Customer Experience Measurement in the Coronavirus Age
Perhaps the most important way brands can respond to the moment of truth presented by this crisis is showing true care for: customers, employees, and the community.
Additionally, it is imperative that customers feel safe. Based on current science, in-person interactions can be relatively safe if followed within CDC and public health guidance including risk mitigation efforts such as: physical distancing, masks, ventilation, length of exposure, and hand washing & sanitizer.
Using these previous posts as a foundation, we can now address the implications of the pandemic on customer experience measurement.
So…. what does all this mean in terms of customer experience measurement?
First, I like to think of the customer experience measurement in terms of the brand-customer interface where customers interact with the brand. At the center of the customer experience are the various channels which form the interface between the customer and institution. Together, these channels define the brand more than any external messaging. Best-in-class customer experience research programs monitor this interface from multiple directions across all channels to form a comprehensive view of the customer experience.
Customers and front-line employees are the two stakeholders who interact most commonly with each other in the customer-institution interface. As a result, a best practice in understanding this interface is to monitor it directly from each direction: surveying customers from one side, gathering observations from employees on the brand side, and testing for the presence and timing of customer experience attributes through observational research such as mystery shopping.
Measure Customer Comfort and Confidence
First, fundamentally, the American economy is a consumer confidence driven economy. Consumers need to feel confident in public spaces to participate in public commerce. Customer experience researchers would be well served by testing for consumer confidence with respect to safety and mitigation strategies. These mitigation strategies are quickly becoming consumer requirements in terms of confidence in public commerce.
Along the same lines, given the centrality of consumer confidence in our economy, measuring how customers feel about the mitigation strategies put in place by the brand is extremely important. Such measurements would include measures of appropriateness, effectiveness, and confidence in the mitigation strategies employed. We recommend two measurements: how customers feel about the safety of the brand’s in-person channel in general, and how they feel about the safety relative to other brands they interact with during the pandemic. The first is an absolute measure of comfort, the other attempts to isolate the variable of the pandemic, just measuring the brand’s response.
The pandemic is changing consumer behavior. This much is clear. As such customer experience researchers should endeavor to identify and understand how consumer behavior is changing so they can adjust the customer experience delivery mix to align with these changes.
Testing Mitigation Strategies
Drilling down from broader research issues to mystery shopping specifically, there are several research design issues that should be continued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Measure Customer Confidence in Post-Transaction Surveys with Alerts to Failures: First, as economic activity waxes and wanes through this coronavirus mitigation effort, consumer confidence will drive economic activity both on a macro and micro-economic level. Broadly, consumers as a whole will not participate in the in-person economy until they are confident the risk of infection is contained. Pointedly, at the individual business level, customers will not return to a business if they feel unsafe. Therefore, market researchers should build measures of comfort or confidence into the post-transaction surveys to measure how the customer felt as a result of the experience. This will alert managers to potential unsafe practices which must be addressed. It will also serve as a means of directly measuring the return on investment (ROI) of customer confidence and safety initiatives in terms of the customer experience.
Measure Customer Perception of Mitigation Strategies: Coronavirus mitigation strategies will become typical attributes of the customer experience. Beyond simply testing for the presence of these mitigation strategies, customer experience managers should determine customer perceptions of their appropriateness, efficacy, and perhaps most importantly, their confidence in these mitigation strategies.
Gather Employee Observations of Mitigation Strategies: Frontline employees spend nearly all their time in the brand customer interface. As such, they have always been a wealth of information about the customer experience, and can be surveyed very efficiently. The post-pandemic customer experience is no exception.
First, as we discussed previously, employees have the same personal safety concerns as customers. Surveys of employees should endeavor to evaluate employees’ confidence in and comfort with coronavirus mitigation strategies.
Secondly, frontline employees being placed in the middle of the brand-customer interface are in perfect position to give feedback regarding the efficacy of mitigation strategies and the extent to which it fits into the desired customer experience – providing managers with valuable insight into adjustments which may make mitigation strategies fit more precisely into overall the customer experience objectives.
