Page 64 - Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Principle 4 Delivering Authentic Customer Experiences

Resistance really is futile! If you fail to anticipate or react quickly
to these developments, you can find yourself out of touch and out
of work. The good news is that Marketing Metrics maintain it’s
50% easier to sell to an existing customer than to acquire a new
one, so it really does pay to keep your finger on the pulse of your
ideal client.

Kicking the habit

Around 90% of your daily routine is comprised of habits. Your neo-
limbic brain recognises previous experiences and creates a set of
standard operating procedures to deal with situations. You spend
most of your day on autopilot and thankfully, can generally
function very well in that state. However, this place can become
so cosy, you start to think, feel and respond in the same way and
cease to challenge your working practices. Proactivity can wane
and be replaced by lazy thinking, complacency and a fixed mind
set. Your decisions are reactive, quick and often based on emotion
or instinct, rather than rational thinking - what Daniel Kahneman
calls System One Thinking.

While this might serve you well most of the time, there are
occasions when you need to snap out of it, step outside your
comfort zone and activate your pre-frontal brain. Allow your neck
top computer to expand your thinking outside of what you already
know and challenge your current working practices. Listen to what
your customers, or colleagues are endeavouring to tell you…and
do it before they get fed up with trying, or you miss a potential
opportunity.
Replaying the same programmes and reacting to situations and
people in the same way you’ve always done, with little or no gap
between the stimulus and your response, will keep you rooted in
poor practice. Robert Cialdini refers to these automatic behaviour

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