My thanks to everyone who attended my session at ‘South By South West’. Great to see so many people there and standing room only! My speech was “Customer Are Irrational: Stop fighting it”

Why do people knock wood for luck? Why do people press elevator buttons 20 times, even though they know it won’t make the elevator come any faster? People are irrational. Why do people love inanimate objects like smartphones? Why do people cry when they see an artist’s work? People are irrational. Who are your customers? Irrational people. So why do organizations design rational experiences? Emotions comprise more than half the typical customer experience. With the immediacy of information and social media, you must embrace that irrationality and use it to your advantage by building a deliberate experience. Effectively managing and engaging subconsciously with these irrational customers is essential. Most organizations treat Customers as transactions. It is key to embrace irrationality and build an emotionally engaging experience.

What emotions are you trying to evoke in your Customers? Building on this it is also critical you select emotions that drive value. ie: Customer Loyalty; Customer retention; Net Promoter® etc. During the presentation I showed examples of how Clients have used our Emotional Signature research methodology [link] to define the emotions and the actions you should take.

This is not theory, this works. Check this recent independent case study of one of our clients Maersk Line, the largest container shipping company in the world have just increased their Net Promoter Score® from -10 to + 30.

Anyway I can’t write the whole hours presentation in this blog. You can check it out here

If you would like to talk further please contact us

Customer Are Irrational: Stop fighting it.

Colin Shaw is founder & CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world’s first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of four best-selling books. Beyond Philosophy provide consulting, specialised research & training from offices in Atlanta, Georgia and London, England.

Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter: 
@ColinShaw_CX