“The customer is always right.” This mantra has been repeated so often as to become nearly cliché. So why do we hear it so often? Because the success of a company is largely defined by the happiness of its customers. Understanding a company’s performance across various metrics is important, but at the end of the day, the customer emotional connection score is key. Ensuring “customer satisfaction” is critical to establishing good customer relationships and building loyalty — and, ultimately leading to a company’s success.
Overall satisfaction provides a general understanding of customer satisfaction. Yet in highly competitive markets, that just won’t cut it. There are many factors to consider when measuring customer satisfaction, including price, selection, environment, customer service, etc. “Likelihood to recommend” may not directly correlate to “overall satisfaction.” For example, if someone is shopping at a high-end retail store and has a nice experience, but can’t afford the clothing, they may recommend the company to others, without being satisfied themselves.
With that in mind, we believe it’s time for companies to augment traditional customer satisfaction ratings with a more customized customer emotional connection score to ensure the satisfaction and loyalty of all customers. This is where the Martec Emotion Score, or MES, comes in.
What is the Martec Emotion Score?
MES is calculated by understanding the difference between positive emotions and negative emotions associated with a brand or product. Measuring the emotional connection someone has with a brand or product allows the company to better understand customers emotions. It’s a more robust measurement than only measuring customer satisfaction. And yes, there is a difference.
At Martec Group, we use a variety of Emotion Intelligence tools to help our clients measure their customers’ emotions towards their brands and products. This leads to more personalized customer experiences based on connecting with how customers feel on different levels. While there may be a connection between traditional customer satisfaction ratings and MES, there tends to be a gap, as most customer satisfaction ratings measure satisfaction in a static environment, while MES measures emotional connections.
Because of how competitive many markets have become, we believe the ability to emotionally connect with your customers is crucial to success. Customers will use products and services to which they are emotionally drawn, whether that be due to advertising, rewards programs, personalized promotions, or your brand’s mission statement. Customers also want more than a product or service, they desire an experience. They want to walk away from a purchase feeling good about themselves and the company from which they purchased.
So, the next time you need to understand “customer satisfaction,” remember that emotions reveal so much more than satisfaction. An emotional connection score like MES reveals how customers truly feel about your brand and products. Dive deeper into your customer metrics and analyses and find out what motivates the emotional decisions your customers make. This will help you provide the best experience possible, which will build stronger relationships, customer loyalty, higher sales, and better profit.