Independently Test for the Presence of Mitigation Strategies: All in-person channels across all industries will require the adoption of coronavirus mitigation strategies. Mystery shopping is the perfect tool to test for the presence of mitigation strategies – evaluating such strategies as: designed physical distancing, physical barriers between POS personnel and customers, mask compliance, sanitization, and duration of contact.
Alternative Research Sources for Behavioral Observations: Some customer experience managers may not want unnecessary people within their in-person channel. So the question arises, how can employee behaviors be measured without the use of mystery shoppers? One solution is to solicit behavioral observations directly from actual customers shortly after the in-person service interaction. Customers can be recruited onsite to provide their observations through the use of QR codes, or in certain industries after the event via e-mail. The purpose of these surveys is behavioral – asking the customers to recall if a specific behavior or service attribute was present during the encounter. From a research design standpoint, this practice is a little suspect, as asking people to recall the specifics about an event after the fact, without prior knowledge, is problematic. Customers are not prepared or prompted to look for and recall specific events. However, given the unique nature of the circumstances we are under, in some cases there is an argument that the benefits of this approach outweigh the research limitations.
Test Channel Performance and Alignment
The instantaneous need for alternative delivery channels has significantly raised the stakes in cross-channel alignment. As sales volume shifts to these alternative channels, customer experience researchers need to monitor the customer experience within all channels to measure the efficacy of the experience, as well as alignment of each channel to both each other and the overall brand objectives.
Finally, as more customers migrate to less in-person channels, customer experience researchers should endeavor to measure the customer experience within each channel. As more late adopters are forced by the pandemic to migrate to these channels, they may bring with them a completely different set of expectations relative to early adopters, therefore managers would be well served to understand the expectations of these newcomers to the alternative channels so they can adjust the customer experience to meet these new customers’ expectations.
As commerce migrates away from conventional in-person channels to alternative delivery channels, the importance of these channels will increase. As a result, the quality and consistency of delivery in these channels will need to be measured through the use of mystery shoppers. Some industries are going to be problematic, as their current economics do not currently support alternative delivery. With time however, economic models will evolve to support alternative channels.
Conclusion
This is a difficult time. It will be the defining event of our generation.
The pandemic, and our reaction to it, is dramatically changing how humans interact with each other, and the customer experience is no exception. There is reason to suggests this difficult time could become a new normal. Managers of the customer experience need to understand the implications of the customer experience in the post-Covid environment, as the implications of the pandemic may never fully subside. Customer experience managers must consider the implications of this new normal, not only on the customer experience, but on customer experience measurement.
Customer Experience Measurement in the Coronavirus Age: Implications for Customer Experience
In summary, the most common cause of spread is believed to be airborne by inhaling virus particles exhaled into the environment. The infectious dose of a virus is the amount of virus a person needs to be exposed to in order to establish an infection. We currently do not know the infectious dose for SARS-CoV-2. Estimates range from a few hundred to a few thousand virus particles.[1] One virus particle will not cause an infection. To be infected one must exceed the infectious dose by either being exposed to a cough or a sneeze. Absent coughs or sneezes, under normal activity one must be exposed to the virus over time to exceed the infectious dose.
This post draws ocorn the foundation of the first to discuss the implications of the pandemic on the customer experience.
Modern day customer experiences exist in a finely tuned ecosystem, where the dramatic changes as a result of the pandemic have off set the delicate balance, causing problems from supply chain disruptions to an immediate shift away from in-person channels.
Furthermore, the pandemic represents what I call a moment of truth regarding the relationship with customers. Moments of truth are specific experiences of high importance, where a customer either forms or changes their opinion of a brand in meaningful and lasting ways. How brands respond to moments of truth, particularly in this time of global crisis, will strengthen or weaken the customers’ relationship to the brand.
Moments of truth are specific experiences of high
importance, where a customer either forms or changes
their opinion of a brand in meaningful or lasting ways.
Customers are stressed. They feel uncertainty, fear and, frankly, exhaustion. Ongoing concern for personal safety, education of children, and the well being of loved ones is exhausting. This uncertainty and fear drives customers to seek shelter from resources they trust. Brands which become a trusted resource, which provide comfort, true comfort, in the face of this crisis have an opportunity to not only do the right thing, but cement their customers’ relationship with the brand. On the other hand, brands which fail to do so, risk destruction of their customer relationships.
