Every business aims to please its customers. The reality is that few businesses do so, on a consistent, sustained basis, up to the point where they are known as customer-centric brands that can boast of being highly favoured by their customers. The problem is that starting the journey to customer-centricity is easy, it’s staying the course that’s hard. Pairing science and cognitive empathy effectively, can keep a business in the game.
When the science associated with customer experience design, is paired with cognitive empathy, this duo packs the power to promote goodwill, support sales strategies and generate repeat business.
Science within the context of customer experience, involves data analytics, customer database mining and building customer intelligence through research and enquiry methods. Included here, would be the various methodologies used to convert intelligence into iron-clad customer relationships.
Cognitive empathy within the context of customer experience, is the ability to understand the customer’s motivations, interests and feelings.
Cognitive empathy within the context of customer experience, is the ability to understand the customer’s motivations, interests and feelings. Typically, this area of expertise should form part of the skillset associated with building strong customer relationships.
As a service transformation consultant, I can’t help but apply an analytical eye to the experiences that I have whenever I visit a business. I notice if I am greeted on entry, if the attendants demonstrate an eager to serve personality, if there is use of science within the customer encounter and, in the case of online transactions, I focus on the ease with which the transaction journey is designed and how the business utilizes information regarding my unique needs, to promote compatible products and services.
Recently, I needed to visit a popular home furnishing store several times, in order to complete a home décor project. Each time I visited, the attendants hardly cracked a smile, were perfunctory in their movements and just went through the steps of completing the transaction. The experience met the minimum value exchange criteria. Nothing more, nothing less.
Here’s why science matters when it comes to keeping customers happy. Because an experience that is stellar, emerges from an intentional process called the customer experience design process.
So, here’s where this store missed the boat with me. An attendant needed to greet me as I entered the store and to ask whether or not I was listed on their customer database. I would have answered yes, creating the opportunity for the attendant to begin addressing me by name and to become a consultant to my shopping journey, by capitalizing on the intelligence housed on the system, regarding my shopping history and preferred style of furnishings.
This was a really rudimentary failure to pair science with cognitive empathy to promote the sale, to personalize my experience and to establish an emotional bond with me, the customer.
Here’s why science matters when it comes to keeping customers happy. Because an experience that is stellar, emerges from an intentional process called the customer experience design process. A great experience that is sustainable, does not happen by magic, but by intentional orchestration. Science produces the intelligence to drive this orchestration.
Science produces the intelligence to drive this orchestration.
It is not simply an act of letting the service chips fall where they may. It is deciding where the chips will fall and creating a mosaic of moving parts that connect and coalesce, seamlessly.
When science is integrated into the customer experience design process, it produces customer advocacy, referral business, repeat business, positive media mentions, high net promoter and customer satisfaction scores, high customer effort scores and a highly engaged voice of the customer channel. Just to highlight a few of the beneficial outcomes.
Cognitive empathy, when deployed effectively, moves the transaction from one that is a sterile buy and sell space, to one where the customer feels heard, valued and appreciated for his or her business.
In all of my early conversations with clients, I make it a point to drive home the importance of establishing a resident level of reliance upon science. This helps to blunt impulse decision-making and prevent those decisions that are feelings-driven, from becoming the norm, within the customer experience arena.
Cognitive empathy, when deployed effectively, moves the transaction from one that is a sterile buy and sell space, to one where the customer feels heard, valued and appreciated for his or her business.
Without the backing of science, the achievement of customer experience effectiveness boils down to a hit and miss exercise. Additionally, without the support of cognitive empathy, customer relationships fail to achieve the magical heights that ensure customer happiness.
When we marvel at those businesses that have found their customer experience nirvana, we should be equally curious about the framework that supports such a desirable state and be willing to onboard the formula that works.
After all, it’s about creating a magical experience that’s a win for both the business and the customer.