Consumers Emote More Than Retailers Think

Breaking a promise can have a detrimental effect on any relationship. And in the retail world, apparently, that holds as well. Apparently, while it may seem like a no-brainer, consumers are both happy and loyal when brands deliver on what they feel they were promised from a retailer.

Bottom line? Retailers need to deliver what they promised consumers.

According to a new but annual study by InMoment, brands underestimate the emotional impact of breaking promises. Apparently, 38 percent of consumers associated “satisfaction” as an emotion related to positive brand experiences. At the same time, 40 percent of consumers chose “satisfaction” to describe their experience related to brands to which they stay loyal.

The annual CX Trends Report research says that brands lack the understanding of the emotions that drive customer loyalty and as a result undervalue the negative impact when retailers fail to deliver to those customers’ expectations. The study spoke with 20,000 consumers and 10,000 brands from 12 countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, while tracking six benchmark questions related to personalization and emotion in the brand-customer relationship. Specifically, the data focused on connections and disconnects in the consumer’s experience, when it comes to emotion and personalization. And, while customers’ expectations can be reasonable, those negative emotions from an experience can be strong when brands aren’t catering well.

“Our previous two studies, as well as this year’s, confirm that customers increasingly see their interactions with brands as more relationship-oriented than transaction-based,” Brennan Wilke, SVP of Customer Experience Strategy at InMoment, said in a release. “Customer expectations are actually very reasonable, so failing to deliver on the brand promise leaves them with strong, negative emotions. If the brand promise is in alignment with consumer expectations and consistently delivered, customers are much more like likely to continue and even grow that relationship.”

InMoment is a cloud-based customer experience optimization platform that aims to help brands connect customer behavior data to retailer so the latter can make better business and relationship decisions.

In the study, that emotion – satisfaction – was the most common one associated with delivering positive customer experience, versus other phrases like “feeling part of something special (only 7 percent). In describing negative experience (and given a choice), the top emotions were “disappointed,” “disrespected” and “frustrated.” When they had open-ended answers, some replied with “impotence,” “rage,” and “inconsequential, worthless.” But by and large, “disappointed” was the reigning sentiment at 29 percent, which was followed by “disrespected” (13 percent). As a result, consumers said they were also more likely to associate “anger” with bad experiences.

According to the report, “in other words, brands believe consumers are simply let down when their expectations are not met. In reality, consumer emotions are much stronger and much more personal.”

That said, personal interactions between retailers and consumers have increased, and the latter have wanted it more. According to the study, consumer put personalization higher on the list (45 percent) during support interactions with a company, with only 20 percent focused on putting advertising and marketing as a top priority.