Care for all Stakeholders
Perhaps the most important way brands can respond to the moment of truth presented by this crisis is showing true care for stakeholders in the brand: customers, employees, and the community.
Care for Customers
Brands must communicate care for customers. Drawing on a personal example, March of 2020 was a particularly worrisome time for me. At that time, the Seattle area was considered one of the epicenters of the outbreak, mandatory stay at home orders where being introduced – fear ruled – fear driven by uncertainty; uncertainty with respect to the safety of myself and loved ones; uncertainty with respect to the financial future; uncertainty with respect to the state of the entire globe.
Amidst all this uncertainty and fear I received an email from Citigroup entitled “Covid-19. Let us know if we can help.” It communicated personal care for me, encouraged alternative channel use: online, mobile and 24/7 contact center assistance, and contained links to CDC guidance.
A week later the campaign continued with an update on the actions Citigroup was implementing based on the pandemic; again, educating me to digital tools available, offering personal assistance if needed.
Two and a half months later, in June, I received an email expressing “heartfelt thanks” for adapting to changes and remaining loyal. It described ways Citigroup was assisting with a variety of COVID-19 relief, specifically introducing a partnership with celebrity chef Jose Anres’ World Central Kitchen Campaign distributing meals in low-income neighborhoods in big cities like New York, and monitoring the globe for food shortages elsewhere. This not only demonstrated care for me personally, but care for the community.
Care for Communities
Citigroup’s donations to the World Central Kitchen campaign is one example of care for our communities. There are countless examples of brands offering community support.
- A beer brewery, Brewdog, shifted production away from beer to hand sanitizer.
- A Spanish sports retailer donated scuba masks to hospitals.
- EBay offered free services to small business forced to switch from brick-and-mortar to ecommerce to keep their small business afloat – pledging $100 million in support of this endeavor.
Care for Employees
Employees are important. They animate the brand and drive customer loyalty – particularly in moments of truth like these. Research has determined that in many retail and service environments, there is a positive correlation between employee satisfaction and employee retention as well as customer loyalty. They are not immune from the fear and the stress of this crisis. Additionally, frontline employees spend all their time in the brand-customer interface. They are the personal representatives of the brand.
Additionally, given these front-line employees spend the majority of their time in the brand-customer interface, they tend to have a level of understanding about the customer experience that management often misses.
As a result, it is incumbent on brands to attend to the stresses employees are under, demonstrate concern, and develop communication channels for employees to feed customer experience intelligence to management.
Delivery Channels
I’ve always been an advocate of meeting customers in their preferred channel; meeting them where they are today and delivering a seamless experience. Obviously, over the recent decades there has been a migration from in-person channels to increasing self-directed, alternative channels. The pandemic has immediately accelerated this shift. Be it telehealth, online banking, in-home instruction of our children, or a restaurant delivering through UberEats, providers of all types now face increasing pressure to bring their business to their customers’ homes.
Emotional Well Being
As observed earlier, this pandemic is a moment of truth between many brands and their customers. In our experience, customers primarily want three things from a provider: 1) empathy, 2) care/concern for their needs, and 3) competence. We see this constantly. Customers want to do business with brands that empathize with them, care about their needs, and are capable of satisfying those needs in a competent manner. Brands that seek to attend to the emotional needs of their customers during this moment of truth will earn the loyalty and positive word-of-mouth of their customers.
In-Person Precautions and Mitigation Strategies
While the pandemic has accelerated an ongoing transition to alternative channels, some industries require an in-person experience. Based on current science, in-person interactions can be relatively safe if followed within CDC and public health guidance outlined in the first part of this series:
- Physical Distancing: Estimates of exposure time all assume close personal contact. Physical distancing decreases the likelihood of receiving an infectious dose by putting space between ourselves and others – current recommendations are 6 feet.
Furthermore, many in-person transactions can now be done touch free. I recently had to rent a car, and was pleased to meet the rental attendant outside holding a tablet. The attendant took down all my information, I never had to touch or sign anything. In a different transaction, requiring a signature, I was offered a single use pen to keep.
