Emotion was one of the main themes at the recent Forrester CX NYC event. I like to consider myself a practical, pragmatic person, so it was eye-opening to see that maybe none of us is, or at least not totally.

Forrester presented convincing research about how emotions factor into in our decisions. Apparently, emotion plays a much bigger role than we think. They showed how emotion affects the customer experience (CX) and that companies that provided the best CX also earned more revenue.

Fortunately, it is something we can use to our advantage to drive loyalty:

Design a product that people love

It should satisfy a need, and speak to people on an emotional level. For example, does it make them feel secure / intelligent / generous? (Insert the adjective that fits your product and the persona of your target audience. For example, if your product is banking, your customers may want to feel secure; if you produce a luxury item, your customers may want to feel important, intelligent and innovative. If your company helps local business people, your persona wants to feel connected and helpful.)

The customer experience is comprised of more than just the product itself; it encompasses all the interactions with your company – what your product does, the user interface, how it works, how it looks, how it makes the user feel, and so on.

Customer service is just one aspect of the customer experience – albeit a very important one, since something must have broken down somewhere in the customer experience if a person is asking for support. At that point the customer is not entirely happy with your company or product, so a great customer service experience is vital. It can determine whether the needle of that customer’s perception moves further toward negative or switches direction back to positive.

At RightAnswers we are constantly thinking about the customer experience – both by providing a product that our customers will love and by enabling customers to find the right answers faster and provide frictionless customer experiences. That’s also why we provide knowledge services and teach our customers knowledge best-practices, so they can take a wide view of the customer service experience and treat customers holistically.