To begin, I want to share a personal experience that expresses a business’s attempt to foster positive customer emotions, how that got to me, and what my reaction was. It was several years ago on the eve of my birthday. Back then, we would sit until midnight in anticipation of the first wave of birthday calls and messages from friends and family. On this special day, the clock rang midnight and a birthday message popped on my screen. It wasn’t from a friend or family member. Instead, it was from a bank which I had just recently opened an account with. 

The fact that a bank sent me a birthday text in the first place was one thing. The fact that the birthday message was warm and very well composed was another. Lastly, the fact that the message happened to come in before those from my friends and family - which I was eagerly expecting - was super duper amazing. To cut the story short, I still feel a great level of attachment to that brand and I have since opened multiple accounts with them and even encouraged friends to do the same. 

Having shared my own unique experience, let’s go on to talk about customer emotions and see why and how businesses can take advantage of them. 

What is Customer Emotion?

Customer emotions are the emotions, feelings, or mental sensations that a customer has towards a brand, based on the nature and quality of their experiences with it.  Whether you are running a product or service-based company, there is certainly a point at which your decisions or actions (such as service delivery, complaint resolution, etc.) bring your business face-to-face with a customer. What you do during this contact phase or period - and how you do it, pretty much weighs in on what emotions your customers feel and how deeply they feel such emotions.

The "what" and "how much" here is very critical. For example, the what of a customer's emotion could be either "satisfied" or "dissatisfied", or "pleased" or "displeased." But even if a customer registers their satisfaction with a particular business experience, there is still room to ask "how satisfied" they are. This is where many businesses face hard truths by realizing that a customer could be "barely or overly satisfied", and that even though both expressions lie on the positive plane of the emotional scale, one of them still translates into a low score for the brand.

Different Customer Emotions 

Research by Bruce Temkins of Quatrics highlights the obvious; that customer emotions range from positive to negative. In addition, it uniquely lists these emotions out in the form of a spectrum moving from Adoration: the act or state of feeling or showing great affection and devotion; to Appreciation: a feeling or expression of admiration, approval, or gratitude; to Ambivalence: simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (such as attraction and repulsion,); to Agitation: a state of excessive psychomotor activity accompanied by increased tension and irritability; and finally, Anger: a strong feeling of displeasure and usually of antagonism. 

Businesses that are adored by their customers will best react by maintaining their standard of delivery. On the other hand, those who identify appreciation need to find ways of beefing up their products or service experience to foster even more positive emotions. For a business that identifies ambivalence, there is the need to quickly rebuild trust and carefully coach the customers back into cherishing the brand. Responding to this situation quickly will keep the customer within the positive scale of emotions. 

If there is an expression of agitation, the business would likely need to contact such customers and make an effort to calm them down. It may also be necessary to offer a formal apology in this situation. Lastly, at the point where a customer expresses anger, an all-out resolution is necessary. Bruce Temkins’ research goes further to state that negative emotions make individuals about 30% less likely to patronize a brand whereas positive emotions make them more than 90% likely to do so.

Now you have a list of possible customer emotions handy - but still need to identify when they come up. This will involve drawing up your customer journey and taking notes of possible pain point areas or activities. For instance, you may realize (through a survey or some other data collection means) that customers registering to your online platform are faced with some challenges. If these customers are excited about the end goal of having access to your services, they may continue with the registration process but end up with an ambivalent emotion or feeling.

Emotional Motivators: Understanding and Responding to Them

The Harvard Business Review - in its article about customer emotions - revealed that it had conducted comprehensive research across several different categories in countless companies. This effort was directed at creating a list through which the institution could understand the emotions that influence customer behavior and value. The result was a list of more than 300 “emotional motivators”. 

You might catch yourself asking what emotional motivators are. Don’t worry, we were just about to explain that. As per the Harvard Business Review article, emotional motivators underline a specific, deep, and often unconscious customer desire that is tied to an emotion or a range of emotions. Ten of the most relevant motivators and the appropriate business response were described to be:

Desire/Motivator:

Standing out from the crowd. 