- Masks: Masks are a core tool to provide physical distancing between individuals. Masks do not primarily act as a filter for the wearer, but suppress the amount of droplets an infected person can spread into the space around them. This reduces the risk that others will exceed the infectious dose of the virus.
- Ventilation: Well ventilated areas disperse virus particles making it less likely a dose exceeds the infectious limits. Like my car rental agency, brands should endeavor to provide well ventilated spaces for employees and customers to interact – not only to protect customers but employees as well.
- Length of Exposure: Finally, brands should design service encounters to be as time efficient as possible. Again, the CDC advises a 15-minute exposure limit for close personal contact. Social distancing through physical distance, masks, and ventilation should increase this safe exposure limit. However, strategies should be implemented to make service encounters as brief as possible. For example, if you require information from your customers as part of the service interaction, collect this required information online or over the phone prior to an appointment. This could help to make customers and employees safer and more comfortable.
- Hand Washing & Sanitizer: Hand washing and sanitization is the primary defense against transfer infections.
Putting it All Together
Putting all this together, let’s look at an industry Kinesis has the most experience with. Kinesis’ largest practice is in the banking and financial services industry. Recently the American Bankers Association (ABA) released the results of an industry survey regarding publically announced responses of US banks to the pandemic. [2]
Many banks are applying some of the concepts discussed above in creative ways. A review of a random selection of banks reveals the following responses ranked from most common to least common:
- Enhanced deep cleaning and disinfecting of work spaces;
- Implementing social distancing in work spaces, including branches;
- Encouraging use of alternative delivery channels, such as mobile and internet banking;
- Personalized assistance to customers negatively impacted by the pandemic;
- Increased donations to charity/ partnering with the local community to mitigate the effects of the pandemic;
- Allowing employees to work remotely if possible;
- Limiting access to branches (closing branch lobbies, limiting hours, appointment only banking);
- Paid time off for employees to self-quarantine or to care of school age children;
- Rotating schedules of customer-facing staff to reduce risk (one institution has applied a 10 days on 10 days off policy); and
- Educating customers of pandemic related fraud/scams.
[1] Geddes, Linda. “Does a high viral load or infectious dose make covid-19 worse?” newscientist.com, March 27, 2020. Web May 14, 2020.
[2] “America’s Banks Are Here to Help: The Industry Responds to the Coronavirus.” ABA.com, April 29, 2020. Web. May 19 2020.
Implications of Mood Effects on Customer Experience Design
In an earlier post we explored how customers experience all aspects of their relationship with a brand through the lens of their emotional state, and observed that all brands must be prepared to meet each customer in their specific emotional state – be they happy, excited, depressed or angry.
Research has determined that, not surprisingly, people are motivated to maintain positive moods, and mitigate negative affective states. When feeling good we tend to make choices that maintain a positive mood. Customers in a positive mood are more loyal, and more likely to interpret information favoring a current brand. Meanwhile, people in negative affective states make choices that have the potential to change or, in particular, improve their moods.
A key to maintaining positive moods is arousal, or more specifically, the management of arousal. Let’s take a look at how arousal management influences consumer choice. Consumers in a positive mood prefer products congruent with their state of arousal. Excited or happy consumers want to stay excited or happy, while relaxed and calm consumers what to stay relaxed and calm. Consumers in a negative mood prefer products with the potential to change their level of arousal.
In considering the role of customer emotions in their relationship to a brand, it is important to understand the implications of customer emotions on design of the customer experience. It is impossible, of course, to plan every customer experience or to ensure that every experience occurs exactly as intended. However, brands can identify and plan for the types of experiences that impart the desired emotional state on the customer. It is useful to group these experiences into three categories of interaction with the customer: Stabilizing, Critical, and Planned.
Stabilizing
Stabilizing interactions promote customer retention, particularly in the early stages of the relationship.
New customers are probably in a positive state of valence, with either a high state of arousal (happy/excited) or a negative state of arousal (relaxed/calm). Remember, people are motivated to maintain positive moods, therefore, the objective of these stabilizing interactions is to maintain this positive mood.
