Big Idea 2016: The Year of Examining the Emotions Behind Every Decision

In this series, professionals predict the ideas and trends that will shape 2016. Read the posts here, then write your own (use #BigIdeas2016 in your piece).

In 2016, you must embrace new ways of thinking. For example, after some initial success, many Customer Experience (CX) programs have plateaued. The easy improvements to CX were made, and the gains were fast and furious. But now, those scores, like Net Promoter Score, are holding steady — and that’s if you are lucky!

Many organizations are hitting their head on a glass ceiling with their CX improvement implementation. They can see where they want to go but don’t know how to get there.  

So, what is happening and how do you move your CX to the next level?

The answer is quite simple: you have to abandon yesterday’s thinking to solve today’s problems. These organizations have hit a plateau because they have only addressed the side of CX that appeals to the rational thinking of their Customers. e.g., price, place, promotion, and product.The glass ceiling represents a barrier they have built for themselves because they haven’t addressed the emotions of their Customers.

To smash through this barrier they need to change their thinking. It is no longer enough to consider Customer emotions in your CX but instead to consider what causes Customer emotions. Or in other words, how and why people feel emotions.

My regular readers know that research shows that “over 50% of the CX for Customers is emotional.” That is all well and good, but today, we need to understand why a Customer is feeling these emotions, which specific emotions are they feeling, and what you have done to evoke this emotion. Most importantly, we need a deep understanding of psychology to understand the reasons why people act the way they do.

We must understand Customer behavior at a deep level. Understanding what causes Customer’s emotions is an important part of breaking the glass ceiling for CX performance and getting the results you want.

Let me tell you, we humans are not logical. We like to think we are, but we are not. We are irrational in much of our decision-making. We tell people we want to do one thing, and then do another.

These causes are subconscious and psychological, and they are best explained by learning more about Behavioral Economics. These are two important words.

Behavioral: How Customers act.

Economics: The $ driven or destroyed for an organization because of how the Customer acts.

Customer behavior is what drives economics today. Behavioral Economics studies how our thinking affects our economic decisions. It explores how the social norms, the psychological influences of our evolution, and the related cognitive patterns we use factor in to help us make decisions. And lest you think they are yesterday’s news, emotions are the underlying motivation for all of it.

For example, a Customer behaves in a way that tells you they are loyal to you, so you assume they are a loyal Customer. But then your loyal Customer switches to your competitor! Old thinking isn’t going to help understand what’s going on here.

New thinking understands this type of behavior. It explores the psychology of human decision-making. And here is where the true insights into Customer behavior exist. 

I partnered with a brilliant professor, Ryan Hamilton from Emory University to write "The Intuitive Customer" (Palgrave Macmillan, May 2016). The book explores where CX meets Behavioral Economics. We explain some of the tenets of the science, relate them directly to Customer Behavior, and show how you can use these behaviors to design a CX that gets you the best ROI.

Understanding these concepts is critical to moving to the next level of what is possible with CX. Because once you understand why your Customers do what they do right now, you have much better chance of designing a CX that gets them to do what you want in the future. Best of all, understanding these concepts makes it much easier to show an impressive ROI to the C-Suite — a group known for its focus on such things as ROI!

Many organizations aren’t getting the results they used to or hoped for with their present CX efforts. They are trapped under a glass ceiling, with nowhere to go until they smash through it. Behavioral Economics is the symbolic hammer they need to smash through this metaphorical barrier. By understanding what drives the behavior of their Customers, they will get the ROI they want, and the C-Suite insists they need.

So the question is, are you still trying to solve today’s problem with yesterday’s thinking? Or are you ready to move your CX to the next level?

If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:

• Are You Making Excuses for a Bad Experience?

• Are You Being Disruptive?

• When it comes to Customer Experience, You Have to Keep Rolling the DICE

Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world's leading Customer experience consultancy & training organizations. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter & Periscope @ColinShaw_CX