Response from a business: 

Give the customer the feeling that they are special or unique: build a class around products or services that the customer associates with. 

Desire/Motivator:

Have confidence in their future experience or benefits.

Response from a business: 

Give the customer the idea that the brand is consistently improving its processes with eyes on a better future.  

Desire/Motivator:

Enjoy a sense of well-being.

Response from a business: 

Show that the brand is working to achieve customer satisfaction: identify and eliminate customer pain points, smoothen the customer experience, and speed up conflict resolution. 

Desire/Motivator:

Feel a sense of freedom

Response from a business: 

Remove all restrictions and challenges to associating with or dissociating from the brand. Ensure that it is easy for customers to delete their accounts or data or leave the brand without hassle. Also ensure that customer opinions, reviews, and feedback are not shushed, hidden, or removed in any way. 

Desire/Motivator:

Protect the environment 

Response from a business: 

Develop green solutions and introduce eco-friendly processes such as recycling and energy conservation. 

Desire/Motivator:

Be their original selves and achieve what they want

Response from a business: 

Build walls and safe spaces against bias and discrimination. Prove to be an inclusive brand in all aspects of the word. 

Desire/Motivator:

Feel secure

Response from a business: 

Promote the knowledge that the customer's actions, such as continuous patronage of the brand, will have a meaningful future impact.   

Desire/Motivator:

Succeed in life as a whole

Response from a business: 

Help the customer achieve a wholesome and balanced life as a result of associating with the brand or its products and services. This could come in the form of messages that remind the customer to stay healthy or serve to inspire and motivate them. 

Why is it Important to Identify Customer Emotions?

The likes of Apple, Facebook, and Disney no doubt know how to make an emotional connection with their customers. Their brand reputation and high revenue score are a direct implication of excelling at this. Although companies can gain a natural trust or liking, they must still make an effort to understand what specific emotions drive their customers' purchase actions or behavior. Here's why it is important to identify customer emotions:

• Appropriately adjust your branding:

When you find out what emotions are behind your customers' purchase behaviors, you take that information and use it to direct your branding and customer experience effort. For example, if your customer's purchases favor environmentally-friendly products, then you begin to teach that in your business. You can start by using recyclable packages and cutting down on carbon emissions in your production/manufacturing processes.This change in your business brand may position it to attract investors and high-value stakeholders - besides easily scoring new customers. 

• Connect with customer emotions:

Aligning your brand with customer emotions will build a connection between you and them. This is the turning point; it is hitting the bull's eye, and it usually sets the stage for exponential business growth. Your existing customers should be more willing to associate with the brand now and they may even go on to promote your business free of charge. 

• Increase the immediate liking and trust you receive from customers:

Almost immediately, you should begin to see an upbeat response from your customers. Attraction should have converted to trust, changing the dynamics of your interaction with customers.

• And in the long run, exponentially grow each customer's value to the business:

From growing customer's trust and liking towards your business, you build their willingness to spend more on your products and services. These customers would also tend to invite their friends or relatives to use your brand, therefore, facilitating your marketing efforts and upping your reach.

Customer Emotion vs Customer Satisfaction

First things first, customer emotions and customer satisfaction are not in any way identical. They do not mean the same thing and, therefore, they should not be used interchangeably. This section will clear the air by illustrating these two terms and describing how they relate to a customer's experience.

‍Conclusion

The term customer emotions should mean a lot to any business. These emotions are basically the same thing as what we feel going through the activities in our everyday lives and the events we encounter over the years. However, the point of uniqueness is that this set of emotions exists in a business setting and originates from customers towards a brand. If well cultivated, customer emotions will easily lead a business to increase the quality of its customer experience and in turn, build loyalty and retention and the lifetime value of its customers. 

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