The keys to an effective stabilizing strategy and maintaining these positive moods are education, competence and consistency.
New customers are at the highest risk of defection. As customers become more familiar with a brand they adjust their expectations accordingly. It is important that expectations be set appropriately to eliminate conflict with reality. Conflict between expectations and reality early in the customer relationship runs the risk changing the customer’s mood from positive to negative. They are more likely to experience disappointment, and thus more likely to defect.
Education influences expectations, helping customers develop realistic expectations. It goes beyond simply informing customers about the products and services offered by the company. It systematically informs new customers how to use the brand’s services more effectively and efficiently, how to obtain assistance, how to complain, and what to expect as the relationship progresses. In addition to influencing expectations, systematic education leads to greater efficiency in the way customers interact with the company, thus driving down the cost of customer service and support.
Critical
Critical interactions are service encounters that lead to memorable customer experiences. While most service is routine, from time to time a situation arises that is out of the ordinary: a complaint, a question, a special request, a chance for an employee to go the extra mile. We call these critical interactions “moments of truth.” The outcomes of moments of truth can be either positive or negative – they are rarely neutral.
Because they are memorable and unusual, moments of truth tend to have a powerful effect on the customer relationship. We often think of moments of truth as instances when the brand has an opportunity to solidify the relationship – earning a loyal customer, or risk the customer’s defection. Positive outcomes lead to positive states of valence (excited, happy, relaxed, calm) with greater wallet share, loyalty, and positive word word-of-mouth endorsements; while negative outcomes generate negative states (anger, frustration, depression); and result in customer defection, diminished share of wallet and unfavorable word-of-mouth.
We are in an era of automated channels. Automated channels are essential for meeting customer expectations and reducing transaction costs, but technical solutions are not, by themselves, able to drive an emotional connection between customers and the brand – particularly in moments of truth. Employees, emotionally intelligence employees, empowered to resolve the issue are critical in driving an emotional connection. In a future post, we will discuss the concept of Emotional Intelligence of frontline employees in handling moments of truth.
An effective customer experience strategy should include systems for recording critical interactions, analyzing trends and patterns, and feeding that information back to the organization. Employees can then be trained to recognize critical opportunities, and empowered to respond to them in such a way that they will lead to positive outcomes and desired customer behaviors.
Planned
Planned interactions are intended to increase customer profitability through up-selling and cross-selling. These interactions are frequently triggered by changes in the customers’ purchasing patterns, account usage, financial situation, family profile, etc. CRM analytics combined with Big Data are becoming quite effective at recognizing such opportunities and prompting action from service and sales personnel.
Customer experience managers should have a process to record and analyze the quality of execution of planned interactions with the objective of evaluating the performance of the brand at the customer brand interface – regardless of the channel.
The key to an effective strategy for planned interactions is appropriateness. Triggered requests for additional purchases must be made in the context of the customers’ needs and permission; otherwise the requests will come off as clumsy and annoying. By aligning information about execution quality (cause) and customer impressions (effect), customer experience managers can build a more effective and appropriate approach to planned interactions.
Loyalty & Wallet Share
Loyalty. There is almost universal agreement that it is an objective – if not the objective – of customer experience management. It is highly correlated to profitably. It lowers sales and acquisition costs per customer by amortizing these costs across a longer lifetime – leading to extraordinary financial results. In retail banking a 5% increase in loyalty translates to an 85% increase in profits.
Loyalty is Emotion Driven
Banks often see themselves as transaction driven; delivery channels are evaluated on their cost per transaction. As a result, there is a lot of attention given to and investment in automated channels which reduce transaction costs and at the same time offer more convenience to customers. Win-win, right? The bank drives costs out of the transaction and customers get the convenience of performing a variety of transactions untethered by time or space. However, while transaction costs and convenience are important, loyalty is often driven by an emotional connection with the institution. An emotional connection fostered by interaction with actual employees at moments of need for the customers –moments with a high level of emotional importance to the customer – moments of truth.
