Cognitive Design

I have bee reviewing the findings from the 2011 Temkin Customer Experience Ratings. You can access the entire report for free. Across 12 industries the average rating was on the cusp of poor. We have a long way to go when it comes to creating an excellent customer experience.

Creating a customer experience is mostly a cognitive design challenge.  It is driven by the think-and-feel your ads, product interactions and customer service process creates.   It is as much about the psychology of customer-facing employees as it is understanding the mind of the consumer.  Most businesses are run on a transactional basis and are not optimized to meet psychological needs. Indeed, very little cognitive psychology has worked its way into the management paradigm.  So I am always on the lookout for studies that demonstrate the transactional importance of psychological factors.

For example, a recent study at Ohio State University, Got Up on the Wrong Side of the Bed,  demonstrates that the mood you start your work day with can impact performance.

 ”Researchers found that employees’ moods when they clocked in tended to affect how they felt the rest of the day. Early mood was linked to their perceptions of customers and to how they reacted to customers’ moods.”

The impact on performance was measured by a change in both volume and quality of work.  Cognitive factors were key. For example, high-positive mood produced greater verbal fluency (fewer pauses, stumbles and “ums”) which reduced call time and received a higher rating. The study was done with telephone customer service personnel.

The researchers suggest a little mood management might go a long way towards improving the customer experience. What does your organization do to lift the mood (or avoid souring it) at the start of each day?