When we start and build a business to solve a problem for an intended audience we often spend the vast majority of our time working on features and benefits of the goods and services in which we plan to offer. The natural inclination is to follow the “features tell and benefits sell” route. That is all well and good but there is a critical aspect of creating something of value and that is the customer experience. Understanding the consumer psychology of building a product or service all evolves around how the customer feels when they interact with your company. What the customer feels when they purchase from you is often more important than the product or service itself.
Behind every great product or service is an insight about human psychology. Does your product or service motivate and reward people to keep coming back? Users want to experience a connection, they want to be entertained or have their problem solved, they want to feel like they belong. “Feeling” is an understudied aspect of product design and development. We’re used to a very standard economics analysis that’s cost-benefit driven. Every user is a rational economic actor trying to maximize some amount of benefits.
It is harder to measure emotional quality. What emotional payoff does your product or service have? The real question is: Are people using your products and services at the frequency and timing that we want them? And what is the model for repeated use that we have and how do we create that?
Having clarity as a business owner in terms of what emotional experiences are for your intended customers, understanding that emotional experience that makes someone say, “Wow,” and tell their family & friends about what they’re buying from you, then your business can offer just the right products and services. If I don’t have that clarity in understanding your customer’s emotional experience with your business, then it’s all luck on how much you can potentially sell.
Its best not to focus solely on what your customers want and need but instead obsess over how they feel when they buy your products or services. That is truly the key to understand why consumers do what they do. That is how you create a repeat customer and get those all important customer referrals.
As the writer of this blog, my new startup Virely (launching Q1 of 2022) is hyper-focusing on the aforementioned, the customer experience. Providing a web & app-based tool that makes my customers say “Wow, I have to share this app with my family and friends!” Virely makes it super easy and rewarding for consumers to refer their favorite small businesses to their family & friends using their text, email and social media all in one(2) click. Virely creates and win-win situation for our business subscribers and consumers who submit their referrals through this new social commerce platform. Virely will have offerings such as home specialty contractors, realty and related industries, restaurants & retail establishments. If you are curious, please go to http://www.virely.io and checkout this new startup to see for yourself. Our motto is “Supporting Small Business, one referral at a time”.
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