Emotional Engagement

CA Calls for European Businesses to Wake Up to ‘Web Stress’ or Risk Losing Customers and Sales

• World’s first* neurological experiment into poor online customer experience proves existence of ‘web stress’
• Brain wave analysis indicates that consumers need to concentrate 50% more than normal when using a badly performing website
• Two most stressful points of the online sales cycle are search and checkout

* Based on extensive desk research in February 2010. Read more…

To explore ‘web stress’, CA partnered with Foviance to see if application performance had an impact on buying habits and consumer behaviour online.

Using an EEG (Electroencephalography) cap and sophisticated neurological and physiological testing equipment, volunteers were wired up during the study and had their brain wave activity monitored. Everyday tasks online such as finding and buying items were tested by the volunteers.

The results revealed that search and checkout were the two most stressful points of everyday processes carried out online, resulting in the volunteers exhibiting a heightened level of ‘web stress’. This type of stress results in more than three quarters of customers abandoning websites before they have completed the task that drove them to the site in the first place. To download the whitepaper a valid e-mail address is required, however Foviance will not contact you unless you specifically request it.

Does emotional attachment to a brand prevail over the online customer experience for Internet-based companies? Read more…

Foviance’s CEO, Paul Blunden is running a session at the MarketingWeekLive! -  Online Marketing Event on Wednesday 1st July with Sean Gilchrist of Barclays.

The session will be held at 9.30am at the Online Marketing event called “Barclays Online Banking – Putting the customer at the heart of it”

Hot topic : Electroencephalography (EEG), Download Foviance’s white paper on Emotional Engagement Research

London, UK, 11th June 2009 – Foviance, the expert in customer experience, reveals how subconscious behaviour can be better understood through research into emotional engagement. Read more…

This month Foviance published a white paper that describes the results of research we conducted that provides a deeper understanding about how emotional engagement can be measured as part of the customer experience. The research, conducted initially in the gaming sector with PKR, reveals 5 measures of emotional engagement that tell us a great deal about customer experience at a subconscious level.

In any market, and in particular one that is in the throws of a global recession, making sure customers are satisfied is a critical success factor for businesses. In parallel, there is a growing focus on customer experience for businesses looking to not only increase customer satisfaction but also drive up sales and create new markets.

A great deal of consumer behaviour has been conclusively demonstrated by psychologists as irrational and that emotion invariably trumps logical thinking. Revealing how people respond to specific aspects of an experience has been hard to measure but by combining electroencephalography (EEG) with other research methodologies it is possible to accurately gauge emotional engagement.

Foviance approach, EEM™ (emotional engagement measurement™) has been shown to offer significant new insights and enable brands to better meet the needs of the market. And of course, marketers also know that connecting at an emotional level with consumers, pays commercial dividends. By measuring mind-states, emotions and other subconscious responses and marrying them up with cognitive responses, it helps us to understand the thinking, actions and behaviours of the respondents.

The film and advertising industries have widely used approaches combining EEG and qualitative research methods to help explore the depths of the subconscious, helping to create successful merchandising, packaging and creative conceptual ideas that people want. Similarly, quality customer experiences are vital to the long term survival of businesses and therefore the importance of getting to know your customers must also be combined with understanding them in new ways.

When focused on a sector like the gaming industry, EEM™ has enabled us to experiment further into the customers’ perceptions and responses. It has helped us understand in more detail the satisfaction and impact something like a hard luck or congratulatory message may have. The implications for businesses in all sectors are extensive.

Using techniques that provide answers that were previously unobtainable, Foviance describes the EEM™ approach in our May 2009 White paper.

We all know that emotions play a critical role in decision making. Psychologists have demonstrated conclusively that a great deal of consumer behaviour is not rational and that emotion invariably trumps logical thinking. Of course, marketeers also know that connecting at an emotional level with consumers, pays commercial dividends. Measuring emotional response is not possible using the traditional tools of market research, such as surveys or focus groups, because people are simply unable to articulate their emotional states reliably. EEG (electroencephalography), conventionally used for medical research purposes, can however accurately gauge emotional engagement when used with other research methodologies.

This white paper describes how our approach, EEM™ (emotional engagement measurement™) can offer up significant new insights and thus enabling brands to better meet the needs of the market.

As the costs of customer help services, such as call centres, for online customers continue to rise, many businesses are now looking for new and low cost systems to assist their online customers. Consequently, many businesses with online channels have introduced virtual assistants to their websites. These digital assistants are based on intelligent knowledge based systems that can help customers by answering frequently asked questions typed into a simple query box interface.

Many of these virtual assistants are also ‘personalised’ to make them appear more approachable and sometimes given a name and a picture like Ikea’s cartoon helper Anna or BT’s Emma. Read more…