Moments of truth are atypical events, where customers experience a high emotional energy in the outcome (such a lost credit card, loan application, or investment advice). In one study published in McKinsey Quarterly, positive experiences during moments of truth led to more than 85% of customers increasing wallet share by purchasing more products or investing more of their assets (Beaujean et al 06)
Impersonal alternative channels lack the ability to bind the customer to the institution. It’s the people. Effective handling of moments of truth requires frontline staff with the emotional tools or intelligence to recognize the emotional needs of the customer and bind them to the institution.
Emotional States and Problem Resolution
Previously we discussed the concept of “moments of truth” where some experiences in the customer journey have far greater importance than others. These moments of truth represent increased risk and opportunity to leave a lasting emotional impression on the customer; a lasting impression with significant long-term implications for both customer loyalty and wallet share. Perhaps the most common moment of truth is when something has gone wrong, the customer is unhappy or scared and the relationship is at risk. These events could be the result of: service delivery failures (unavailable service, unreasonably slow service, or other core service failures); customer needs and requests (special customer needs or customer preferences); or an adverse outcome (loan denial or loss of investment principal).
Also, in an earlier post we introduced a model to define emotional states with two dimensions:
1) valence (the extent to which the emotional state is positive or negative) and
2) arousal (the extent to which the energy mobilization of the emotional state is experienced on a scale of active to passive or aroused to calm).
Together, valence and arousal can define all human emotions. States of high arousal and positive valence are excited or happy; low arousal and negative valence are bored or depressed; while states of positive valence and low arousal are calm and relaxed, and negative valence and high arousal are angry or frustrated.
Not surprisingly, people are motivated to maintain positive moods, and mitigate negative affective states. People in negative affective states desire choices that have the potential to change or, in particular, improve their moods. For example, researchers have demonstrated a preference for TV shows that held the greatest promise of providing relief from negative affective states. People in a sad mood want to be comforted; anxious people want to feel control and safety.
Beyond solving the problem, the objective in dealing with an upset customer is to help relieve their negative affective state. If they are angry, attempt to calm them; if anxious, provide comfort. Time and time again, our research across many brands reveals that beyond resolving their problem as efficiently as possible, what customers want is empathy and reliability. We want to talk to someone who both understands how we feel and is reliable. They both have a solution to the problem and what they say will get done, gets done.
Strategies in CX Design
Anticipate potential needs for recovery: In designing tools to monitor the customer experience, managers must be aware of potential moments of truth and design tools to monitor these critical points in the customer journey. Some of these tools include: monitoring customer comments from comment cards or online forms to identify instances where the customer is either extremely happy or dissatisfied; monitor social media to identify common causes of moments of truth; survey tracking specifically focusing on the responses from dissatisfied customers; and mystery shopping to test the response to specific problem scenarios.
Decentralize decision making & empower front-line employees: In empowering frontline employees to serve customers, brands should arm them with statements of general principles and values rather than scripted procedures, which undermine empowerment. Reinforce these principles often so in the moment, when they are in a moment of truth with a customer in need, they have an appropriate framework from which to resolve the issue – and bond the customer to the brand.
Train the frontline: Training the frontline to handle problem resolution requires training not just in decision making, but also emotional intelligence. Can emotional intelligence be taught? Yes, but it requires a unique approach of self-discovery. Self-discovery is not a top-down process, however. Managers can foster it through feedback, encouragement to reflect on their own successes and failures, and anecdotes about other employees.
Specifically, tactics frontline employees can employ to handle upset customers include:
• Acknowledging the problem;
• Empathize;
• Apologize;
• Own the problem;
• Fix the problem;
• Provide assurance; and
• Provide compensation.
Customers experiencing a problem want to change their negative affective state. When dealing with an upset customer it is incumbent on the frontline to help relieve this negative state. Time and time again, in research study after research study, Kinesis finds that the two service attributes that influence customers in a positive way when they encounter a problem are empathy and reliability. Customers want to interact with employees who understand their feelings and are able to resolve the problem.
