Why Is Customer Experience All About Feelings?

Sandie Simms of West UC talks through the importance of making customers feel good after interacting with your organisation.

“Feel the feels”, “all about the feels”. Whether you love it or hate it, unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last ten years, you will probably have seen this phrase online or on social media.

I think it highlights an important point about the digital world; however much technology may have replaced traditional forms of communication, our feelings are as important as they ever were.

As Maya Angelou famously said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” And actually, isn’t this as true of customer experience as it is our relationships with friends, family and colleagues?

Leading CX consulting firm The Temkin Group, would certainly agree. The 2018 Temkin Experience Rankings raised alarm bells for the industry.

The research highlighted just how bad the industry is at meeting their customers’ emotional needs. Only 7 percent of 10,000 consumers who took part in the research said they felt good about their interactions.

Why Does Emotion Matter?

It may sound counter-intuitive, but emotion is critical to a brand’s bottom line. Emotion, how customers actually feel about their interactions, is the most significant driver of loyalty.

Emotion trumps success (to what extent you were able to accomplish what you wanted to do) and effort (how easy it was to interact with that company).

So what makes your customers feel good about dealing with you?

The first bar, the foundation of good customer experience is making it enjoyable (not just easy) for them to complete their journey with you. Whether that’s providing efficient self-service options for routine tasks, or empowering an agent to deal with complex enquiries, or bridging the gulf between the digital and physical worlds.

And most CX professionals know how hard it is to meet this fundamental requirement. The modern world is complex and customers are used to communicating seamlessly across multiple channels. So it’s no surprise that they expect a joined-up journey when they deal with customers.