As customers, we experience different emotions with different brands. These emotions create a lasting impact on our buying decisions. We are loyal towards brands that appeal to our emotions and turn away from those that don’t. For businesses, these customer emotions are very important to consider.
Emotional Experience (EE) looks at the aggregate of emotions that customers feel throughout the buying journey. It can give businesses an accurate projection of how customers perceive their brand and make necessary improvements to attract and retain customers.
The Emotional Value Index (EVI®) is the metric used to measure EE. You have to categorize emotions into different clusters based on their amplitude and assign them a value between -1 and +1. Then, it’s a matter of taking the weighted average.
Now, why is measuring EVI® crucial?
1. Evaluate your Customer Experience (CX) strategy
Is your CX plan performing well? How do your customers perceive it?
As EVI® is a metric that can be applied both at the micro and macro level, it can be used to gain an overall picture of your company’s CX strategy. It will show the most dominating emotion that best represents your brand in the eyes of customers. It’s a result of the shopping experience, customer service, and quality of products or services offered by your business.
For example, if the EVI® data analysis indicates a negative emotion, it could mean that customers are facing a pain point at a particular phase. You can then fine-tune your CX strategy and elevate the experience for better results.
2. Understand your customers
Do customers like your products? What exactly do your customers expect from you?
There’s nothing that overtly explains your customer requirements and expectations than their emotions. By understanding how they feel about your products, buyer journey, and engagement level, it’s easier to cater to their requirements. The best way to learn about your customers is by asking them!
You can gather EVI® data through surveys designed for specific touchpoints and different phases of the customer journey. It helps you understand how customers feel and why they feel that way. More importantly, EVI® feeds you with important information about the customer profile(s) of your business
3. Evoke emotions that generate higher sales
What emotion(s) persuade customers to click “buy”? What emotions encourage them to purchase repeatedly?
Tapping into customer emotions is the best way to create happy customers for your business. Your brand should evoke happiness, joy, and excitement in your clients for high retention and loyalty. If customers are pleased throughout their buying experience, your business will generate higher revenue. It’s not just from their purchases but also from the increase in new customers through word-of-mouth.
On the contrary, emotions like frustration, disappointment, and sadness can lead to high churn rates. It will deter customers from your brand. The middle ground emotion, “indifference”, means that customers don’t perceive your brand as worthier than others.
4. Drive your brand towards success
How can you offer what others don’t? How can you make your customers feel exclusive?
Today, customers stand with brands that walk the extra mile to make them feel special and acknowledged. That’s not it. They prefer brands that vocalize issues they care about. By keeping track of customer emotions through EVI® and utilizing customer data, it’s possible for a business to offer personalized experiences.
EVI® helps you figure out ways to win the hearts of your customers. You can monitor how customers feel about your loyalty programs, promotional events, and discounts using EVI® surveys. You can even convert an unhappy customer to an overjoyed loyal client with it! It helps you gauge the efficacy of strategies to promote growth.
