March 27, 2018

CX Field Guide: A Journey into the Unthinking Mind

Katya Andresen, Senior Vice President of Card Customer Experience at Capital One, was a 2018 SXSW Speaker at the Capital One House at Antone’s. The article below, provided by Andresen, reflects the key themes of her March 10 talk, “A CX Field Guide for the Intrepid.”

Years ago, a friend of mine told me a story about running focus groups for an electronics company that was testing boombox designs. The goal of the focus group was to understand how people made decisions about what devices they preferred. The participants were asked what they thought of the colors available — one black, one yellow. Everyone professed enthusiasm for the yellow boombox. Then, when it was time to leave, the participants were invited to take home one of the products for free. Everyone chose the black one.

“Never ask people to predict what they will do — or why they do what they do,” the researcher advised me. “We’re just not that rational.”

Technology has since changed dramatically but human nature has not. The good news is that we’re not only in an era of rapidly advancing technology — we’re also in a golden age of neuroscience. We understand how people think — in all its irrational glory — better than ever. That means we can design great products and experiences based on a deeper understanding of the human psyche. That’s an incredible opportunity, because if we understand people more deeply, we can matter more deeply in their lives.

Researchers from the fields of psychology, neuroscience and behavioral economics have concluded we are literally and figuratively of two minds: the rational, prefrontal cortex mind (system 2) and then the more instinctive and impulsive mind of our limbic system (system 1). The rational, deliberative self is the one that vows to get up at 5 a.m. The more impulsive, automatic, emotional one hits snooze the next morning. The rational, “thinking” mind sometimes gets caught in analysis paralysis; the more “unthinking” mind give you a gut instinct on how to take action.

If we want to build great experiences for our customers, we have to take both systems into account. But we tend to over-index to assuming that our customers (and colleagues) are rational. So much of our work — analyzing the numbers, summarizing the focus group results, coding the software, testing the product, projecting our P&L — strips the humanity of our customer from our minds. We begin to believe the rational answer is the full answer. So we have to encourage ourselves to depart from the realm of the rational. If we do not, we risk failing as leaders, product managers, corporate strategists, digital innovators, and just about everything else. Expanding our thinking to include the unthinking mind is the key to leadership and innovation. When we incorporate and create for this state of mind, we’re better equipped to build great companies and change lives for the better.

So how do we bring the unthinking mind to our work? Here are three takeaways:

A Field Trip into Psychology

In building an experience or a brand, creating deeply emotional connections with our customers is critical. When you ask people what they remember about an experience, they will form their opinion based on something psychologists call the peak-end rule. They will remember the most emotionally intense part of the experience and the very end.

So as you design an experience for your customers, ask yourself how you might create both an emotional peak and memorable end. When you take this framework into account, you can begin to build a beloved brand.

A Field Trip into Neuroscience

If peak moments help customers fall in love with your product, service or experience, then how do you keep them coming back for more? The question moves us into the automatic, habitual brain and involves cultivating a sense of routine, or a set of habits, for your customers. Habits – both good and bad – are powerful, as many of us know. They have a tremendous influence on what we do. In fact, about 40% to 45% of our actions each day may feel like they are based on a decision we have made, but they are actually habits in action. If we think about our experiences through the lens of habit formation, we have the opportunity to understand how to be more digitally engaging. When we approach building habits this way for our customers, we’re able to create more meaningful, lasting relationships.

A Field Trip into Behavioral Economics

We’re told that people arrive at most decisions through a process of weighing costs against benefits. In reality, we’re at times irrational, impulsive, ruled by emotion, and limited in attention. The heart often overrules the head, so customers need incentives to help them make the best long-term choices in life — especially when it comes to their financial lives. A great example of this principle in action at Capital One is CreditWise® from Capital One®, our free credit monitoring and protection tool which helps people build, improve and protect their credit. The CreditWise app looks to nudge users by removing barriers to embracing positive credit behaviors – barriers like decision fatigue. The app identifies the most important actions a user could take to make the biggest improvement to their credit score to strengthen their financial position in life.

By embracing these three tips, you’ll be better equipped to tap into your customer’s unthinking minds and — more importantly — understand them as people. At the end of the day, that’s the number one job of anyone building customer experiences. Because if we seek to understand our customers deeply, we can matter more deeply in their lives and create a lasting relationship, however technology evolves.

Katya Andresen is a Senior Vice President, Card Customer Experience, at Capital One. To follow Katya, connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Content provided by Katya Andresen

Photo courtesy of Capital One

The post CX Field Guide: A Journey into the Unthinking Mind appeared first on SXSW.

Source: SxSW Film

March 26, 2018

How to Maximize Your Story’s Impact by Celebrating Your Customer Objections

It’s one of the easiest things to fix, yet most marketers are either not aware or don’t know how to do it right.

When you think of the classic 3-act story structure, we typically talk about Setting, Conflict, and Resolution. This is a core DNA of any good story.

Setting covers your hero=customer’s life before she came across that nagging problem your product/service solves.

