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PSYCHOLOGY AND SCIENCE BEHIND MODERN CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

9 minute read
By Scott Clark

December 1, 2022

Customer Experience
Creating experiences that meet customers' cognitive and emotional needs can
inspire a sense of belonging and understanding and strengthen brand connection.

A 2015 Harvard Business Review report showed a direct correlation between
specific emotional motivators, a brand’s use of them and consumer behaviors.
Then, in 2017 a Capgemini report revealed that 81% of emotionally connected
customers will promote a brand to their family and friends, and 70% of
respondents said that they spend twice as much with those brands they are
emotionally connected with.

This article will discuss the roles that psychology and science play in crafting
such an experience.


THE EMOTIONAL DRIVERS OF CUSTOMER DECISION-MAKING

Although digital strategists and researchers have done a lot of work to map out
the cognitive experience of the decision-making process, according to Claudia
Gorelick, vice president of experience strategy at VSA Partners, a Chicago-based
global creative agency, they often fail to include the emotional drivers of
decision-making. 

According to a 2018 Cone/Porter Novelli Purpose Study, 79% of Americans
indicated that they are more loyal to purpose-driven brands, and that
purpose-driven brands can create stronger emotional connections with customers.
Additionally, 67% of respondents said that they were more willing to forgive a
misstep from such a brand. Being able to create such an emotional connection
between customers and brands requires a combination of psychology and science. 



Gorelick said most of the brands that have created these emotional connections
did so based on conventional ads and social marketing. “Nike’s Instagram account
has virtually no product — instead, it features iconic figures who represent the
best of both sports and people. It is selling the dream of Nike, and not the
actual products. Jaguar is selling a mood. It’s defining the feeling that owning
a Jaguar evokes,” said Gorelick.

Gorelick explained that very few companies provide a seamless emotion-driven
experience, and many brands that focus on emotion as the main driver of their
campaigns create a utility-based approach to websites. “The emotional drivers
are set aside for a sales-funnel approach, often devoid of the visual and verbal
elements that created an emotional connection,” Gorelick said.

Mohannad Ali, CEO of Hotjar, a customer experience analytics platform provider,
told CMSWire that psychologically, when there is an element of personalization
during the customer journey and customers feel understood, they experience what
is called a halo effect. "These positive feelings eventually evolve into a good
impression of the company and it reinforces a sense of trust and brand
reliability," said Ali. "To tap into the emotions of customers, brands should
use customer and product insights to customize browsing activity and show the
most relevant content to users.” Ali explained that when there is an established
rapport between a brand and a customer, customers are more likely to stay loyal
to a specific brand’s services based on their emotional connection during the
customer journey. 

“Having an emotional connection with customers is about defining problem
statements based on an analysis of user insights and then coming up with a
solution,” said Ali, who added that psychology is a driving factor in creating
empathy for customers and ultimately results in higher customer satisfaction.

Related Article: Can Low-Code, No-Code Tech Help Marketers With Emotion-Led CX


THE SCIENCE OF EMOTIONS AND FEELINGS OF CUSTOMERS

A 2019 survey by Motista titled Leveraging the Value of Emotional Connection for
Retailers showed that customers who have an emotional relationship with a brand
have three times higher lifetime value. Additionally, the report said that they
are 71% more likely to recommend a brand that they have an emotional connection
with. But what exactly are we talking about when we refer to emotions?

Although we can all name a handful of emotions, psychologists and theorists tend
to disagree with how many there are. Among those listed in the 1970s by
anthropologist Paul Eckman are anger, fear, surprise, disgust, joy and sadness.
Others expanded the list to include aversion, courage, dejection, desire,
despair, fear, hate, hope, love and sadness, while yet others narrowed it down
to just four emotions: anger, fear, happiness and sadness.

Emotions typically describe physiological states that are generated by one’s
subconscious mind. They are autonomous responses to specific external or
internal events that happen to us. Conversely, feelings are the subjective
experiences of emotions. They are largely driven by our conscious thoughts and
reflections. Although we are able to have emotions without having feelings, we
are not able to have feelings without having emotions.

Iliya Rybchin, partner at Elixirr Consulting, a London-based business management
consultancy, told CMSWire that psychology in CX has played a role long before
the Harvard Business Review report. “It was most notably introduced by Joe Pine
back in 1999 in his best-selling book “Experience Economy.” Rybchin said that in
the book, Pine outlined how the value of a human experience can take a commodity
product and create an emotional connection that commands loyalty and premium
pricing. “The classic example is how Starbucks is able to sell expensive coffee
and consumers tolerate long lines not because the coffee is amazing, but because
of the experience and emotional connection they have created over time,” said
Rybchin.


