As neuroscientist V.S.Ramachandran points out, a piece of the brain “the size of a grain of sand would contain 100 000 neurons, two million axons and one billion synapses, all ‘talking’ to each other”. That’s powerful.
Emotive Touch-points
Touch-points with customers may be better termed sensory points. Every interaction (human and mechanical) with an existing or potential customer is a sensory point that could enable closer connection and reside in the customer’s emotional memory, lead to peer-group and community advocacy.
Businesses can use sensory marketing, emotional service-
interaction and story to create warm and lasting impact along the entire business-chain. For example, hotels can apply innovative processes, people and advertising to reservations, check-in and out, in-room and out-of-room services, facilities and entertainment, out-of-hotel/ neighbourhood experiences, concierge assistance, onward journey arrangements. They can also apply modern leading- edge technology to reduce perceived waiting times and enhance and personalise the customer’s experience. The China Dragon Hotel Hangzhou have introduced an IBM smart card based on radio frequency identification technology, for aspects such as convenient, automatic registration, directions to rooms, and at a sensory level, customized room temperature settings. At high cost, of course. 7
While on business trips to Durban, long before the advent of
Customer Relationship Management and Customer Experience Management, I was always delighted by being welcomed by name, their recall of the type of pillow, tea, room that I preferred. They used a simple card index system.
Sinek has postulated that people don’t buy what we do and how
we do it (left brain logic), but rather because of what we believe (right brain emotion). They buy our passion and purpose, our story. 8
In the sales area, leading-edge firms are finding ways for their sales people to forge genuine emotional connections with their customers 9
, a few are using techniques such as ‘anecdote circles’
to deepen the engagement of their sales force. 10 Maybe the secret is to move from corporate internal ‘war stories’
to external ‘love stories’? An article in The Futurist pointed to this development: “The second
key trend is the commercialization of emotions. It will no longer be enough to produce a useful product: A story or legend must be built into it, a story that embodies values beyond utility. This imperative is already occurring with more and more products: People buy blue jeans, for instance, only partly to cover their bodies; most of the money they pay is for the story that goes with the product - a story of independence, youth, power, and perhaps traditional (or nontraditional) values. Similarly, when they buy eggs laid by free-range hens, much of the money they pay is for the hen’s lifestyle. People pay because they value animal life, nature, and tradition.” 13
• Four Seasons Hotel in Chicago who employ a Bedtime Stories Butler who will visit guest rooms with story books presented on a silver tray, and read bedtime stories to the children
• The Honda on-line ‘Mile Makers’ invitation: “Remember that magic mileage moment when you reached your mileage landmark? Join the club. And share your story. One look at that odometer, and everyone knows there’s a story there. And stories to come. Miles to be travelled, memories to be made and tales to tell. So snap some shots of your most dependable road trip buddy, and when you get the chance to become a member, share your story.”
• American Red Cross regional offices who earn and publish “stories of help and hope”
• Microsoft Advertising’s new ‘filmstrip’ advertisement format, stronger driven by the story-telling component
• Because “you can’t be a legend without a great story” The Ritz- Carlton Hotel Group have long used stories to inspire staff and make of them ambassadors, and customer service deeds find their way into case studies, conference programmes...
•
L.L.Bean invite web site visitors to share their experiences and stories under a number of categories
• Siemens/answers is a campaign centred around storytelling. Short, personal stories are told about the lives of people enhanced by Siemens ‘technologies - using multi-channels
May 2012 | Halo and Noose 5
• Shangri-La Hotel, Beijing who communicate brand values and service promises through short movies for guests/ potential guests
• Le Meridien Hotels and their invitation to guests to write and share 50 word stories and begin conversations
Stories are carriers of ideas, values, perceptions, messages, ‘truth’ and meaning. At birth we have a preformed imprint of our human nature, with latent potential to learn, achieve order and meaning, and story, being inherent. We are hard-wired for story.
Consider a few of many marketing, advertising, social media and other initiatives happening right now:
• 3M and stories about their chain-reaction-of-innovation initiative
• the Johnnie Walker TV advertisements that aim at promoting brand values, connecting to emotional needs via their ‘Keep walking’ stories campaign
Brands and the Story-Connection
Savvy brand marketers have cottoned on to the favourable leveraging of sensations, feelings, perceptions and attitudes – through sensory, symbolic and emotional stimuli at every customer touch-point. More brainwork: leading brands have awakened to the use of story and metaphor in order to convey their persona, forge emotional connections.
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