Nothing ever becomes real till it is experienced.

—John Keats

There can be several strategies to win a customer’s heart, but the foremost would be to deliver a pleasurable experience. A customer who has had an enjoyable experience with a brand is likely to develop an emotional bond. Once that happens, customers display a cultish devotion towards it.

To identify strategies that can deliver a pleasurable Customer Experience

We’ll have to go back to the product economy’s birth at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

Back then, consumers bought ‘standardized’ items. The product economy viewed this as merely a transaction. No more, no less. In many cases, consumers had to further ‘invest’ in the product to make it consumption-ready. Take instant coffee, for instance. After purchasing the product, a customer had to add water, milk, and sugar and heat the concoction before enjoying it. After consuming it, she had to invest additional resources to dispose of or clean the waste generated: the dirty utensils and other leftovers.

The service economy stepped in to overcome the shortcomings of the product economy. It presented customers with ready-to-consume products. It gave greater convenience to the customer. Brands charged a premium for this convenience, and customers were more than happy to pay it. The service economy improved over the product economy and was widely adopted by brands to gain a competitive advantage; industries moved from selling their brand as a product to selling it as a service, to commanding a price premium.

However, despite its myriad advantages, even the service economy has its drawbacks.

Take the case of a kiosk selling coffee. It serves us coffee in return for money. Once we finish our coffee and move on, we forget about the service (coffee) that we just consumed. It is because the kiosk only provided coffee as a service and nothing more. There is hardly any attempt on the kiosk owner to establish a relationship with the customer.

This is where the experience economy stepped in. It seeks to deliver a service as an experience so remarkable that it evokes positive emotions that linger over an extended period, long after the brand has been consumed. This results in the forming of a relationship between the experience provider and the customer. Over time, as the relationship deepens, it starts maturing into an emotional bond and is finally reflected as loyalty.

Delivering a Pleasurable Customer Experience

How do brands deliver a pleasurable customer experience? Human beings experience pleasure through the five -senses:

sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. When the five senses are engaged in unison, they heighten the experience and evoke positive emotions stored in the brain as memory.

Let’s stay with coffee. Starbucks is arguably regarded as a purveyor of fair quality coffee. It achieved this status not by marketing coffee as a product (it would have been deemed an expensive coffee), not by selling coffee as a service (it would still be perceived as expensive), but by marketing it as an experience. It stimulated all five senses of its customers to deliver a pleasurable experience.

Here is how Starbucks does it:

• Smell: Upon entering a Starbucks outlet, the coffee aroma hits the customer, reinforcing its image as a purveyor of one of the world’s finest coffees.

Sight: The barista welcomes customers with a smile, making her likable, confident, knowledgeable, and approachable. Would you not like to be guided by her in navigating the menu?

Sound: A barista is trained to greet a regular customer by name. This simple behavior makes the customer feel welcome. A barista is also trained to remember the previous order of a regular customer. This simple act makes the customer feel important.

Taste: Starbucks strives to customize every order. Therefore, the barista takes all inputs at the time of the order to ensure it is handcrafted to the customer’s liking.

Touch: The feel of the coffee cup, the tray, the upholstery of the seats, and the cutlery are all aimed at heightening the experience of contact.

The Business Impact of Customer Experience

According to a study, emotionally-engaged customers are more valuable because they:

#Buy more

#Visit more often

#Care less about price

#Pay attention to your communication

#Follow your advice

#Recommend you to others

 A word of caution:

While customers who experience a great customer experience exhibit this desirable behavior, the converse is also true. If they are at the receiving end of bad experiences, they will lose no time in taking their business away from you! 

It’s important to create opportunities for staff to get to know each other at work and outside of work. Socializing extends the opportunities of feeling better. Almost all large corporations today have built in-house networks. These platforms link employees working in different locations. Small and medium-sized businesses can take advantage of readily available tools to facilitate social networking for employees create a more employee-friendly and happy atmosphere. Companies even have custom social networks, to connect their staff in the U.S., for example, with employees in Europe and Asia. This not only helps form better business relationships, but it also makes possible the sharing of best practices across cultures. If this sounds interesting, contact HyperEffects, for a free consultation on the concept, now.