BEHAVIOR TELLS A LOT – HOW BRANDS PERCEIVE AND INTERPRET

It is a widespread story. The efforts that the front runners of a product and services company make to enhance the experience of their customers are worth noting. But, even after so much effort, the survey results sometimes do not match. Apart from focusing on products and services, it is equally important to pay attention to customer expectations and how they perceive their treatment, and the customer journey.

One such effective aspect is Behavioral Psychology. It is a theory that suggests that human behaviors are shaped by their environment. Customer interactions can be improved by smartly designing the products and services using principles of behavioral psychology. According to studies, such interactions are in consideration by the customer experiences.

To categorize common actions to increase a particular behavior, we developed a framework named ‘PREFER’. It is an acronym for Peer, Review, Expect, Formulate, Emotion, and Reward.

Customers tend to recall the highs and lows of their customer journey after using a product or service for days, weeks, or months. To materially change the perception of the service, companies should sequence the high points and low points. For example, an unsatisfied or unpleasant ending to a customer journey can harm the customer experience. The underlying idea should be to end the journey on a good note. For example, many hotel chains provide smooth and hassle-free checkouts to their regular business travellers by taking their payment information in the beginning. This way they do not have to stand in queues for the checkout process.

Segments

The perception of services is also affected by the number of times high and low points interact. Such perception can be improved when the companies deliberately split the good experiences into multiple touchpoints. For example, show organizers tend to do all the registrations and paperwork before the beginning of the event and distribute the speakers and shows throughout the event.

Control

The sense of control plays an important role in their customer journey. Right engagement of customers will lead to fewer negative statements and blame by them if anything goes wrong. For example, in an electrical company, customers would feel more engaged and happier when they have the choice to schedule the repair work time of their damaged product by themselves. Another popular example is the booking of seats in theatres. Movie Show Booking platforms provide control to their customers to choose their seats in the theatre.

To get the benefit of these principles systematically, companies should rewire individual touchpoints. This means that they should combine pain and segment their pleasure or end the journey with something strong. For example, remembering the customer's name from the start to the end will help the company to finish the retail customer experience strongly. Another example could be the multiple shopping giants. With their 1-click ordering, they reduced the pain of entering payment details each time while checking out and the pleasure of shopping is repeated with each checkout. Concisely, they segmented the pleasure and combined the pain.

Work on Touchpoints

● Companies should focus on providing more positive points. For this, they can work on their bad experiences as early as possible to give more good experiences

● Providing the customers with choices and giving them control will make them feel more engaged and empowered

● Segmentation of pleasure and combining the pain will make good experiences a stronger part of the customer’s recollections

● Provide them with peace of mind by sticking to regular habits and not coming up with surprises

● Finishing on a stronger note will make a good mark on the customer’s memory

Redesigning Journey

By following the above touchpoints, companies can redesign their customer journey to yield improvements in customer satisfaction.

Obstacles

Unclear trials are a common issue in the process of harnessing the principles of behavioral psychology in improving customer satisfaction. Companies usually find it difficult to move towards more systematic interventions at scale and integrate them with borderline transformations of the customer journey.