About Customer Experiences and the Notion of the Remembering self….

Re-Blogging this from one of my Friend's site with her Permission.All Credits to http://anokhajewellery.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/about-customer-experiences-and-the-notion-of-the-remembering-self/

A friend came back from a 3-week vacation on the Maldives. Lucky guy!

“How was your vacation?”, I asked.

“Great”, he said.” The place is just marvelous and the diving experience was phenomenal. However, the flight on the way back was horrendous, which ruined the whole vacation.”

“Really?” I raised brows. “How could possibly an 9-hour flight ruin 3 weeks of great vacation? You had this vacation, you experienced every moment of it….”

“You made the choice that the 9-hour flight is all you will remember about this vacation?”, I continued.” So, you chose a selected piece of memory to drive how you feel about this experience now.”

There is nothing wrong with what my friend said. This is where we seriously need to understand the differences between the Experiencing self and the Remembering self, as Daniel Kahneman, Nobel laureate and founder of behavioral economics, brilliantly highlights in his enlightening (at least for me) TEDtalk:

Daniel Kahneman: The riddle of experience vs. memory

http://www.ted.com/talks/daniel_kahneman_the_riddle_of_experience_vs_memory.html

The Remembering self and the Experiencing self

The reason we need to differentiate between the notion of the Experiencing self and the Remembering self  is because the Experiencing self has the present, which is a chain of moments. As Daniel Kahneman mentions, the psychological presence is set to 3 seconds long…most of the experiences we make leave no trace and are completely ignored by the Remembering self.

For the Remembering self the chains of moments are lost forever, but what stays are the memories. And memories are defined by:

- changes

- significant moments

- endings. As Daniel Kahneman mentions “…endings are very, very important.”

Why does this matter in the context of Customer Experience for businesses? Because  the Remembering self is the story-teller and the decision maker. Our memory tells us what to keep from our experiences to create a story.  This means, if you  have a business and you address your customers via multiple channels, you’d better make sure you consistently deliver positive cross-channel experience.  You need to address the Remembering self in your customers, because this is the story your customers will tell about you, the story they will publish on Facebook, will tell their friends, will tweet about. And this matters because this will either create business value for your company or negatively impact it.

The Customer Experience

The customer experience is the combination of all interactions a customer has with your company and/or your brand, all these step by step interactions from searching a products, visiting a web-site, calling an agent, checking with friends and family if someone can recommend your product or service, visiting your branch, etc.

Check out an example for getting an insurance policy.

A customer might have had a very positive interaction on your website, visiting your branch, but imagine at the last point of that interaction, checking out in an online-shop, there is an error, the customer might report that “the whole experience has been ruined”. You might argue “Wait a second, the customer has had a lot of positive experiences, only the last interaction was a bumpy one, but, hey, not a big deal…..” Oh, YES, it is a BIG DEAL, it is what the customer’s Remembering self decided to keep from the chain of interactions. Remember, endings  matter!

That’s why you need to keep in mind that consistent positive cross-channel customer experience is the only sustainable advantage you might have. In fact, this is the only key differentiator left for companies  in today’s economy. One single bad experience might ruin your reputation, affect your net promoter score and keep a customer away from you or prevent a customer from recommending your product/service- all effects detrimental to your business…

Take away thoughts

1. Experiences happen anytime, anywhere, every day, all day- some are human, some involve interaction with technology, but they all add up!

2. Pamper the Remembering self of your customers with positive interactions, surprise them, wow them, show empathy to your customers! Last week I received an e-mail fromAirbnb with proposed Christmas greetings cards for me to send to my hosts during 2012, ready-to-go, all I had to do is select the design of the greeting card and hit the send button. Was I surprised? Hell yes! Was I positively surprised? Hell yes!!! Did I remember this? Yes, I did? Did I tell this to my friends? Sure, i did…it is a minor thing, but it matters.

3. Be there when your customers don’t expect you, because changes and significant moments of the customer journey matter!

4. Design the story you will hear your customer tell about your brand and/or company.

5. Start today by mapping the customer journey and identifying all these points of interactions that could leave a “memory” in the Remembering self. Download today thecustomer experience design worksheet!

6. Don’t fail the Remembering self of your customers! What customers will expect from you largely depends on what they remember doing business with you, which is very different from what they have experienced doing business with you.

Thanks to Krassi  http://anokhajewellery.wordpress.com/about/

Your P&C

DC*