Communication and emotional connection get you closer to your customer.

Your product or service is amazing! You’ve worked hard on your business or product, and you have lofty goals for it! Now that it’s all built out and ready to rock, how are you getting it out there and how are you connecting with your customer base?

People are ready to pay a premium for an experience that is emotionally positive. The design represents part of the value in the equation of driving sales. When people feel the connection that has been designed for them, they see your value and you become a ‘need’ in their lives; and that my friends, becomes your competitive advantage.

So what does that look like?

It’s the quality of your product or service. It’s the experience of the product itself, and customer service if something goes wonky. A lot goes into the trust, relationship building, and your commitment to providing the best service and support for your customer or client. And let’s not forget—your expertise in the service you are providing.

You want to give your customer the sense that when they purchase a product or sign up for your services, that they’ve joined something amazing. You want the people who do business with you to feel like they are a part of a community, a shared experience.

Embrace design.

The design should embody a positive and emotional customer experience. From the way you engage in person, on social media, the package design, or how you communicate with your prospective audience through your website. It’s all an ecosystem that you build and nurture to capture the entire experience.

For example, let’s look at Nike—easy analysis. Their running shoes are great, the product is supportive as is their customer service, comfortable shoes, great design, etc. The same applies to their Nike Run Club app—a supportive app with feel-good progression notifications, comfortable in training sessions/coaching, great design of the app, easy to connect with the running community, etc. Their NRC Instagram account embraces all the samples listed, and they do a great job at engaging with the audience around questions regarding the shoes. Nike has created an ecosystem of customer support and experience.

Tips.

Ask yourself the following:

• What do I want the customer to feel when engaging with my product or messaging?
• What do I want the customer to feel when using my product or service?
• What am I learning from their experience of my product or service?

Figure out what platforms of communications work best for you in your industry.

Know your voice and showcase what makes you authentic in the world of abundance.

Tell your story.

Create your ecosystem.

Why now?

“We’ve moved from an economy of mass production to one of mass customization” M. Neumeier

In relation to a point listed above around abundance—Instead of 5 variants of ketchup as it was about 15 years ago or so, there are FIFTY! How do you stand out in a world of so many options? You can’t sell on features and benefits so easily now, so you’re selling on an emotional connection. This is a tough piece for many companies who are set on the numbers because emotions are not the data points that you can plug into a spreadsheet.

Design is a living, evolving process. We are in a time of building human connections in a digital age. You learn from mistakes, you refresh, you take risks (often, hopefully) — it’s how you grow in business. Your environment—either in the storefront or online—demands intentional design for that total customer experience and emotional connection.

If you are not integrating the design of the customer experience by now, you might want to consider this as an option.

Are you making the right connections?
How are you making connections?

Unsure on how to answer some of these questions? We got you  — Contact us and we can help assess your situation.