Emotions and retail
Emotions are a huge part of the customer experience. Emotions drive or destroy value for a business, and often in hidden ways. Emotions influence our desire to buy or not to buy, what we choose from a company’s offerings, what we remember and share about the experience, and, perhaps most importantly, whether we will be loyal to a brand.
It’s likely obvious to you that different emotions cause different effects. But which emotions do what? How do we know whether the feeling we evoke from people is going to drive or destroy value, especially if it’s in a hidden way? What emotions should we strive for as an organisation to foster customer loyalty and retention?
The DNA of Customer Experience a report that took 2 years of research together with the London Business School identified what these emotions are.
50,000 people from 100 industries in 40 countries to get these answers were asked. Of the 4.5 million survey questions answered, 1.25 million responses were about what customers want, and another 1 million answers explained what customers feel. This research produced the framework to assign a value to feelings.
The baseline model identified 20 emotions, which were grouped into four clusters that drive and destroy value for the business. It's called the Hierarchy of Emotional Value:
The Hierarchy of Emotional Value is used to benchmark a level of emotional engagement with customers, something that is referred to as an Emotional Signature. All organisations have an Emotional Signature, whether they are deliberate about what it is or not.
The emotions are divided into clusters and named for the four hidden ways they influence the customer experience:
Advocacy Cluster.
Recommendation Cluster.
Attention Cluster.
Destroying Cluster.
Advocacy Cluster
Made of only two emotions, Happy and Pleased, the Advocacy Cluster is crucial to your experience. People rarely think they are happy enough, so they are always striving to find more happiness than they have now. A customer experience should deliver pleasure in the form of fixes or treats that evoke these vital emotions from experience participants.
As humans, want a customer experience that makes people so happy that they want to take a picture of it to remember later. If you don’t think that moment exists in your customer experience, then you have some work to do.
Recommendation Cluster
This group includes Trusting, Valued, Cared for, Focused, and Safe. These emotions are the foundations of customer loyalty. They are also the gateway emotions that allow you to pass to the pinnacle of the pyramid, the Advocacy Cluster.
Attention Cluster
Five emotions comprise the Attention Cluster, Interested, Energetic, Stimulated, Exploratory, and Indulgent. This cluster is the only set of emotions that have a direct impact on short-term spending. However, this effect will wane and even backfire if you don’t tend to these emotions on a regular basis.
Destroying Cluster
The Destroying Cluster is another essential list of emotions, albeit the list of ones you want to avoid. It includes Irritated, Hurried, Neglected, Unhappy, Unsatisfied, Stressed, Disappointed, and Frustrated. Evoking any of these emotions during your customer experience will cost you money, through lost revenue, lost opportunities, and higher costs fixing the problems that result. They are also the only emotion group that is associated with effects on short-term spending, although not directly as with the Attention Cluster.
These 20 emotions divided into the four clusters have the most influence on your customer experience and in ways that are not always apparent at first. However, once you understand the type of emotional engagement you have with your customers and how it drives or destroys value for your organisation, you can design an emotional experience that is deliberate, and not left to chance.
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Article Credit: Sift Media