Emotion in the customer experience, a major trend at the Stratégies Clients trade show

Listen to the emotion of the customer experience

Last year, we were already talking about training bots and other artificial intelligences to understand and analyze customer emotions. Particularly useful for a call center or customer service department, this technology can be used to prioritize the handling of very dissatisfied customers and preserve customer relations.

The downside here is that technological progress has yet to reach the promise of a bot that understands human emotions as well as it does.

And although this topic is very much on trend, beyond the application described above, what application can we imagine in other customer listening contexts?

What we can identify well, however, are the weak signals. The words and expressions used by customers, which allow us to understand in advance the beginnings of discontent or a worrying subject that we must not ignore. The weak signal is the company's ability to hear the murmurings of the crowd of customers, the proof that it is paying very close attention.

Emotional customer experiences to build loyalty

Emotion again, but in the positive sense of the word. Here, the aim is to provide customers with an exceptional experience that will leave a lasting impression. As we all know, to enchant the customer experience, you need to provide a remarkable "plus", and the best way to anchor this experience is to directly touch your customer's emotions.

This leaves no room for improvisation: it's a fully-fledged strategy that needs to be prepared and then deployed across all the elements that make up your customer relationship in order to create a genuine emotional connection with your customer.

This is how customer loyalty is created: by creating a strong and unique emotional bond with the brand.

Surprise them with special attention when they arrive at the store. Only propose offers or products that are likely to appeal to them. React when a new piece of information in the CRM can lead to a change in consumption within the brand, and make careful use of the information in your possession to always offer the most subtle and intelligent experience possible. It ' s your CRM that needs to be extremely well organized, and all the company's departments organized around it to extract the slightest bit of relevant information.

Adding a touch of soul, sharing the same values as the company

One of the solutions for creating this "extra soul" for customers is a commitment to CSR. Corporate social and environmental responsibility is increasingly at the heart of strategies, and is also expected by consumers, who expect brands to make a real commitment to a better world.

"It has nothing to do with what I buy in the end, but above all I support an approach, a world in which this brand takes its place and allows me to believe in a brighter future than life as it is today."

It's also proof for the consumer that the brand shares the same values as him: he supports its values through his consumption, a kind of new committed consumption.

Beware, however, of brands tempted to make announcements without any action or proof behind them. Customers are well versed in today's marketing techniques, and won't be fooled for long by empty rhetoric. If anything, they'll feel betrayed by the brand and create a real "bad buzz".

In other words, today's technology will enable us to listen more closely to our customers, and respond to their needs as and when they arise. Brands, on the other hand, need to work on a promise backed up by actions and evidence to show their customers that, if they have chosen them, it's not by chance, but because of the shared values they uphold.