Emotional Role in Sales & Acquisitions
Previously we discussed the concept of “moments of truth” where some experiences in the customer journey have far greater importance than others. These moments of truth represent increased risk and opportunity to leave a lasting emotional impression on the customer; a lasting impression with significant long-term implications for both customer loyalty and wallet share. The purchase and sales experience is one such moment of truth. One study published in McKinsey Quarterly has determined that the purchase experience of financial services motivated 85% bank customers to purchase more financial products or invest more assets with the institution. (Beaujean et al 06)
We also introduced the concept of defining emotions using two dimensions of mood: valence (positive or negative) and arousal. Again, as we previously observed, modern research into brain activity during the decision process suggests that decisions are made within the brain before we are consciously of them. Emotions provide a short cut to acting on decisions, and rational thought appears to justify decisions after they are made on the subconscious level.
So…given that emotions play a key role in financial decisions, what are the emotions bankers encounter as part of the sales experience?
The emotions financial service customers experience vary by customer, financial need, circumstance and product/service sought, however the emotions a prospective customer may experience include:
• Excited
• Convinced
• Enthusiastic
• Expectant
• Hopeful
• At Ease/Satisfied
• Distressed
• Anxious
These emotions map to the valance and arousal dimensions as follows:
So…what do we do with this enlightenment?
First, knowing that people are motivated to maintain positive emotional states and change/mitigate negative emotional states, it is important for the banker to recognize the prospective customer’s emotional motivation and offer solutions which will achieve either of these ends.
Kinesis has conducted research into purchase intent as the result of financial service sales presentation which may be instructive. Click here for this research.
Time and time again, in study after study, we consistently observe that purchase intent is driven by two dimensions of the customer experience: reliability and empathy. Customers want bankers who care about them and their needs and have the ability to satisfy those needs. Specifically, our research suggests the following behaviors are strongly related to purchase intent:
| Empathy
Interest in Helping Discuss Benefits & Solutions Personalized Comment Listen Attentively Express Appreciation |
Reliability
Promised Services Get Done Accuracy Friendly & Courteous Professionalism
|
Both empathy and reliability require employees with Emotional Intelligence. These are employees with a positive outlook and a, strong sense of self-empowerment; self regulation; awareness of feelings (both their own and customers); master of fear and anxiety and the ability to tap into selfless motives.
Sales presentations are moments of truth with the potential to leave a lasting impression on the customer with significant long-term implications for both customer loyalty and wallet share – with obvious financial benefits for the institution. We’ve found that branches with above average frequencies of behaviors associated with reliability and empathy experienced a 26% stronger three-year branch deposit growth rate than branches with low frequencies of these behaviors.
Next, we’ll take a look at moments of truth in the context of problem resolution.
Emotional Role in Decisions
In an earlier post we introduced the concept of defining emotions using two dimensions of mood, valence (the extent to which the emotional state is positive or negative) and arousal (the extent to which the energy mobilization of the emotional state is experienced). In this post we postulated that understanding customers’ innate desire to maintain positive and mitigate negative moods has far reaching implications for the customer experience.
Before we explore these implications for the customer experience let’s explore the role emotions play in customer decisions.
Humans evolved in a complex world and our ancestors lacked our ability for cognitive reasoning. They used emotion as a decision tool to motivate action. Fear motivated their fight or flight response. Happiness informed them of an absence of threat. Emotions are deeply rooted in our evolutionary history, from an evolutionary standpoint our cognitive ability is relatively new. As such, our brains are wired to experience emotions as a way of informing decisions.
Like our ancestors we live in a complex world; uncertainty is part of life. Emotions inform decisions and motivate action when there is not enough information or time available to consider the “right” choice. Emotions are responses to outside stimuli and serve as short cuts to action.
Recent experiments with fMRI machines, which measure blood flow and oxygenation levels in the brain, have determined we make decisions before we are even aware of the choice. Cognitive reasoning does not drive decisions, rather it leads us to conclusions. Emotions motivate us to action, reason, on the other hand, leads us to conclusions. Before we are even aware of a decision, we make an automatic, often unconscious, assessment of the situation. Emotion serves as a necessary short cut for acting on these unconscious decisions.
So what are the implications for managing the customer experience?
