4 Natural Emotions You Should Use To Drive Better Customer Outcomes

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© Illustration by Hakan Ozturk

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#9 The CS Café – 4 Natural Emotions You Should Use To Drive Better Customer Outcomes

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Let’s get back to the basics.

In Customer Success, we tend to focus on metrics and strategies but the truth is it’s a lot about our most brutal feelings.

Research confirms that we act based on our emotions first but then justify our actions with rational logic.

And discussing with customers often feels like we are in a therapy session where we listen to understand their pain points in an open conversation:

• How’s the project going? Tell me more about your challenges.

• What specific and painful problem do you need to solve?

• What was your experience? What’s preventing you from doing so, hitting your targets? and so on.

At the end of such a consultation, we give customers a prescription helping them overcome challenges and arrive at their destination.

It’s like telling a great story where you’d position yourself as the guide coming up with an action plan and describing how your customer’s life would be if they got what they wanted.

This is why I chose to take a different perspective in today’s edition and focus more on what we tend to forget: the human touch for a better customer experience and outcome.

These are the most basic natural emotions you can leverage to drive impactful conversations and ultimately, ensure your customers are the most successful.

And here are 4 of them that can help you in your day-to-day interactions to encourage your customers to take an action:

1) Happiness

2) Selfishness

3) Fear

4) Belonging

So, let’s cover each one of them quickly.

1/ Happiness

© Aleksandr Balandin

It’s not about making your customers happy, but having happy customers as a result. The difference is subtle but fundamental.

“Making customers happy” suggests you need to transform the existing ones into happy customers, whereas they should already be so from day one, and even earlier!

The main goal here is rather to “produce” happy customers as an outcome of your contributions throughout the customer journey.

And what is the most natural way to demonstrate a positive approach with your customers?

I’d argue that it’s as simple as …“smiling”.

Indeed.

Your positivity is conveyed through the tone of your voice which is closely aligned with your facial expressions.

And smiling is proven to be contagious, helping you influence the mood of others around you for the better.

It’s the cheapest and most effective way to bring enthusiasm into your conversations and create empathy with your customers.

Whether you are on the phone with customers, in remote meetings, or running an in-person business review, you should remind yourself to always wear a smile!

So, push yourself to smile more often and see the magic happen! 🙂

2/ Selfishness

© Pixabay

We as human beings love when it’s about us.

But at the same time, being just selfish is considered one of the worst character traits of a person, right?

What’s interesting here is to focus on the “good selfishness”.

The one that is about understanding what we need for ourselves to be fulfilled so we can then serve others in a more committed way. 

And this is where going the extra mile with your customers comes into the equation.

Understanding that your customers are first looking for what’s in it for them is the opportunity for you to satisfy their desire by giving them what they want.

And if you deliver more than what they expected initially, you’ll not only achieve success but also create this natural connection with your customers to bring joy in building stronger partnerships.

So, remember to always delight your customers in the most unexpected ways, and again, watch the magic happen! 🙂

3/ Fear of losing

© Pavel Danilyuk

Most people love their comfort zone.

We as human beings have a natural tendency to look for secure environments, away from any potential threats and accidents that could happen to us.

This is one of the most fundamental reasons most people fear change and the impact it would have on their lives.

So, telling the story of what would go wrong if your customers don’t take the necessary action is the perfect opportunity for you to involve such emotions and show them the brighter way ahead for a better outcome.

Indeed.

We fear losing more than the likelihood of winning.

It’s a well-known phenomenon called “loss aversion”, one of the negotiating techniques perfectly illustrated in Chris Voss’s book “Never Split The Difference” which I’d highly recommend you to read.

For example, if you had to choose between losing or winning $100, you’d most likely prefer staying conservative and not losing the money, isn’t it?

A similar technique is being used in grocery stores where you get the cheapest products at the rear of the shop or right at the entrance to attract the customer into the store and have them buy more stuff than they initially needed.

And for a Saas company, it usually translates into acquiring free trial users which will enjoy your platform so much that they will fear losing access to your services. This will in turn increase their willingness to keep using and ultimately convert them into paying customers.

It’s therefore important to ensure your customers visualize the business impact of not taking action which naturally brings in the fear of losing a greater opportunity.

You can then introduce your transition plan towards this destination where customers can relax and enjoy the results of massive success!

So, remember to leverage your customers’ fear of losing and observe the magic change happen! 🙂

4/ Belonging

© Dani Hart

We all need to feel supported.

According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, this is what also motivates our behavior.

Taking part in a group of people with similar interests or shared ideals is a major driver of our actions.

And creating such an environment is critical to improving customer engagement and helping support business goals.

This is where User Groups and Communities step in.

Creating and participating in such environments is critical for you to get close to your customers’ needs so you can collect more feedback and build better products or services.

In the end, your customers should feel they are part of a larger community where they can engage with other people experiencing similar challenges.

So ensure you provide such a supportive environment for your customers to engage, help each other, share ideas, and again, watch the magic happen!

Well, that’s it!

Using these 4 most brutal feelings and emotions in your interactions will drive more engagement with your customers over time.

But beware.

It’s about being authentic and nurturing genuine relationships at all times.

Faking any of these emotions will almost always backfire and hurt your credibility and trustworthiness over time which you want to avoid at all costs!

© Illustration by Hakan Ozturk

I hope you enjoyed the read and you learned something new!

If you’ve found today’s edition helpful, please share it with your friends and network to help grow this incredible community of highly talented people like yourself.

I welcome all feedback and reply to all messages I receive.

So any comments, topics you’d like me to cover, or suggestions for me to improve are highly appreciated. Just hit the thumbs up below and send your message over! I guarantee you a response within the hour!

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Have a nice day and a productive week ahead.

Can’t wait to meet with you again next Sunday!

Cheers,

Hakan.

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