Editorial
The Gist:
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Don’t solely rely on data. Although statistics are helpful, a behavioral approach reveals deeper consumer motivations.
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Understand innate reactions. Customers are people, and like all human beings, have subconscious reactions to their environment.
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Improve CX through customer behavior. A psychological lens can help CX leaders navigate negative customer feedback.
Let’s say some significant portion of your customers are complaining about the length of the wait at a certain store. Your analysis of the VoC data suggests that the waiting time is the single most important factor resulting in customer dissatisfaction.
The standard managerial reaction in the face of such customer behavior feedback is to find ways to cut the waiting time. Depending on the nature of the touchpoints in the store, you might think of adding service capacity such as an extra check-out cashier, additional front-line employees, self-service technology or diverting traffic to a less-busy location — maybe to a more efficient service channel. These types of solutions seem to be backed by your data, which would set a good example of data-oriented decision-making in CX management.
What Is a Customer Behavior Perspective?
However, approaching such customer feedback from a behavioral perspective might help you alleviate the problem with a less costly and a more innovative solution. The customer behavior approach starts with being curious about what lies beneath a particular customer perception; in this case, it would be the perception regarding the length of the wait time.
But sometimes, the real problem is not the wait itself, but the context in which the waiting takes place. Instead of allocating more resources to reduce waiting periods, there may be other, more feasible ways to turn the situation around.
Related Article: How to Understand What Your Customers Do and Why They Do It
Psychologically Understanding the Customer
Our perception of time works in mysterious ways. Ten minutes can pass within the blink of an eye, or seem to bitterly drag on forever — how we view time largely depends on where our attention is directed.
Attention is the ability to actively process specific environmental information while tuning out other details. If a person is idly waiting to accomplish a task, their attention would likely be locked on the passing of time. However, if a person is busy with a cognitive task such as choosing amongst a set of alternatives — or distracted by a media screen — the passing of time wouldn’t be as salient.
Intolerance toward waiting may also be caused by a hidden source of distress that exists in the servicescape. People would feel the urge to leave as quickly as possible if there is a strong subconscious behavioral cue suggesting that it's best to keep moving.
For instance, if someone sees other people leaving, they would be prone to follow the crowd. If a person is coughing or sneezing, it might trigger a flight response — an innate self-preservation reaction. Or if a poster on the wall reminds someone of their kids waiting for them at home, they would be more anxious to leave. Overall, subtle nudges scattered along the customer journey that trigger behavioral reactions may be the culprit for a wide variety of negative customer feedback.
Related Article: Should You Give Your Customer the Boot? Look at Your Data
Customer Behavior: Understanding Negative Customer Feedback
The type of reactions listed above also contribute to negative customer feedback about frontline employees. The standard, managerial reaction in the face of negative feedback is to train and incentivize employees to be more customer-focused. Again, the resolution seems to be in line with the data (hence is a good demonstration of data-oriented decision making in CX management).
However, this kind of straight-forward thinking strips human behavior from its context. A customer who is subconsciously nudged to be more self-absorbed, self-conscious — or act with a sense of urgency — would have a different course of conversation with the exact same frontline employee compared to another customer who is nudged to be more sensitive., altruistic or trusting toward others.
Behavioral science literature clearly establishes that when people are influenced by subconscious nudges, it is harder for them to correctly identify the source of their feelings or the reason for their actions. They tend to attribute blame to the usual suspects, such as the inefficiency of the frontline employees, outdated technology, capacity problems or how crowded the environment is. Adopting a behavioral perspective helps CX managers to see beyond these usual suspects.
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Adopting a customer behavior approach in understanding your customers’ feedback is a strategic imperative. It is instrumental in identifying and rectifying the underlying potential causes of negative perceptions and unwanted behavioral reactions along the customer journey — and adding elements that nudge customer and employee behavior to produce the desired CX outcomes.
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