Conflict describes that problem or challenge that prevents your customer from getting what she wants.

And Resolution is where you – the mentor=guide comes along with your product/service and saves the day.

Naturally, this is the classic narrative sequence. Advanced business narratives test diverse story sequences and outcomes (i.e., positive, neutral and even negative).

In our workshops and my online interactions, I find that most marketers are not aware of this classic narrative structure, and worse they tend to briefly touch on the conflict and 95% of their message is dedicated to the Resolution part – singing the praise of their widget.

And you know how does that feel? No one is interested in self-aggrandizing messages.

Why?

Simple. Because what really happens here, is that you, the brand is, in essence, taking away the role of the hero from your customer. If you are the hero what role do you leave for your customer? The adoring fan?

Guess what? Your customer at the top of the funnel is just getting to know you. She’s not ready yet to play the adoring fan, just yet. So, good chances she’ll intuitively classify your message as advertising noise and ignore it.

You see, the role of the Evangelist comes much later – at the bottom of the funnel – after you won your prospect’s business, she loved your service experience and can’t wait to tell the whole world about it.

That’s why it’s super critical that when you develop your story the hero’s role is always reserved for your customer. And you – the brand – play the mentor or guide, helping your hero gets what she wants at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

Another visual metaphor I use to underscore the importance of narrative roles is to think about stories as “mirrors.”

They work best when they can authentically reflect your customer’s authentic world and key problem.

The moment your customer can see herself in your story, your story stops being YOUR STORY and becomes YOUR CUSTOMER’S STORY:

“Hey, that’s my pain you’re talking about here! “

A great “narrative mirror” will serve as a fertile ground for generating audience empathy and trust.

Now that you have the basic foundations of a great story, let’s go back to the importance of creating a good Setting. The first part of your story.

In this part, you describe your customer life before coming across the core problem your product/service aims to solve.

So, you want to be super descriptive and address details such as time, location, moods, and emotional state. The more details you can provide the crispier, believable, and relatable your story will mirror your audience real world.

To maximize your story’s impact, you want to ensure that your hero’s starting point is as far remote from where she lands at, at the Resolution.

That’s why after you authentically describe a detail-rich world of your customer, the core conflict she encounters, you want to delay the transition to the Resolution with real-life customer objections.

Customer objections could range from budget, timing, trust, competition, decision avoidance, internal politics, etc.

When you place your customer objections in your narrative, it allows your audience to a) find an answer to a similar doubt they carry – so it’s a seamless pre-empting exercise b) builds up authenticity and humanizes your message as the transition from non-believer to a believer is not trivial. And c) a great makeover story offers empathy hooks to transform your story from an easy-to-ignore ad to a relatable human story.

In conclusion, make sure that the narrative seams that connect your customer’s problem to your product resolution reflect your customer decision process and doubts. This sliver of imperfection and vulnerability will boost your story’s authenticity and trust.

***

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Source: Visual Storytelling

March 25, 2018

‘Aquaman’ Director James Wan Explains Why There Still Isn’t a Trailer: ‘It’s Me’

Much to the consternation of fans, “Aquaman” has yet to receive a teaser trailer despite being scheduled for release later this year. This has naturally led to speculation among those same fans, which director James Wan has apparently had enough of. The “Saw” and “The Conjuring” filmmaker took to Twitter to dispel any rumors about the delay, explaining that the problem is simple: “It’s me.”

“Hey friends, I usually do my best to avoid internet noises (especially fabricated distractions) but a teaser-trailer going out this weekend was never in the books — despite what some claim. It’s not because of anyone or any nefarious reason holding it back — IT’S ME.,” Wan wrote in the first of three tweets.

“I am simply not ready yet to share. This movie is filled to the gills with VFX, and the process is as slow and laborious as a sea-slug!” he continued. “Yes, even shots for the trailers take forever to do, and I refuse to put out anything that might be construed as subpar.”

He then concluded, “I know it seems like nothing much is brewing above the surface, but I can assure you, we’re working nonstop under the waves.”

Jason Momoa stars as the eponymous superhero in the film, which takes place in the same shared universe as other DC Comics films like “Justice League” and “Wonder Woman.” “Aquaman” will be released theatrically on December 21.

Hey friends, I usually do my best to avoid internet noises (especially fabricated distractions) but a teaser-trailer going out this weekend was never in the books — despite what some claim. It’s not because of anyone or any nefarious reason holding it back — IT’S ME. (1/3)

— James Wan (@creepypuppet) March 25, 2018

I am simply not ready yet to share. This movie is filled to the gills with VFX, and the process is as slow and laborious as a sea-slug! Yes, even shots for the trailers take forever to do, and I refuse to put out anything that might be construed as subpar. (2/3)

— James Wan (@creepypuppet) March 25, 2018

I know it seems like nothing much is brewing above the surface, but I can assure you, we’re working nonstop under the waves (3/3)
(Ps: And yes, I plan to use oceanic puns/references every chance I get )

— James Wan (@creepypuppet) March 25, 2018

Source: IndieWire film