Launching today, a Forrester Consulting research study commissioned by
the leading provider of customer insights technology, FocusVision,
investigates the motivations underlying customer decision-making. The
study, How
Customers Think, Feel, And Act: The Paradigm Of Business Outcomes,
identified that the way customers think and feel about a brand predicts
why they act, empowering brands to predict business outcomes. In fact,
Forrester found that feeling is 1.5x stronger in influencing customer
buying decisions and loyalty, outweighing any other factor measured in
the study. When a brand understands their Customer Truth™– how they
think, feel and act–they can connect their story to their customer’s
story and drive business outcomes like revenue, advocacy, and loyalty
upward.
Today, companies over-rely on big data to understand their customers.
Brands have misconceptions of which data properly measures how customers
think and feel. As a result, 56% of brands say their strategy is
informed nearly or fully by big data. This over-reliance has led to
challenges in customer understanding, technology, and organizational
communication. The study found that brands using small data as a basis
for their knowledge of how customers think and feel are more likely to
say they know why one customer chooses to buy while another doesn’t.
Brands currently rely on metrics like loyalty (60%), revenue growth
(60%), and brand awareness (46%) to track their success with customers.
As stated in the study, “Our research is conclusive: How people think
and feel determines how they act. What appears to be a simple notion has
eluded marketers for decades; dyed-in-the-wool brand marketers have been
reluctant to let go of inside-out marketing principles focused on
product, pricing, and promotions. In the last several years, a growing
movement of psychology-influenced marketing, behavioral economics, and
proof points like Forrester’s Brand Energy framework illustrates the
importance of emotions in consumer decision making. The first step to
collecting the right data and performing the right research is to frame
the issue correctly, and organizations looking to impact consumer
decision making must afford primacy to how people think and feel.”
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There is a disconnect between how brands perceive customer behavior
and how customers actually feel: While over half of brands believe
they understand how their customers think and feel, only 38% strongly
agree they know why one customer chooses their brand while
another does not, despite realizing how their business benefits from
this knowledge. -
Small data is better at translating Customer Truth™: 52% of
brands agree that small data is better than big data at helping brands
understand the why behind a customer’s actions, but nearly half
of brands agree they don’t have enough small data insights on their
customers. -
Customers will seek out and pay for personal brand connection:
91% of brands believe customers want convenient and highly
personalized experiences with a brand and 93% agree that consumers are
more likely to spend money with a brand they feel connected to. To
accomplish this, brands must know their Customer Truth™ to understand
why customers act and create this connection.
Zlatko Vucetic, CEO at FocusVision added, “At FocusVision, we help
brands find their Customer Truth™, to understand how customers think and
feel, and why they act. The findings of this study reinforce that
data-driven brands need to operationalize how to look at Big and Small
data holistically. In turn, they will gain a deeper customer
understanding and create a more sustainable business model from loyal
brand advocates, not just one time purchasers and create predictability
in their business–a goal for every business today.”
The study is the result of two surveys: The first included 522 US
consumers who were asked to recall and describe how they thought, felt,
and acted throughout a memorable brand experience. The second surveyed
228 US B2C marketing and customer insights decision makers, including 54
CMOs, to gain insight into how they seek to understand their customers
and what key challenges are holding them back.
Download the full study here.
About FocusVision
Established in 1990, FocusVision offers the market’s most comprehensive
suite of experience insights software solutions – including advanced
survey, online interview and focus groups, and online qualitative
research community solutions to get brands close enough to their
customers to have a full understanding of Customer Truth™ — how they
think, feel, and act. Trusted by 18 of the Top-20 Fortune 100 companies,
and all of the Top-10 Healthcare and CPG companies, FocusVision was
honored for its Outstanding Innovation in Customer Experience Management
with a MarTech Breakthrough Award in 2018. Learn more at focusvision.com.
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