What Should We Do When Data Says People’s Feelings Don’t Matter?

I promise, the following is NOT a made-up conversation I had with an imaginary client :)

It was a real conversation— one in which I ended up being more matter-of-fact than usual.

I had presented my client with research findings showing that their customers were feeling disrespected, due to being on the receiving end of some unexpected price changes. Their feeling of being “burned” wasn’t just driven by annoyance over paying higher prices— it was driven by the indelicate and uncaring manner in which the company handled these increases (via an email containing impersonal and distant language).?

The client listened intently to the angst of the consumers in strongly-worded quotes from the qualitative study— but when they spoke, it was to offer a counterpoint, based on analytics.?

They understood that while this might be irritating to customers in the moment, according to their internal data, these feelings seemed temporary— in reaction to the increase, people tended to: 1. Let the subscription renew anyway, or 2. Cancel, but with most eventually returning to the client’s company after migrating temporarily to a competitor.?

Which left the client positing out loud: what reason would they have to spend the time, effort, and money to try to soften the blow of the price increase with a more personal touch or improved communication, knowing that while negative feelings were strong— the behavior of the customers showed the bottom line did not suffer meaningfully?

My response was a bit swifter (and in retrospect, a bit blunter) than I intended: “Because that’s not how you treat people.”?

I cringed on the phone line, as I realized that perhaps this phrase sounded like a parental admonishment, that would shame a listening child into behaving more conscientiously.?

Not exactly the vibe I was hoping to create on this call, to say the least.?

But I also didn’t retract my statement. I had said it gently, and I had meant it that way as well. Luckily, the client was not offended, and appreciated the pivot.?

This conversation got me thinking about the times that consumer sentiment can run counter to what is showed in behavioral data, and how that seeming discrepancy can lead to some of the toughest conversations a qualitative researcher can have.?

Marketing Paradox Mondays #18— While it’s assumed that data on consumer behavior is the most important to act on, people’s feelings are just as important to consider?

The above anecdote illustrates that there are decidedly times that people’s actions and their feelings don’t perfectly line up. And while behavior is critical to observe and understand, ignoring customer feelings does not set a company up for longer-term success in sentiment and preference— a hard-to-measure but very real factor that people consider in their dealings with companies.?

Reducing people solely to their actions ignores the complex and layered feelings they possess about products and services they use. Ask any consumer about Amazon— and they will wax poetic about its convenience, but also tense their jaw as they talk about wasted packaging, or impacts of the trucks on the environment. Ask others about Facebook, and polar feelings will show— people love the connection to others, but don’t love the way the platform rewards dissent.

But wait, you might rejoinder-- companies have long cared about “pain points”-- and might argue that generally covers consumer feelings, too; though I’d counter that functional frictions tend to dominate the kinds of pain points that companies are inclined to act on. I’ve seen companies scramble to eliminate issues on the path to purchase quickly, but struggle to act when consumer “pain” is felt emotionally— ESPECIALLY when their bottom-line is NOT immediately impacted, as the example above.?

I call this “emotional friction” when I talk to clients about it— not an eloquent or trademark-able phrase, but one that places consumer feelings on the same plane of importance as functional barriers.?

The term ‘pain points’ cannot simply apply to chokes in the chain of purchase, to barriers or frictions that consumers experience when transacting with a company— if we are to take the term seriously, it has to also include the negative feelings people experience when they are interacting with any part of a product or service.

As much as companies like to assume they are providing a customer experience that is smooth and engenders positive feelings from stem to stern, that’s not very realistic— as the desire of the company is to wiggle the consumer into further purchases or time spent, and the perspective of the customer is rarely to desire either of those outcomes.

All too often, the needs of the business are given precedence over consumer feelings— like when customers are given an “introductory offer” that consumers feel was set up like a bait-and-switch, or a fine-print cancellation policy in which a well-meaning customer is refused the ability to cancel without jumping through a huge amount of hoops. We can all think of numerous examples we’ve seen in businesses, where customers’ negative feelings are less of a priority than getting or keeping their cash— and as strategists and researchers, we KNOW the collateral damage is declining positive sentiment toward brands and businesses. ?

A very current example of a focus on behavioral metrics and sentiment being at-odds might be the social network X, previously known as Twitter. Taylor Lorenz's brilliant October 2023 article in the Atlantic, titled "How a Social Network Fails," reminds us that the two head execs of the company are constantly touting user metrics to the press. But "The focus on the user metrics at all, though, belies a bigger problem. A social platform needs to provide a positive user experience. People have to like it.... You can't hold users hostage and force them to endure a subpar experience, to consume content they don't want, then expect them to return."

While there's often a short-term gain to be had from taking away features and benefits that the user enjoys, or charging extra for what used to be free, or doubling a price once someone is locked into a service (or otherwise 'enshittifying,' if you are a Cory Doctorow fan)-- the longer-term health of the business is almost always damaged in-process.

People might stay with the business through some changes hostile to their wants and needs, meaning the behavioral data will be intact, and could even look good-- but as negative feelings accumulate, so does their desire to look for an alternative-- or where there isn't one, to withdraw their use, or even their endorsement, their enthusiasm, or their praise-- and surely, we have not forgotten that word of mouth is, and has always been-- the biggest influence on eventual consumer behavior.

While I realize that “Because that’s not how you treat people” is not a silver bullet in the situations in which businesses are on the brink of prioritizing their needs over their consumer's— it’s a phrase I have come back to again and again since I first uttered it, finding it a useful way to re-assert the importance we place on respecting others in real life-- even though it's easily discarded in conference rooms.

It’s a phrase and a pivot point that you are welcome to use if you find yourself in a potential conversational precursor to an "enshittification" moment.

Please let me know if you have any effective words, phrases, or arguments that you have used to advocate in favor of having your business give credence and prioritization to consumer feelings— I’d love to hear them.?