Customer Experience: Everything Is An Emotional Buy
More than satisfaction, customer emotion is the underpinning factor in the customer experience..
Everything is an emotional buy; everything. Whether
buying a cup of coffee,
a holiday, a car, or a house. Our emotional reaction to a service
transaction
is the fundamental driver of the purchasing decision. But more importantly,
it’s a determining factor in customer retention and loyalty. More than
satisfaction, customer emotion is the underpinning factor in the customer
experience; what it’s like to do business with the product or service
provider.
Yes of course rational thought, reflection, consideration of pros and cons
may
be part of the buying decision, but an emotion definitely will be. One’s
feeling, sense, intuition, gut reaction and experience of the interaction
will
play a significant part in the buying decision.
This example illustrates the point. I was walking through a shopping centre
with a colleague recently. We walked passed a well known coffee shop and I
suggested we stopped and had a coffee. My colleague immediately
responded with a suggestion that we should go further into the shopping
precinct and around the corner to his favourite coffee shop. “I like it
there,”
he said. Not, they do better coffee, it’s less expensive, or I have a
loyalty
card, but “I like it there”. In fact he liked it so much that he was willing
to
take us out of our way in order to get that cup of coffee. This was an
emotional reaction. No rational and logical weighing up taking place; a
simple instinctive response.
Why is this important?
During the ‘80’s and ‘90’s customer satisfaction was king. It was based on
research suggesting that continued improvement in product and service
quality would mean corresponding increases in satisfaction, and customer
satisfaction was going to ensure a returning purchase. What further academic
research and empirical evidence now shows is that companies who followed
this guideline were surprised to find that even high scores in customer
satisfaction did not guarantee loyalty. Companies have discovered that
loyalty, not satisfaction, drives profits. The economics are very
compelling.
As little as a 5% decrease in customer defections can mean a doubling of
profits. Why? Because loyal customers are not only repeat purchasers, and
are more likely to buy other products and services, they become advocates of
the company. It is nine times cheaper to keep an existing customer than
acquire a new one. The unit operating costs of servicing repeat purchasers
is
also reduced. Advocates become the ‘virtual’ marketing function of the
product or service provider, recommending it potential new buyers amongst
family, friends and colleagues.
But there are other reasons based on service recovery. No product or service
operation is flawless. Though a company may want to diminish the
incidence, it is almost inevitable that something will go wrong sometime,
however small the error. When customers are positively disposed and
emotionally engaged to service providers, they will be more willing to
tolerate a whole range of service or quality shortfalls. The coffee not
quite as
tasty or as frothy as last time, the delayed flight or the clothes shop that
has
sold out of the garment you particularly wanted. Customer satisfaction
surveying doesn’t quite get to grips with the emotional effect of the
service
interaction or the value that customers perceive from it. Satisfaction in
many
respects is an outcome. Something happened that created that sense of
satisfaction. And that ‘something’ is the experience itself. Satisfaction,
or
dissatisfaction for that matter, is the result of what it felt like for the
customer in being dealt with by the service provider. Satisfaction somehow
seems such an inappropriate and often inadequate description of what the
customer is experiencing.
Doing business at the emotional level
Recently I went along to my nearest toy retailer to browse for a suitable
gift
for my eight year old son and witnessed the sheer joy and marvel
experienced by a small toddler being given a replacement cuddly toy. The
parent had gone to the toyshop to ask if a toy that had not even been
purchased at that particular outlet could be replaced because it had been
given as a gift to her two year old, was one in a series, and the child
already
had it. The customer service agent said it wasn’t their policy, but left her
counter, went to the appropriate shelving to retrieve the entire set of toys
for
the child to choose the one she wanted. The shop lost £3.99 and gained an
overjoyed child, an appreciative parent and a story that will be repeated
several times as an example of superior service. Neither the child nor the
mother were merely satisfied with how they had been treated. The broad
smiles on both their faces gave a real sense of the appreciation and
happiness felt (as well as giving a clue of the potential sense of relief in
the
mother in not having to deal with a disappointed child). Even I walked out
of
the shop with a bit more of a skip in my step than I had walked in with.
By contrast, a colleague told me of his less that satisfying flight to a
client
meeting in which he stupidly (his words) packed all the materials he needed
for his presentation in his checked-in luggage. On arrival the surly lost
baggage clerk explained that his luggage was still at his departure point
and
that it would not be with him till later in the afternoon and that if he had
needed all the material then it was his own fault for having checked it in.
