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The 5 Sensei of Customer Experience

By Mr. Amit Gupta, CCXP posted 07-26-2021 11:03 PM

  


Nope, there is no typo…I do mean Sensei.

According to Wikipedia: Sensei, Sinsang, (Sonsaeng/Seonsaeng equivalent in Korean) or Xiansheng (先生) is an honorific term shared in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese honorifics that is translated as “person born before another” or “one who comes before”. In general usage, it is used, with proper form, after a person’s name and means “teacher”

Important to note “one who comes before” and “teacher”.

Most of you would agree, that Customer Experience is the impression your customers have of your brand through the sum of their interactions with your products or services. These interactions could be of various forms and are scattered across the customers journey. Within these interactions lies the secret of a great experience.

With rapid technology transformation and easy access to information, any business can match your price, quality and service, leaving the experience you deliver as the core differentiator. Many strategists would want you to believe in the band-aid solution, wherein you would invest into a survey platform, capture some CSAT or NPS scores, share your findings within the organization and tweak a thing or two. While this approach is good, its seldom sufficient because customers dont always tell you what they feel or want or need. Customers wont always know what they need, it is upto the marketer to immerse into the customer journey, read between the lines and introduce experiences that engage, enthrall & enamor.

Now that we understand the importance of experiences, it is critical for us to understand what comes before these expereinces. What influences these expereinces. What are the cues that help register an understanding of what the customer is experiencing.

The answer is hidden in our evolution. The 5 senses, sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell collect information and send signals to our brains. As a result of these signals, the brain processes this information based on previous experience and subsequent learning. The output of this processing is what we as marketers call “Customer Experience” or “CX”.

I call these 5 senses as the 5 Sensei. They come before an experience and influence our interpretation of the experience. A majority of our interpretations are involutary without any conscious efforts. Each of these Sensei deserves a blogpost of its own, which I shall write up some other time. However, lets get a basic introduction of these masters of experiences.

Sensei Sight : What you see and what you don’t

Sensei Sight

Have you ever wondered, why the bar is out in the open while the rest of the kitchen is behind closed doors. Thats because the restaurant wants to tempt you with what you see. Most customers would decide if they want to interact with your product or service based on what they see or dont see. This is a mix of creativity, visual design, decluttering & positioning. People want to engage with something that is visuall appealing or in some cases not visually repelling. Take your product or service through the Sight test and record everything you see. Compare it with your competitors and see how you stack up. Look for opportunities to improve what you see.

Sensei Taste: What you taste and what you don’t

Remember the ice-cream tasting sessions at Baskin-Robbins before selecting the flavour your want. We entertain products only that have passed our taste test. If we dont like the taste, we rebel and if we love the taste, we look for excuses to get our hands on it repeatedly.

Taste your product regularly, speak to your customers and ask them if they like it. Ask them what they dont like about it, split-taste-test and improvise. Be careful with changing the taste, it has the potential to backfire if done wrong.

Sensei Touch: What you feel and what you dont

If you dont like to hold it or feel it, chances are you will stay away from it. Similarly, if you love the touch or feel of something, you would like to hold onto it for longer.

The introduction of glass body mobile phones has made plastic body phones a thing of the past such that glass / metal feel has become the norm for all new devices. This is because we like the feel of glass in our hands, inspite of the fact that these phones are more slippery and prone to shattering. Whoever said, Human beings are rational was joking.

Sensei Hear: What you hear and what you dont

A luxury car is expected to be silent whereas a sports car must wake up the neighbourhood. Thats what we expect to hear or not hear when we interact. It would be pretty complex to sell a luxury car which sounded like a tractor. Infact the absence of sound would make the car much more premium.

Thus, its important for you to focus on what your customers hear or dont hear, because it is influencing their decisions to continue or not.

Sensei Smell: What you smell and what you dont

Ever wondered why hot dog stands roast onions? Not just because they taste good with hot dogs, its because they smell heavenly and attract people to them. It reminds people of summer and barbecues and makes them indulge in the not-so-healthy hot dogs with relish.

Sensei Smell can attract those who can not see your product yet and similarly drive away people who come to you, if you dont pay attention.

Now that you have been introduced to these masters of experiences, I urge you to explore them further and undertake a “customer’s journey” through your business to see, feel, hear, smell and taste what that experience is like.


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