Emotions Sell

Metronomy’s The Look is playing in my headphones. It’s raining. Trees flicker past the train window, giving way to lakes, little houses in rare villages, and cemeteries filled with the former residents of those very same villages.

This could be the opening of yet another commercial, with that exact moment when, at the climax, the music resonates with what is happening in the frame and squeezes a tear out of the viewer. Everything depends on where the story goes next…

In fact, this is exactly the setting in which I decided to write this chapter.

Emotions are an important part of human life. Inside each of us, there is a chemical cocktail bubbling away, one that grows quieter and quieter with age. Emotions become drier, flatter, more tasteless. And that is before we even mention crises and depression.

Whatever business we take, it is tightly woven into people’s lives. We are born, we grow, we mature, we get sick, we die, and there is no stopping it. At least not while the [anti]utopia of immortality remains out of reach. And in every moment of interaction with the world, a person feels emotions: positive ones, negative ones. Or their absence, in apathy.

Your task as an entrepreneur is to show empathy, understand the customer, and resonate with their inner world here and now.

Many designers try to take emotions into account, even to design them, when creating interfaces, prints, videos… UX and CX designers build Customer Journey Maps to better understand the customer’s path, where emotion is one important metric among others. There must be a dozen excellent books on how to build a CJM. For example, I recommend reading This Is Service Design Doing by Stickdorn, Hormess, Lawrence, and Schneider.

I am sure that, after some time, alongside other design disciplines, the profession of Emotional Experience Designer will become fashionable.

The brightest emotions customers experience when interacting with a business are joy, anger, irritation, and fear.

Fear takes up a large part of the customer experience. Fear for one’s life or property sells safety. Doubts about your product create fears: can I afford it, am I overpaying, what if I don’t need it, what if I’m wrong about the specifications…

It is important to track the places where rational or irrational fear appears, and to give a sense of hope through the explanation of value.

But here is the surprising thing: good customer experience is very similar to good storytelling. If you can write a story that touches people and is interesting to follow, it will significantly strengthen you as a professional.

Your customer or user lives the life of a superhero only thanks to you. Before you, they did not know they were capable of something greater. They did not know you even existed, or that hidden “superpowers” were sleeping inside them.

Look at any film or any book. The main character always lives an ordinary, unremarkable life: Harry Potter as a “Muggle,” Neo as a hacker-computer guy, Luke Skywalker as a worker on his uncle’s farm.

They fall to the very bottom so they can push off from it. They are found by guides who lead them into the wonderful world of the Force. Think of Hagrid, Trinity, Obi-Wan Kenobi.

They cultivate the Force thanks to mentors. Think of wise Dumbledore, awakened Morpheus, experienced Yoda. There is always a Supreme Evil. There is always a Higher Goal for which they master the Force. There is a metaphorical Death at the hands of this enemy, and a Rebirth. Feel how sharply contrasting emotions overwhelm the viewer at every stage.

Designers, directors, and producers mastered this approach long ago: they elegantly manipulate emotions and hold attention anywhere: in a product, on a website, in a game, in a film, in a TV show.

But what is a simple… plumber supposed to do?

Simple.

In this story, the place of any professional lies somewhere between guide and mentor, while the product or service is the Force mastered by our hero: your customer.

Can you picture it? A story about a plumber may sound rather funny, but it is no less fascinating. Mario confirmed this.

Take the customer along this path. They do not know about you. They discover your product. You lead them through pain toward the great Force and solve their problem, even if before that they had not noticed it themselves.