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All Customers Are Irrational Understanding What They Think, What They Feel, and What Keeps Them Coming Back Contents Introduction 1 PART I A NEW WORLD:THE ECONOMICS AND MECHANICS OF IRRATIONAL CUSTOMERS Chapter I: The Bottom Line:Why Customer Experience Really Matters It's Comcastic! How Times Have Changed Are Companies Getting the Hint? A New Dynamic: Customers Bite Back The Stunning Economics of Customer Retention "ThankYou, Sir. May I Have Another?" Can You Hear Me Now? Ammunition for an Increased Focus on Customer Experience ... in a Marketing World "Real Growth":Tougher Than You Think The Beauty of Compound Interest in Customer Retention Customer Profit: Marginally Speaking Chapter 2: Your Irrational Customers: A Look at How Our Brains Work (and Don't Work) Irrational, But Not Crazy We Don't Think the Way We Think We Think This Is Your Brain, by Homer Irrational About More Than Donuts The Best Way to Make a Decision: Sleep on It The Power of Our Subconscious: Irrational-to-Emotional-to-Intelligent It's Evolutionary Let Me Introduce You to Your Quirky, Unpredictable, Irrational Customers Customers Act Before They Consciously Make a Choice Customers Lie to Themselves Customers Can't Predict How They're Going to Act in the Future 7 9 10 12 13 14 15 17 18 21 23 26 29 30 31 32 34 35 36 38 39 39 40 40 Customer Behavior Can Be Influenced by Almost Anything Customers Think in Metaphors Customers Apply Human Characteristics to Inanimate Objects Customers Want Products with Every Feature, But Then Don't Use Most of Them Customers Tell Themselves Stories Are You Up to the Challenge? 41 41 42 42 43 43 PART II A FRESH APPROACH: STRATEGIES AND TACTICS FOR KEEPING YOUR IRRATIONAL CUSTOMERS Chapter 3: Brand Promises:Who or What AreYou, Metaphorically Speaking? Picture This: Using Metaphors What's Your Brand Promise? Starting at Square One So . . . What Are You? The Man in the Suit, or the Guy Next Door? Be Careful WhatYou Promise--Expectations Are Everything Expectations Determine Customer Satisfaction Finding "the Nugget" DraftingYour Brand Promise So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 4: Customer Research: Just What Are Your Customers Thinking? Trending Toward Uncertainty Three Reasons It's Dangerous to Rely on Surveys to Measure Satisfaction Dissatisfied Customers Don't Speak Up Customers Won't Tell You the Truth Even if Customers Want to Tell You the Truth,They Can't, Because They're Irrational Predicting the Future, with Your Eyes Closed Behavior Is Truth Look at the Numbers;They Don't Lie Watch and Listen To Really Understand,Walk in Your Customer's Shoes Don't Ask "How Do You Feel?" Ask "What Did You Do?" "Standardized" Doesn't Necessarily Mean Effective So ... What Do I Do Now? 45 47 48 52 55 56 57 58 59 62 63 64 67 69 70 71 74 75 78 79 79 80 82 83 84 85 Chapter 5: Prime Time: How Framing and Context Shape a Customer's Experience Priming:A Simple Nudge Will Do The Intended and Unintended Influences of Priming The Business Implications of Priming The Environmental Effects of Priming on Customers Priming and Framing The Impact of Context in Customer Decision Making and How to Use It in Your Business It All Matters So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 6: Irrational Ain't Stupid:The Emotional Component of High-End Purchases The Power of the Hunch Customers Do Their Due Diligence,Then Go with Their Gut How Intuition Can Trump Logic Thinking It to Death "He Seems Like a Perfect Fit ... but No Thanks" No Matter the Product, Sell the Emotion Analysis Paralysis:Why More Information Doesn't Necessarily Help Your Customers Make a Decision Buyers Lie So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 7: AWeb of Issues: Online Users Know What They Like, but They Can't Tell You The Web Channel:"Virtually" Priceless "I Owe It All to My Computer" Feel the Love: Build Emotion and Connection Through Your Website Doing, Not Just Reading "Oh, Behave!" Hammers, Saws, JavaScript, and Applets: Building Your Site Determine the Brand and Company Goals Create the Architecture Before Designing a Site Test,Test,Then Test When You're Done,You're Not Done: Incremental Improvement Based on Behavior So ... What Do I Do Now? 87 88 89 91 93 94 96 98 99 101 102 103 104 105 106 108 109 112 115 1I7 118 118 120 123 124 126 127 128 129 132 133 Chapter 8: Phoning It In:Transform Your Phone Interactions into Powerful Moments of Truth We've All Got Needs: Maslow and Call Centers Create an Emotionally Memorable Interaction An Ear and a Shoulder ... ...Versus a Chore Expense or Asset? Designing an Irrationally Positive Call Center Experience Don't Push Efficiency at the Expense of Emotion Efficiency ... ... Versus Emotion "Is There Anybody Out There?" Why Automated Systems Are Not Helping Online Chat: The New "Call Center" Spinning a Yarn: Reinforce Your Customer's "Life Story" The Most Important Employee:The Receptionist? Listen, Listen, Listen So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 9: Form or Function:The Power of Emotional Design Design with a Drinking Problem Just What Is "Design"? Design That Touches the Human in All of Us The Power of Anthropomorphic Design The Human Bias of the Irrational Subconscious Irrational Design Is More Effective Design Patterns and Your Irrational Subconscious Testing Your Designs: It's Still About Behavior They Want It All ... Until They Don't So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 10: Irrational Employees: Hire for Emotion; Train for Skills Finding the Right People Hiring for Emotion Weigh Employees on an Emotional Intelligence Scale It's Not "How Do They Think?" It's "How Do They Act?" Past Behavior Equals Future Behavior The Interview: Focus on Behavior Test for Behavior The Final Test: Ask Them to Quit! 135 136 139 139 140 142 143 144 145 146 147 150 152 152 153 157 157 159 160 160 161 162 164 165 167 169 173 174 175 177 177 178 179 180 182 Employee Engagement An Employment"Containment" Strategy Emotional Engagement as a Business Strategy Walk in the Employee's Shoes The Other Benefit of UnderstandingYour Frontline Employees: A Better Customer Experience So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 11: Process This: Tying It All Together Why Process Is Important The Unintended Impact of Inadvertent Processes The Danger of Too Little Process ... ... Or Too Much Good Intentions Do Not Equal Good Process The Danger of Groupthink: Process for Process's Sake Developing a Customer Experience Process Map Using Technology and Process for a More Human Customer Experience The Process to Keep Every New Customer: Onboarding The Key to Irrational Customer Processes: Empowerment So ... What Do I Do Now? Chapter 12: Getting Started: Three Action Steps You Need to Take First Step One: Create a Customer Experience Scorecard: Understand Your Numbers Step Two: Conduct a Customer Experience Audit: Discover the Customer's Perspective Step Three: Start Small: The Secret Is Incremental Improvement 183 184 185 186 187 188 191 192 193 194 195 195 197 199 201 203 204 205 207 208 211 214 Notes 219 Index 223 About the Author 229