EMOTIVE TECHNOLOGY TO ENHANCE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE | LEFT BRAIN RIGHT BRAIN DILEMMA?

A 2-decade career span across Consumer Insights and CX Consulting taught me, that we always need emotions to push us into making a decision, from searching for information, brand awareness, brand consideration, the complex purchase process & the ongoing relationship with the brand. In today’s connected world, companies have tons of data and inputs on their laptop screens they aren’t used to, in the recent past. This ready to use information & “insights” provides a stimulus to figure out what their customers feel and how will they behave. Neuroscience data, facial recognition, heat maps, gaze points, movement data, social media behaviour, etc. can only augment to this. The leap from pushing customers’ biases in their behaviour, to influencing them on the basis of their emotions is increasingly gaining traction, in the pursuit to be a customer centric organization. ? So what is expected from CX “experts” today? Customer experience management is about making sure customer outcomes match their expectations (rather exceed them), which are influenced by the way a brand conducts business, interacts at various touchpoints, delivers on its promise and “appears” to its target audience. An organization is truly customer centric the day brand promise is equal to customer experience delivered. Of the three CX components, considerable progress has been made on the 1. outcomes and 2. reducing customer effort to get there.?The neglected area is emotive. How customers feel is being studies recently with great detailing. Emotive technology is surely the way ahead to enhance customer experience (CX)… ? Then what is Emotive Technology? Emotive technology?is the new stage in our eternal search for artificial intelligence, by measuring biometric data in order to define emotions and then using these data points as input for various digital applications. This shows a strong resemblance with the Internet of Things (IOT). Many articles on the internet talk about how a great deal of this emotional influence takes place at a subconscious level. Emotive CX begins by knowing what you want the customer to feel at the end of the journey. Research is initiated to understand common emotions associated with a particular CX journey. Speech and analytics tools are put to job to identify the common emotional language used during a sales, service or recovery journey. Companies can benefit from insights, how their customers felt after a particular interaction. The key question today is "How do we rise above customer satisfaction to a more valuable emotional connection space?" ? Consumers are more digitally connected today than ever before, with brands wooing for your eye balls for? the always on, chat now, I am Alia here to help you and click here, we've departed from the impactful, emotionally connected experience brands would have with a “real” person. The emotions that we feel are almost uniquely a consequence of both left- and right-brain cognition. Things have to make logical sense, but nonverbal communication and an observance of feelings and empathy are essential to meaningful emotional connection.

Emotions do matters in our daily lives too… ? When an employee quits an organization, a better salary is often re-negotiated. Dig a little deeper and see how they were treated often explains why they really left, in the first place. ? Similarly for businesses too, it’s not just about focusing on CX,?but rather on the Emotive CX strategy. Emotive CX is rooted in consumer psychology and?helps us create a much more loyal customer base. Looking further into the role of emotion, we learn that every interaction impacts our relationship with consumers, over time. Negative emotive outcomes make us feel less likely to re-engage with a brand. Positive ones bind us stronger. Therefore, every time we reach out a brand for a query/ request/ complaint, the service organisation is either deducting or adding to their long term value. ? There comes a point when the cumulative impact of negative experiences reaches the roof. Research on declining loyalty levels and why customers walk away (churn) show that customers expect more and forgive less. Sometimes customers will quit even a well-loved brand, after just one poor service experience. Avoidable attrition must be a priority, since our brains form memories from the highlights of an event. Kahneman calls this system 1 processing (the fast version – running on heuristics and habit). ? This psychology is used in emotive CX for customer interaction.?How can we influence what is remembered??Emotive outcomes matter as much as functional ones. Both need to be successfully delivered. Using a unified management process to measure, act and improve how each interaction ends. The mission is to deliver an appropriately positive outcome every time, over time. Emotional connection, is a?more valuable way?to measure how your customers feel about your brand and is the most important customer experience factor for improving acquisition, retention and a customer lifetime value. ?

The article is an afterthought having read many whitepapers on the power of emotional intelligence to enhance customer experience.

?#emotional intelligence