{"id":17659,"date":"2016-10-11T00:00:44","date_gmt":"2016-10-11T04:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/?p=17659"},"modified":"2019-11-21T10:04:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-21T15:04:09","slug":"astonishing-big-gains-little-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beyondphilosophy.com\/astonishing-big-gains-little-changes\/","title":{"rendered":"Astonishing BIG gains from little changes!"},"content":{"rendered":"

When striving for the next level of Customer Experience<\/a>, it is critical to understand how your customers make decisions. However, it\u2019s probably not happening the way you think it is.<\/p>\n

As Customer Experience Consultants, we see our clients presume that customer evaluations of an experience occur at the product level. This presumption is only partway true. People do evaluate at the product level, meaning how much it costs or how it tastes, and it is important. However, people also reference their other expectations, as in how much they think your product should cost or how delicious they predict it will taste.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, even with clear expectations and the ability of the product to meet those expectations, there are other influences on the customer\u2019s evaluation of his or her experience. These influences can be surprising.<\/p>\n

My latest book, co-authored by Emory University\u2019s Professor Ryan Hamilton discusses how these unimportant aspects can be quite important to your Customers. The book is called \u00a0The Intuitive Customer: 7 Imperatives For Moving Your Customer Experience To The Next Level<\/a>, and includes:
\n<\/p>\n

Imperative 6: Accept that apparently irrelevant aspects of your Customer Experience are sometimes the most important aspects \u2028<\/strong><\/p>\n

We assume customers enter the experience with an expectation of how good it will be. They then compare the expectation with the reality to create their evaluation. When the experience exceeds their expectations, they evaluate it positively. When it doesn\u2019t, they don\u2019t. This assumption is accurate in straightforward cases, meaning the experience was clearly excellent on all fronts\u2014or clearly wasn\u2019t!<\/p>\n

But what if the experience falls short, but only by a little bit? For example, let\u2019s say you went to a hotel where the experience was fine. The room was fine, the service was fine, and so on. However, you thought this particular hotel would wow you. While they didn\u2019t do anything wrong, you didn\u2019t feel wowed either. Now, even if the experience was objectively good (i.e., nothing was technically wrong with it), your disappointment regarding feeling wowed translates into a negative evaluation.<\/p>\n

When things get ambiguous or difficult to evaluate, customers may use their high-level impressions of the brand, the retailer, or the service provider to guide their evaluations or what we call a \u201chalo effect.\u201d Your feelings toward a brand create a positive or negative halo influencing your evaluation of their Customer Experience.<\/p>\n

Consider experiences eating at McDonald\u2019s, a brand that prides itself on its consistency anywhere in the world. However, when you go to a McDonald\u2019s in the UK, you don\u2019t have the same experience you do in Des Moines or Toronto. \u00a0It\u2019s similar, but not the same. Also, McDonald\u2019s has a huge brand reputation (whether good or bad) that affects your evaluation. Plus, there is another local influence at work in these experiences, with different tastes unique to the area, such as:<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

It\u2019s possible just seeing these local items on the menu affects your evaluation of your McDonald\u2019s experience in these countries, even if you don\u2019t order them.<\/p>\n

However, if you removed the McDonald\u2019s logo and branding from the equation, your evaluations of your dining experience would change. You see, your brain associates your expectations with the McDonald\u2019s brand. Without that reference point, your brain doesn\u2019t know what to expect, and as a result has fewer expectations influencing the evaluation. If you think you would still know the taste of McDonald\u2019s without the packaging, you are likely wrong.<\/p>\n

Several studies have shown this to be the case. But rather than a dry study, here\u2019s a great example<\/a> from Lifehunters on YouTube:<\/p>\n