In the book we walk you through 9 principles of the customer’s psychological relationship:
The prejudices they hold about you

• The expectations they have about you
• The associations they have built about you
• How successful they feel you are at understanding their well-being
• How well you understand their memory of an experience
• How well you understand how memories are socialised
• How well you understand how heuristics work
• How well you understand ‘Subconscious value’
• How well you understand mood effects

Of all the questions neuroexperience can help businesses answer, perhaps none is more crucial that providing clarity about how customers go about making decisions. Decisions such as:

• How do customer process marketing information
• Why do customers choose certain brands over others
• What are the earliest signs that customers expectations are not being met
• How do customers perceive the customer experience the business provides
• How do customers assess risk and reward

The other foundation, of course, is neuroscience. What then is the neuroexperience of decision making as we do it in reality. Antonio Damasio developed a view based on neuroscientific evidence that explains “emotional decision making”. Damasio’s theory is called the Somatic Marker Hypothesis which is summarized in his book Descarte’s Error. You may recall Descarte’s famous decree

“I think, therefore I am”.

Well, Damasio would likely say…

“I feel, therefore I exist”.

Findings show that prediction of behaviour is a realistic use of neuroexperience. While it’s still are early days for this as a practical tool for businesses. It is exciting to think of the experiments which will be coming which seek to expand our prediction ability. In time, researchers will begin to look at the temporal relationship between neural precursors and purchase decisions...

The only defense is to learn to swim, to move with the tide, and use it to your advantage.
Our research demonstrates the evolutionary path of social media engagement. What stage of maturity is your organization?

Social media is not just about use with Customers. A new breed of managers is using it as a very powerful tool to communicate internally. Darren Cornish is another client who we first worked with when he was Director, (VP) of Customer Experience at one of the largest Insurance companies in the UK. You’ll want to read Darren’s story of how he used social media internally to help effect change.

Another example comes from Steve Stickel SVP, Distribution and Relationship Marketing for IHG. IHG is a hotel group which owns the brands Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, Crown Plaza, Staybridge, Candelwood and Hotel Indigo. Steve’s view is:
“Part of the trick is using the community to help you do your job. There are many people out there who want to be your brand advocates. They want to shout the message about your brand from the roof tops! The trick is to create a win/win that enables you to harness this so the customer gets something out of it, we get my message spread far and wide by someone who is more acceptable than a big corporate organisation.
I think, like everyone, we have one foot in the water on this one and the other one out, we’re still sorting things out gradually.”