The Value of Emotional Attachment in the Customer Experience

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Top Takeaways:

• Customer loyalty is based on the customer’s emotional connection with the company.
• When you look at typical journey maps, they follow the Customer Infinity Loop. They start with branding, advertising, learning about the organization, getting on board the buying experience, payment, and all the other interactions the customer has with the organization. Nowhere is there a focus on customer relationships.
• How much value do relationships have in business? Think about the people you have relationships with in your personal life (your spouse, your kids, your relatives, your close friends). Then, think about what makes those relationships – it’s that emotional bond.
• How do you get an emotional connection with an eCommerce company or a typical business where you have very little, if any, connection?
  • Showing that you know customers or personalize things based on the data that you have on them.
  • For example, “Joy” is the core of the BMW branding. They communicate the joy of design, life, progress, and more in their marketing and communications.
  • Shared values. Patagonia is all about sustainability in the world, and our customer experience research has shown that consumers are drawn to companies with a cause they’re interested in.
• Zhecho also shared their findings on the value relationships have in driving business. Tune in!

Quotes:

“Emotional connection creates preference over the competition.”

“Emotions are important because they are linked to our memories. When we decide whether or not to buy from a company, we make that decision based on the memories of our experience.”

“When deciding whether to continue doing business with a company, you don’t base your decision on that moment. You base your decision on your memory with that organization throughout all the time you’ve done business with them.”

About:

Zhecho Dobrev is a  customer experience and behavior science consultant & trainer at Beyond Philosophy and the author of The Big Miss: How Organizations Overlook the Value of Emotions. For more than 13 years, he has been helping many of the world’s most renowned organizations improve their customer experience, including American Express, FedEx, and Caterpillar.

Shep Hyken is a customer service and experience expert, New York Times bestselling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and your host of Amazing Business Radio.

This episode of Amazing Business Radio with Shep Hyken answers the following questions and more:

1. What is an emotional attachment in business?
2. What is the importance of emotions in influencing customer loyalty?
3. Is customer loyalty rational or emotional?
4. How do you calculate the value of relationships in business?
5. How do businesses build emotional connections?