We pay more for brand names. We pay more for and are advocated of brands that have emotionally connected with us. The richer the emotional content of a brand’s mental representation, the more likely the consumer will be a loyal user. This thinking is just as relevant for financial advice as it is for toilet tissue and car tyres. Puppy dogs chasing a roll of toilet paper and the piece of mind of safety on a wet road have less to do with the end product and more to do with feelings and emotions.
Understanding, therefore, how people think is a critical factor in building consumer loyalty and advocacy. So just how do we make decisions and what occurs in peoples minds to help them evaluate situations? What do we need to know about how peoples minds work?
“Cognitive control and value-based decision-making tasks appear to depend on different brain regions within the prefrontal cortex,” says Jan Glascher, lead author of the study and a visiting associate at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, referring to the seat of higher-level reasoning in the brain.
In normal brain functioning people : a valuation network in the brain auto computes what's good and what's bad, before the person concerned has a chance to consciously understand the decision making process has occured. It is quick. It is intuitive and it is automatic.
This highlights the complexities in dealing with customers where you need them to make a considered rationale choice. The choice has less to do with the rationalities of your proposal and more to do with how they feel about you and your brand. In short they have a gut feel about what is good and what is bad for them: and if you have not connected with them then that good choice (rationally) seems the uncomfortable one.
Most people believe that the choices they make result from a rational analysis of available alternatives. In reality, however, emotions greatly influence and, in many cases, even determine our decisions. In a book, Descartes Error, Antonio Damasio, professor of neuroscience at the University of Southern California, puts forth that emotions are necessary ingredients to almost all decisions. What occurs is that emotions from previous experiences attribute value and impact how we consider the options in front of us. These emotions create preferences which lead to our decision. Damasio’s view is based on his studies of people whose connections between the “thinking” and “emotional” areas of the brain had been damaged. They were capable of rationally processing information about alternative choices; but were unable to make decisions because they lacked any sense of how they felt about the options.
Values
So if you are not using some method of assessing past experiences and values and hierachies in a clients decision making you actually leave so much of your process to chance. When it comes to money: we have values associated with our experiences and these values have been passed to us from our parents. If you are not questioning clients about these experiences your process is like waiting for a magic eye picture to appear.
Psychologist Valerie Wilson tells us that troubled relationships with money stem from childhood. Research shows that money habits are formed between the ages of 6-8.
Consequently these lessons (which we have learnt from our parents) shape the way we feel and act about money and money issues. Our attitudes to money bring with it a range of emotions and behaviour: they can be positive but they can also range from greed and arrogance, to jealousy and fear.
What all of this means is that that you need to embed in your process:
• a means of uncovering a clients values
• questioning on past experiences
• determining a clients hierarchy of choice assessment
• looking at a clients goals and the why of their goals so you can elevate a simple statement of a goal or objective to a highly functional progression and pathway that you indeed can influence
• a show casing of you as an individual and your brand
Dr Peter Noel Murray reminds us that the influential role of emotion in consumer behavior is well documented and studies show that positive emotions toward a brand have far greater influence on consumer loyalty than trust and other judgments which are based on a brand’s attributes. Only by building process in your business that is cognisant of: how people are drawn to brands, make decisions and order their values; can you truly expect to drive customer loyalty and advocacy.
Showing posts with label brand loyalty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brand loyalty. Show all posts
Sunday, 19 April 2015
Friday, 27 December 2013
3 things that need to be in your 2014 business plan
So if you are like us at PCE, you are already well into planning for 2014.
And part of that planning process invariably asks what is it that we do best and secondly what do we need to improve?
This is however where most business plans and therefore most businesses fail. What occurs thereafter are brainstorming sessions, that generate a plethora of ideas, of initiatives to deliver to go from "good to great" by innovating, coming up with the competitive edge that will blitz the competition.
Often the ability to deliver such growth is overstated and what ends up happening is that the business forgets to deliver the answer to the very first question : what is it that we do best?
Focussing on weaknesses highlights and delivers just that : weaknesses or at best improved weaknesses.
Paul Leinward and Cesare Mainardi (Harvard Business Review June 2010, pp 86-92) posed the question as to whether you business had the courage and discipline to focus intensely on what it does best.
Rather than chase business in markets where the company does not have capabilities to sustain success, "coherent" companies align what they do best with the right market positioning.
In other words they position their offer to their ideal clients in a way that resonates.
Every decision then is focussed on being able to answer 3 questions (the 3 that need to be in your business plan).
According to Leinward and Mainardi these are :
How are we going to face the market? In oner words : what is our value proposition? Understanding the value you create for the customer and being able to articulate it in a replicable/repeatable phrase is key here.
What capabilities do we need? In other word : To deliver on our value proposition what 3-6 capabilities to we need to display / deliver?
What are we going to sell and to whom? In other words: the product and services that make up the product mix are the ones that are key to your value proposition and highlight the capabilities that your business has, are delivered to the right customers in the right communication mix.
So the key is:
- figure our what you are really good at, develop the capabilities you have to deliver that so that they are best of breed, align this with the market place opportunities and be rewarded with sustained superior returns.
Ask these 3 questions in your business planning process : which by the way should include all team members (it's a great way to assess if you actually need to reassess whether the capabilities you have in your team are actually the right ones for you!!)
And part of that planning process invariably asks what is it that we do best and secondly what do we need to improve?