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Rybchin explained that even before Pine's book, many brands recognized the value
of connecting with consumers on a deeper emotional level. “Richard Branson built
an empire around how the Virgin brand stimulated emotional responses that were
not commensurate with the product being sold. A music record is the exact same
product whether you get it at a local retailer or a Virgin Megastore, but yet he
drove millions of people to have a virtually unhealthy affinity for his stores.”

In terms of an emotional connection, the little things are as important as the
big ones. Rybchin said that at his firm, they test emotional reactions to many
experiences — even for experiences as boring as opening a checking account. “We
use biometric technologies to test consumer reactions to websites, marketing
offers, social media posts, etc. Even something as simple as not finding where a
button is located on a website creates moments of frustration that have massive
downstream implications … when multiplied by millions of users,” said Rybchin,
who added that similarly, the moments of joy from completing a task quickly
build bonds that last a long time.

Many brands use scientific methods to gain a deeper understanding of the impact
of an emotional connection with customers. “As part of our testing, we also use
Galvanic skin response to test the intensity of emotional reactions,” said
Rybchin. “I am sharing this not as an ad for my firm (many leading consulting
firms use these technologies) but to show that science, in the hands of experts,
is frequently deployed to develop emotional connections.”

“Humans are generally predictable creatures and when a company is dealing with
millions of them, understanding the subtle drivers of human connection and
emotional response is critical to success,” said Rybchin, as he believes the
winners are brands that use science to understand the emotional connections they
can build with consumers.

Related Article: The Importance of Positive Emotional Connections With Customers


GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES AFFECT PSYCHOLOGICAL IMPACT

Brands have come to understand that their customers’ age impacts the way they
think, the decisions they make and the ways they react to emotional experiences.
Chuck Underwood, founder of The Generational Imperative and generational
behavior expert, told CMSWire that during the formative years from birth to 18,
we form most of the strong core values that we keep for life. Underwood
explained that as we evolve and change, our core values remain largely intact.
“The age cohort that shares the same formative years’ times and teachings
ultimately shares the same core values and thus becomes a ‘generation.’
Generational Core Values exert enormous influence on our minute-by-minute,
lifelong decision-making: consumer choices, career decisions, relationships with
others and personal behavior.” 

Underwood said that these generational core values are hot buttons that brands
must push in order to fully and effectively connect with each generation they
target. The psychological state of each generation also changes depending on the
stage in life they are going through. “Marketers must take into account the
current major life stages of each generation, remembering that each generation’s
younger members will be at different stages than older members — and include
this knowledge in their planning and final decision-making.” 


BEST PRACTICES FOR BUILDING POSITIVE EMOTIONAL CONNECTIONS

Ignacio Segovia, head of product engineering at Altimetrik, a data and digital
engineering services company, told CMSWire that excellent customer experiences
connect the current and future needs of the customer and create a deeper level
relationship through what he refers to as behavioral activations. “There are
three types of activations that we have found to be most effective,” Segovia
said:

 1. Activation of exploration: “This speaks to the mere act of browsing an
    online catalog through specific invitations to wander through the product
    catalogs via featured, similar products or ‘others like you’ streams.”
    Segovia suggested that these widgets often become the best call to action,
    and test very well in A/B and user field testing.
 2. Activation of purpose: “Experiences that give the user a purpose tend to
    greatly impact the stickiness and time investments (and in turn cumulative
    attention time and conversion rates).” Segovia provided the example of
    showing customers what ‘others like me’ purchases look like, which is a
    great activation of purpose based on a peer-based community that inherently
    reinforces the idea that the product they are looking at is adequate for
    their needs.
 3. Activation of desire: “Triggering desirable emotion that matches the brand’s
    ethos, identity and overall perception is key to elevating the customer
    experience design. Customers seldom return to an app or browsing user
    journey that does not trigger an aspirational self-image or upgraded
    lifestyle.” Much like Underwood, Segovia emphasized that matching the
    customers where they are in their lives, both from a situational and
    aspirational perspective, is key to building high-quality, rewarding and
    relevant customer experiences.


FINAL THOUGHTS ON PSYCHOLOGY AND CX

The science and psychology of consumer behavior are becoming more important to
brands as they seek to better understand their customers. Brands have discovered
that emotions are a powerful driver of purchasing decisions and are creating
positive emotional connections with customers to increase engagement, enhance
loyalty and improve the customer journey.




TAGS

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For nearly two decades CMSWire, produced by Simpler Media Group, has been the
world's leading community of customer experience professionals.

.

Today the CMSWire community consists of over 5 million influential customer
experience, digital experience and customer service leaders, the majority of
whom are based in North America and employed by medium to large organizations.
Our sister community, Reworked gathers the world's leading employee experience
and digital workplace professionals.


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