As a short cut for decisions, emotions are interpreted in the context within which they occur. Many brands only assess their performance, evaluating the execution of the customer experience, without assessing the emotional response the experience evoked. It is incumbent on managers of the customer experience to include a measurement of the customers’ emotional response to the experience.
When measuring the customers’ emotional response and motivations for their behavior it is important to understand that there is often a disconnect between what people say is important to them and what actually drove their behavior. As a result, customer experience researchers must explore motivations beyond just asking the customer what their motivations were.
Not all experiences along the customer journey are equal. In every journey there are specific “moments of truth” where customers form or change their opinion of the brand, either positively or negatively, based on the experience. Moments of truth can be quite varied and occur in a skilled sales presentation, when a shop owner stays open late help dad buy the perfect gift, or when a hold time is particularly long.
These moments of truth influence the emotional response to the brand long after the event. They form an emotional halo effect that influences the entire relationship with the brand. As a result, emotional responses to a brand do not occur in silos. Customers do not form judgments about discrete portions of the customer journey solely as a result of the specific experience, rather they judge each service encounter with a brand within the broader context of their entire experience with the brand – regardless of whether they are consciously aware of it or not.
Customer experience managers need to be aware of these subconscious influences, both when designing the customer experience and interpreting measurement of the experience itself. In a future post we will examine the implications of this emotional halo effect on customer experience measurement.
Additionally, In future posts we will explore the effect of these moments of truth on everything from customer acquisition, problem resolution, loyalty, wallet share, and customer experience measurement.
Mood Effects on the Customer Experience
Customers experience all aspects of their relationship with a brand through the lens of their emotional state. Be they happy, excited, depressed or angry all brands must be prepared to meet each customer in their specific emotional state. It’s a challenge – but also an opportunity. Ultimately, loyalty is emotionally driven. Brands that can react to and manage customer emotions stand to reap the rewards of customer loyalty.
To understand the role of the customer’s mood in managing the customer experience, it is instructive to consider how two affective states work together to define mood. The following model tracks mood across valence (the extent to which the emotional state is positive or negative) and arousal (the extent to which the energy mobilization of the emotional state is experienced on a scale of active to passive or aroused to calm).
Together, these affective states of valence and arousal can define all human emotions. States of positive valence and high arousal are excited or happy; negative valence and low arousal are bored or depressed. States of positive valence and low arousal are calm and relaxed, and negative valence and high arousal are angry or frustrated.
Here is a detailed map of a variety of emotions across these two dimensions.
Research has determined that, not surprisingly, people are motivated to maintain positive moods, and mitigate negative affective states. When feeling good we tend to make choices that maintain a positive mood. Customers in a positive mood are more loyal, and more likely to interpret information favoring a current brand. Meanwhile, people in negative affective states make choices that have the potential to change or, in particular, improve their moods. For example, researchers have demonstrated a preference for TV shows that held the greatest promise of providing relieve from negative affective states. People in a sad mood want to be comforted, anxious people want to feel control and safety.
Key to maintaining positive moods is arousal or more specifically the management of arousal. Let’s take a look at how arousal management influences consumer choice. Consumers in a positive mood prefer products congruent with their state of arousal. Excited or happy consumers want to stay excited or happy, while relaxed and calm consumers what to stay relaxed and calm. Consumers in a negative mood prefer products with the potential to change their level of arousal. For example, in an experiment, participants were offered the choice of an energy drink or iced tea. The following chart illustrates participant’s preference by the state of arousal and valence:
Participants in a positive mood, preferred the drink congruent with their level of arousal, those in a positive low-arousal state preferred iced tea, and those in a positive high-arousal state preferred an energy drink. On the other hand, those in a negative mood preferred a drink incongruent with their energy state, those in a negative low-arousal state preferred an energy drink, and those in a negative high-arousal state preferred iced tea.
Understanding the role of arousal management in customers’ innate desire to maintain positive moods and mitigate negative moods has far reaching implications for just about every element of the customer experience from sales, to problem resolution, to customer experience design, hiring, training and customer experience measurement. In future posts we will explore these implications for each of these elements of the customer experience.
Kinesis CEM 