Emotional engineering is a fairly simplistic concept, but can have fantastic long-lasting impact. If you want your business functions, design and customer engagement to stand out, you’re in the right starting place to make that happen. Emotional engineering is an ingenious way to create an emotional connection with your customers. This should drive an overall excellent experience and keep them coming back to you for more happiness.
Defining emotional engineering
Let’s start by quickly defining exactly what emotional engineering in business is. Put simply, it is the practice of incorporating human psychology and feelings into your work process. A professor from Hiroshima University defines emotional engineering as “the technology to design goods which appeal to emotion and sensibility by translating human sensibility and images into physical design factors”.
You will engineer your work based on the emotions of your customers. By tapping into what your customers are feeling in relation to certain approaches, you can alter your design process to suit.
For example, if you have plans to design a mobile app for your business, but you are aware of some of your user’s anxieties about this – how can you streamline and simplify the app to ease their minds? Understanding and acting on your customer’s emotions is in your best interest for many different reasons.
Better personalise your design and workflows
Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, you are showcasing that what your customers feel is of paramount importance to the business. By acting on behalf of your customers’ emotions, you are amplifying your attitude of putting them first and acting in their best interest.
Not only does that better your business performances and intentions, but it will greatly benefit your customer retention and loyalty rates. When a customer can see how valued they are, they are more likely to keep up their commitment to that brand. If their needs and emotions are considered and catered for, why would they look elsewhere?
Furthermore, in a way, this could be viewed as a subtle form of personalisation. If you have a customer reach out and share that the design of your website is making them uncomfortable because of X, Y, Z reason, you will tailor the experience to be better for them. You are acting on their feedback to make them feel included in the experience they are receiving.
And we are experts in the benefits of personalisation – it is standard business practice in CX. Tapping into emotional engineering and the power of it can enhance an engaging experience and make it memorable for the right reasons. It is time to personalise the experience with emotions.
But, why are we talking about emotions and how best to implement them, rather than just discussing typical personalisation methods? Taking this one step further and adding emotion into it is critical for emotional association. Let’s explore this.
Emotional engineering can create long-lasting emotional association
To make it simpler, think about the last truly positive experience you had with an in-store brand, for instance. And I mean truly positive in the sense that those are the type of emotions you felt. An experience that made you feel happy, excited, comfortable, and valued.
Feeling those immovably positive emotions is so important because they linger and stay with you for a while afterwards. Whenever you think back to whatever it is that evoked that emotion, you will be reminded of those feelings. This is what is meant by emotional association. If you can create an emotion so powerful in your customers through a certain experience, they will think of that whenever they are reminded of your brand. The more positive, the better. And also for the better of your brand’s reputation, too.
And this doesn’t just apply to positive emotions, either; although that’s the preferred intention. As an example, I no longer go in-store to Lush – which is a popular UK cosmetics retailer – because of the emotional association I feel with them.
The typical model for Lush’s in-store experiences is for employees to greet you at the door and ask if you need assistance. When you are looking at a product, the same employee is likely to approach you and talk to you about it, ask what purpose you are buying it for; and/or ask if you would like a demonstration. As they specialise in skin and body care, they may offer to demonstrate how soft a certain cleanser will make your skin feel.
In the past when I have visited Lush, I have been pulled into this sales technique despite my rejection for help and assistance at the front door. Now, whenever I think of Lush, I am reminded of these experiences of being bombarded and unhappily persuaded into a demo.
As a shopper who typically knows what she wants to get, and prefers to get in and get the process done, this is an unpleasant experience for me. Therefore, I don’t shop at Lush anymore – I don’t remember the last time I visited one of their stores! This is an example of just how much power emotions can have on consumer behaviour.
How can we evoke positive emotions and drive the experience through those emotions?
Emotions are the basis for 80% of the decisions a person makes in a day. Offering an emotional experience for your customers will impact their behaviour and future intent. So how can we ensure that you’re creating an overtly positive association with the majority of your customer base? With the power of emotional engineering.
This is especially useful for marketers to work on to drive their campaigns. You can work on your campaigns to evoke certain emotions to get your message across. If you want your customers to feel positive nostalgia to entice them into a related product, focus on campaign post that is very nostalgia-based. Look back on the past and base your post on this theme.
For brick-and-mortar retailers, utilise positive signposting throughout the store that is in line with your branding. These can be useful reminders, helpful pointers of how to improve the shopping experience, and more.
A great option is using technology and immersive experiences and evoke excitement. Immersive experiences are on the up, and make the consumer feel involved and delighted at such a unique opportunity. All while promoting your business needs.
Emotional engineering is extremely useful to work on consumer behaviour and improve personalisation. Make your customer feel invested for the long haul because they will be happy to do so. Emotional engineering is a powerful tool – how do you feel about it?