My
colleague explained to me later that neither dissatisfied or extremely
dissatisfied, were words that accurately described his feelings about the
treatment he had received. Incandescent with fury were probably closer
adjectives to the truth of his emotional reaction.
So it all seems to rest on the emotional experience. How the engagement
with the service provider leaves us feeling – about them, the transaction
and
the company as a whole. And even when the system - the procedures and
protocols the service provider is sometimes required to follow - get in the
way, (as they often do in financial services), appreciation and handling of
the
customer at the emotional level can make all the difference.
Only a couple of weeks ago I called by business bank early on a Monday
morning to check that they had reissued and sent a replacement to my
business card that was about to expire. Confirming that they had, I
explained
that I was about to leave on a business trip and that I had not yet received
it.
Straight into automatic mode, the call centre operator informed me that they
would have to cancel the card that was lost in the post and reissue a new
card. This would take between 3 and 5 working days. Too late, I advised, as
I was leaving on my business trip over the weekend, needed the card, and
my existing card would expire mid week. Can’t help you they said. I
suggested that rather than relying on the postal service, they should
courier a
replacement card and I would sign for it. This seemed a viable possibility,
except they added that in cancelling the lost card on the Monday would also
automatically cancel my existing card which was still valid till the
Thursday.
Increasingly angry and frustrated, I suggested that they should not cancel a
card that was still valid and usable, and enquired how they could creatively
suggest some options to deal with the presenting problem. None were
available. After much haggling and finding I was getting no where with the
‘system’, I begged that they please ensure that the card was delivered in
the
minimum amount of time. This they assured me they would do. Frustrated,
manacled by their procedures and feeling completely undervalued, I agreed.
Unfortunately, insult was further heaped on a far from satisfying
experience.
A very pleasant voice called about an hour later to say that I could collect
my
card from my local bank branch at the end of the week. The communication
within the system had obviously not understood my earlier point about being
busy and the inconvenience of the situation. The rising tied of indignation,
frustration, helplessness and seething venom was far too great to contain,
and the unfortunate caller received a tirade describing their incompetence,
insensitivity and inability to organise an escape from a wet paper bag.
What is the point of this?
What the customer feels or doesn’t feel at every single encounter with a
service provider is directly related to the service providers ability to
manage
the totality of the experience and customers expectations. Customer
experience is not simply about smiling sweetly, or keeping an even tone
when handling an irate customer. It is about creating, operationally,
transactionally and behaviourally an emotional connection with the customer
that leaves them feeling – no matter what – that they are the most important
person in that moment in time. Addressing the emotional needs, desires
expectations of fickle - I want it now and I’m not going to wait - customers
is
difficult and can’t be left entirely to the great customer service skills of
the
individual. Defining the goal of the intended customer experience, so that
it
is differentiated, intentional supports the brand promise and adds real
value
to the customer requires a whole company approach which goes beyond
procedural quality standards and protocols.
Before a product or service provider can determine the best way to manage
their customer experiences it has to define and articulate exactly the
emotional reaction they want to create in the customer at every point of
contact. Arguably customer satisfaction surveying and market research will
provide the data required in order to do so. This seems very logical except
for the fact that customer satisfaction measures very often don’t give
enough,
if any, data about drives satisfaction or indeed loyalty at the emotional
level.
Customer experience management requires much greater insight into the
drivers of satisfaction and loyalty. That insight is very likely to
demonstrate
that a whole package of different factors lead to a sense of satisfaction
and
loyalty, based on a mixture of expectations, needs and reactions to the
organisation and the perceived value received by the customer.
Managing the customer experience, then moves critical elements such as
product and service quality, and perceptions of value-for-money, beyond
merely hygiene factors – the minimum requirements needed to be seen as a
‘player’ in the market – to fundamental delivery mechanisms in creating the
sort of personal, deep seated emotional and psychological connections with
the customer that enable them to feel themselves satisfied and loyal. A
consistent, differentiated, valued and completely intentional approach to
managing the customers emotional response to doing business with the
company is the only way of dealing with the irrational, illogical, intuitive
and
feelings based drivers that underpin every buying decision.
Now then, about that coffee I was going to have.
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