

Business-to-business companies have great opportunities to create personalized, positive customer experiences. In our work, we see time and again evidence of the real impact that experiences have on brands and businesses.

When we become emotionally engaged, we are better able to absorb and remember messages. It also opens the door to strong relationships - both between people and with a brand.

 

A model for designing the right experiences

Emotions can both enhance and destroy value. The London Business School has developed a model for designing the right emotions into the customer experience. It has four steps:

Step 1 - The bottom layer is about value-destroying emotions. Learn which emotions create values and which ones destroy values.

Stage 2 - This is the stage where you try to capture the customer's attention. This is the segment where traditional advertising works. Emotions created here can be good for getting a first purchase, but do not create a long-term relationship.

Step 3 - The third step is interesting - by the time you have arrived, you have managed to evoke such strong feelings that the customer is happy to recommend you. They feel safe and cared for and you can start building loyalty.

Step 4 - Congratulations! If you've made it this far, your customers will defend you in every situation. There are only two feelings here: happy and satisfied.

 

One of the authors of the model suggests testing your own strategy like this:

We want a customer experience that makes people so happy that they want to take a picture of it to remember it later. If you don't think that moment exists in your customers' experience of your business, then you have some work to do.

 

Three suggestions to improve the customer experience

The dream of any business is, of course, to be at the top of the model. But how do we make the customer feel safe, cared for and seen?

As I said, a good customer experience is about evoking the right emotions, which you can do by:

1. invest in your staff. Of course, the most important foundation for making your customers feel well cared for is the people who, in one way or another, influence the customer experience. Make sure your staff feel good and that they understand your brand and can convey your company values in everything they do.

2. Do the unexpected. Think about it, how do you react when someone surprises you? Isn't it easy to feel emotions like love and gratitude when someone does something extra for you?

3. Give of your time. Spend more time talking to your customers. Listen to them. Meet with them. Or kill several birds with one stone and offer them a proper brand experience!

 

Ultimately, it is about everything we do; what we say and how we say it, what we do and how we do it, the feeling we leave behind and how we are remembered.

If we manage to evoke the right emotions, we create the conditions for successful partnerships in the long term.

The blog post really puts its finger on how much personal encounters and experiences can do when it comes to changing or reinforcing attitudes - what those of us who work with brand experiences are dedicated to accomplishing every day.

How would you like to design your dream location? Want to vent your thoughts and ideas? Get in touch with me and let's have lunch! 🙂

/Ola

Boundless experiences make for strong relationships.

 

PS. I found the blog post on the Billogram website, if you want to read more.