Triggering Happiness in Your Customers

We all know that making our customers happy makes us happy, but how exactly do we make our customers happy? You might be inclined to say that the right product at the right price is the way to go, and certainly that is a component of customer happiness, but the experience you provide your customer around that product or service is just as essential.

There’s a science behind igniting happiness that also applies when talking about customer happiness. Evolution has given our bodies four chemicals that trigger different types of happiness: endorphins, dopamine, oxytocin and serotonin. Each of these chemicals serves a different purpose. For example serotonin happiness is triggered when you feel important and oxytocin happiness is triggered when we trust those around us. However, none of them are present all the time. After all if you were awash with endorphins – the chemical that gives people the temporary strength to lift cars off accident victims – then you would not have enough energy when you needed it for other things.

What does this mean for your business and your customer experience? First, since there are four different chemicals responsible for happiness, there are four different ways to trigger delight in customers. A deliberate customer experience can be designed to ignite happiness as you see fit. You might put it this way: if marketing knows about customer segmentation, customer experience should know about happiness segmentation.

Second, triggering joy is not only positive in the moment, but in the long run. You are programed to repeat what makes you happy, so if your customers experience a pattern of happiness with your business, they will continue to come back. Imprinting happiness into your customer experience will make customer acquisition and retention an easier task.

Third, the customer experience is not about doing everything perfectly all the time. That would be counterproductive because these chemicals are released in spurts, meaning happiness is a sprint, not a marathon. In essence, customer happiness is a limited resource your company should manage closely. That means you need to identify which parts of your customer experience trigger happiness, and what type of happiness. Then you need to ask yourself if you’re using this resource rationally and if you’re getting the return you expect. Pinpointing these specific experiences will help you focus and will give you the best return.