{"id":12556,"date":"2014-05-21T07:42:51","date_gmt":"2014-05-21T06:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=12556"},"modified":"2019-09-30T04:39:44","modified_gmt":"2019-09-30T08:39:44","slug":"feelings-emotional-underpinnings-real-implications-b2b-b2c-customer-experience-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/feelings-emotional-underpinnings-real-implications-b2b-b2c-customer-experience-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Feelings and Emotional Underpinnings: What Are Their Real Implications in the B2B and B2C Customer Experience Journey?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Customers, whether they are business-to-consumer or business-to-business, can have a range of perceptions about the tangible and intangible elements of their customer journey, and the individual, component elements of experience, or, indeed, a single transaction.\u00a0 Underlying their positive, neutral, or negative perceptions, and the potential downstream actions they influence, are feelings and, even deeper, emotions.<\/p>\n

Human beings are \u2018wired\u2019 to have many different emotions and feelings.\u00a0 It\u2019s important that organizations understand what\u2019s going on inside the minds of their customers, particularly with respect to emotions, so that they can shape, or modify, experience-related processes, products, and communication messages.<\/p>\n

Feelings are subconscious reactions, responses by any of the five senses to outside stimuli, or a deeper version of attitudes.\u00a0 Feelings, which tend to be short-term (thirsty, excited, hungry, etc.) have to be triggered by some external situation, while emotions can be completely internalized.\u00a0 They are a rich stew of immediate responses, ranging from pleasant (happiness, fascination, affection, sympathy, delight, animated, relaxed, jubilant, amazed, cheerful, warm, etc.) to difficult and unpleasant (depressed, annoyed, confused, upset, embarrassed, hesitant, sad, indifferent, wary, anxious, etc.)<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, because they are so tied to transactions, trying to measure feelings is a bit like trying to capture lightning in a bottle.\u00a0 Feelings can be generally understood on a qualitative level, but are more challenging to interpret where strategic relationships are concerned.\u00a0 Emotions represent longer-term response, and are more deeply connected to longitudinal customer experiences and the strategy of customer relationships.<\/p>\n

NPS\u00aeychologists understand that emotions can be produced by a thought, memory, or external situation; and, they are also quite aware that there are many variations to the five that are consistent in all cultures:\u00a0 love, hate, joy, sorrow, and fear.\u00a0 For example, disgust is an emotion which is one subset of hatred.\u00a0 Emotions \u2013 like love and sorrow \u2013 are long-term states.\u00a0 They can last for years, and can only change when the individual subconsciously moves on.<\/p>\n

Too frequently, the failure to more actively consider the influence of emotional response to customer experience<\/a>, and the resulting impact on downstream behavior, can be costly.\u00a0 Many business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-customer (B2C) companies offer antiseptic, commoditized, vanilla product or service experiences for customers. These experiences are almost\u00a0guaranteed\u00a0not to be emotionally-registered, not to be memorable, not talked about (unless neutrally or negatively), and not to create customer advocacy behavior. Some, through culture, discipline, and purpose, have succeeded in creating consistent, positive experiences that are emotionally appealing to customers and which customers consider worthy of passing along through their informal conversations and recommendations.<\/p>\n

Most brands and corporations seem to get by on transactional approaches to customer relationships and passive methods of value creation. \u00a0These might include basics such as occasional price promotions, merchandising gimmicks, new product offerings, and the like. Service experiences are passive and deflective, addressing and resolving the customer\u2019s problems, but not emotionally \u201cowning\u201d the customer\u2019s issue.<\/p>\n

In these situations, the customers see no brand-to-brand differentiation; and their experience of the brand or company is largely one-dimensional and easily capable of replacement. Moreover, the customer has no personal, emotional investment in choosing\u2014and staying\u2014with one brand or supplier over another.<\/p>\n

A key opportunity for companies to become stronger and\u00a0more emotionally\u00a0viable to customers is creation of branded experiences. Beyond simply selling a product or service, these \u201cexperiential brands\u201d connect with their customers at a deeper level. They understand that delivering on the tangible and functional elements of value are just basic table stakes, and that connecting and having an emotionally-based relationship with customers is the key to leveraging loyalty and advocacy behavior.<\/p>\n

Exemplars of branded customer experience also understand that there is a \u201cjourney\u201d for customers in relationships with preferred companies. These customer journeys are founded on emotion.\u00a0 They begin with awareness, how the brand is introduced, i.e., the promise. Then, promised and created expectations must at least equal real-world touch-point results (such as through service), sustained and reinforced over time, with a minimum of disappointment.<\/p>\n

Finally, branding the customer experience requires that the brand\u2019s image, its personality, if you will, is conveyed and received at an emotional level. Advanced companies map and plan this out, recognizing that experiences are actually a form of branding architecture brought to life through excellent process engineering, with an emotional core. Because many consulting organizations, Beyond Philosophy included, understand that customer experience will continue to grow as the engine propelling customer behavior, the more organizations can emotionally brand the value they deliver, the more successful they will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nMichael Lowenstein<\/a> provides strategic consulting, research design and in-depth, leading-edge analysis that helps clients deliver outstanding business results through deeper customer experience, communication, relationship, employee and brand equity insights. Beyond Philosophy<\/a> provide consulting, specialised<\/span> research & training from our Global Headquarters in Tampa, Florida, USA.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Customers, whether they are business-to-consumer or business-to-business, can have a range of perceptions about the tangible and intangible elements of their customer journey, and the individual, component elements of experience, or, indeed, a single transaction.\u00a0 Underlying their positive, neutral, or negative perceptions, and the potential downstream actions they influence, are feelings and, even deeper, emotions. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":12560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[100],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-customer-emotions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}