This is however where most business plans and therefore most businesses fail. What occurs thereafter are brainstorming sessions, that generate a plethora of ideas, of initiatives to deliver to go from "good to great" by innovating, coming up with the competitive edge that will blitz the competition.
Often the ability to deliver such growth is overstated and what ends up happening is that the business forgets to deliver the answer to the very first question : what is it that we do best?
Focussing on weaknesses highlights and delivers just that : weaknesses or at best improved weaknesses.
Paul Leinward and Cesare Mainardi (Harvard Business Review June 2010, pp 86-92) posed the question as to whether you business had the courage and discipline to focus intensely on what it does best.
Rather than chase business in markets where the company does not have capabilities to sustain success, "coherent" companies align what they do best with the right market positioning.
In other words they position their offer to their ideal clients in a way that resonates.
Every decision then is focussed on being able to answer 3 questions (the 3 that need to be in your business plan).
According to Leinward and Mainardi these are :
How are we going to face the market? In oner words : what is our value proposition? Understanding the value you create for the customer and being able to articulate it in a replicable/repeatable phrase is key here.
What capabilities do we need? In other word : To deliver on our value proposition what 3-6 capabilities to we need to display / deliver?
What are we going to sell and to whom? In other words: the product and services that make up the product mix are the ones that are key to your value proposition and highlight the capabilities that your business has, are delivered to the right customers in the right communication mix.
So the key is:
- figure our what you are really good at, develop the capabilities you have to deliver that so that they are best of breed, align this with the market place opportunities and be rewarded with sustained superior returns.
Ask these 3 questions in your business planning process : which by the way should include all team members (it's a great way to assess if you actually need to reassess whether the capabilities you have in your team are actually the right ones for you!!)
Tuesday, 4 June 2013
The Golden Goose of Client Engagement : endless source of riches
So, we assume we have your attention or at least tapped into something that you assume you want?
The holy grail of customer engagement, that provides endless streams of customers, happy customers, into your business, talking positively about your business, referring people to your business and even defending your business against the rare detractor.
No need to campaign, to advertise, to form referral relationships : because customers come to you. They seek you out.
Nirvana?
Careful what you wish for.
To do this you need to be prepared.....not for the endless stream of customers ....but you need to prepare yourself and your staff to be willing to do what it takes to truly engage customers.
Yes you say?
Ok, then here is the golden goose as our gift to you.
Trust.
Yes, as simple as that. Customers will beat a path to your door, do business with you and send the people in their networks to you if they trust you.
Simple. The way to deliver this comes and only comes if you are prepared to do the following:
1) Define what you do from not your perspective but from your potential customers perspective.
2) Ensure that all your staff understand and can articulate in a common language that definition.
3) Ensure you and all your staff can explain how you deliver what it is that you do. What is your process?
4) Expose your vision. Get this message out there via social networks and a web presence that has at its core the primary purpose of adding value to your target clients. This does not mean selling something (unless your target market is price driven and transactional).
5) Expose yourself. Who are you? Who are you really? Who are your staff? What are your broader values?
6) Engage you customers with methods that tap into and uncover their values, motivations hopes and dreams.
7) Collaborate with your customers. Engage them at every opportunity. Crowd source.
8) Establish and run networking and value add events that deliver on engaging customers with topics aligned to their values.
9) Reassure customers along their service journey with you.
10) Communicate constantly with your customers when you don't have anything to sell.
11) Make their day : practice random acts of thoughtfulness.
If you are prepared to do this and build and/or utilise the expertise and templates that can deliver and coach you to deliver on every one of these points then you will achieve in your customers mind the feeling that Scott McKain describes as "they just know me". That our friends is ....trust. And you will then have the golden goose delivering streams of happy and referring customers.
The holy grail of customer engagement, that provides endless streams of customers, happy customers, into your business, talking positively about your business, referring people to your business and even defending your business against the rare detractor.
No need to campaign, to advertise, to form referral relationships : because customers come to you. They seek you out.
Nirvana?
Careful what you wish for.
To do this you need to be prepared.....not for the endless stream of customers ....but you need to prepare yourself and your staff to be willing to do what it takes to truly engage customers.
Yes you say?
Ok, then here is the golden goose as our gift to you.
Trust.
Yes, as simple as that. Customers will beat a path to your door, do business with you and send the people in their networks to you if they trust you.
Simple. The way to deliver this comes and only comes if you are prepared to do the following:
1) Define what you do from not your perspective but from your potential customers perspective.
2) Ensure that all your staff understand and can articulate in a common language that definition.
3) Ensure you and all your staff can explain how you deliver what it is that you do. What is your process?
4) Expose your vision. Get this message out there via social networks and a web presence that has at its core the primary purpose of adding value to your target clients. This does not mean selling something (unless your target market is price driven and transactional).
5) Expose yourself. Who are you? Who are you really? Who are your staff? What are your broader values?
6) Engage you customers with methods that tap into and uncover their values, motivations hopes and dreams.
7) Collaborate with your customers. Engage them at every opportunity. Crowd source.
8) Establish and run networking and value add events that deliver on engaging customers with topics aligned to their values.
9) Reassure customers along their service journey with you.
10) Communicate constantly with your customers when you don't have anything to sell.
11) Make their day : practice random acts of thoughtfulness.
If you are prepared to do this and build and/or utilise the expertise and templates that can deliver and coach you to deliver on every one of these points then you will achieve in your customers mind the feeling that Scott McKain describes as "they just know me". That our friends is ....trust. And you will then have the golden goose delivering streams of happy and referring customers.
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