The Key to Accelerate Better Customer Experience Outcomes is Understanding Emotion
By Steve Brockway, Chief Research Officer | February 25, 2021
Great CX programs shape the roadmap to deliver better experiences. Yet most programs are focused exclusively on metrics which summarize how the customer rationally thinks about a touchpoint post the experience. This focus on the rational misses the crucial emotional element of a brand experience. We have evidence that brilliant customer outcomes are the result of using these rational metrics that show the business what needs improving combined with Emotional CX measurement which uncovers how it needs improving.
Why measuring emotion drives CX breakthrough
Behavioral science proves the dominant pathway of human decision-making is that we Feel, then Behave and lastly, we Think.
In traditional post-customer experience feedback using legacy rating scale questions such Net Promoter Score (NPS) or Customer Satisfaction we tend to capture rationalized thinking that attempts to explain behavior. This data is important in aligning teams in the business around issues, but it can lead to a gap between what customers say they are going to do and what they actually do.
This ‘Say-Do’ gap is visible in the disconnect between market sales and attitudinal data such as NPS or Satisfaction scores.
This gap exists because programs are not measuring the catalyst and driving force behind behavior, namely how the customer feels. How do they emotionally connect with the experience? And does the touchpoint experience deliver the same emotional wrapper they expect from the brand?
Satisfied customers and promoters will advocate an experience, only if they feel positive about it. So, to really inform the business direction we need to identify and understand the emotions driving these feelings. We need to establish which touchpoint is most impactful in driving those emotional connections. We need to reveal the emotional wrapper that customers want to feel at a particular touchpoint.
System 1 thinking shows the way to capture emotion in a CX program
Accurately understanding emotion can be hard.
People, in general, are not well equipped to tell us how they feel in a direct way. Emotions occur and drive our behavior within our System 1 pathway which is involuntary, subconscious, fast and associative. We cannot “think” ourselves not to feel a particular way or emotion.
Asking a customer directly about how they feel forces them into a System 2 thought pathway which is slow, controlled, conscious, and post-rationalized. Survey participants are being asked to explain a complex process that they cannot control and that impacts their behavior in a way they cannot verbalize. To measure how people ‘Feel’, we need passive System 1 tools that can capture those intangible bundles of emotions evoked by a touchpoint or experience.
Our Maru/HUB platform utilizes a proprietary visual semiotics technique to passively collect the emotions evoked at any touchpoint in the customer experience journey to identify what we call, the Emotional Signature.
Our unique Emotional Signature methodology uses a library of 9,000 images, developed over the course of 30 years and validated across 50 countries, overcoming any cultural response bias.
Emotion explains the difference between Passives and Promoters
Accurately measuring the emotion of customer experiences’ is next-generation CX measurement and platform development. Brands who only rely on traditional metrics often find they struggle, on the face of it, to engage customer-facing teams and continuously improve, with almost stagnant NPS or Customer Satisfaction scores.
For one such client, we recently looked to compare the Emotional Signature of the purchase experience for ‘Passives’ (customers who rated their experience as 7 or 8 out of 10) vs ‘Promoters’ (customers who rated their experience as a 9 or 10 out of 10). They wanted to understand the core emotions associated within each group in order to drive new insight on how to increase the number of promoters and drive their overall NPS.
We discovered that, despite there being only a 1-point difference on the 0-10 rating scale between passives and promoters, they have a completely different emotional experience to one another. Promoters felt a deeper sense of ‘Contentment’ and personal satisfaction after their experience, driven, in part, by a successful mission. Importantly, they felt the brand interaction was ‘Empathetic’ to their needs by creating a more meaningful, personalized solution.
Passives, on the other hand, had a very different Emotional Signature from their experience. Instead of making a personal connection, passives focused on the process (Complete/Integrated) of making their own purchase (Intelligent).
Understanding emotion provides a deeper understanding of Promoters
For our clients, this delivers an emotional roadmap of how to deliver better, improved experiences and outcomes for their customers, offering unique insights into customer service and staff behaviors. We can also overlay verbatim comments to bring the Emotional Signature to life, with examples of the key emotions/interactions that front-line staff can relate to.
If traditional metrics tell a brand or business what needs improving, emotional CX measurement uncovers how. By uncovering how customers Feel and combining with metrics into how they Think and Behave, we provide a unique, holistic understanding of customer experience, all in one connected proprietorial platform with insights designed to shape effective action, engage teams and drive meaningful change.
If your CX program is only relying on traditional metrics, then you are missing part of the picture. Adding the ‘Feel’ elements to what customers say they ‘Think’ unlocks new insight on how to drive best-in-class experiences that influence future loyalty.
Customer’s experience your brand, products and services in many ways. And often, it’s the emotions associated with that experience that cements the moment in our mind. As captured so concisely by the great American poet, Maya Angelou, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel”.
Maru is delivering ground-breaking emotional CX measurement solutions within their HUB platform. To understand more, or to trial the approach in your own customer experience program, contact the team at sales@marumatchbox.com