Designing for emotion: Laws of emotion and emotional motivators

This is the second in our series on Emotion Design in CX. Check out the 1st, 3rd,  and 4th next.

Designing for Emotion is the process of driving emotional connection within your customer experience. The process involves understanding the emotions associated with your brand, prioritizing the emotions you want to encourage or eliminate, and designing for them in your CX.

Before designing for emotion in CX, it’s important to understand how emotion works by becoming familiar with the core principles of emotion design, including laws of emotion and emotional motivators.

Laws of emotion in CX design

According to Forrester, here are laws of emotions that make the most impact on customer experience and how to put them into practice:

1. Negative experiences hurt more than positive ones help: Make eradicating pain points a top priority
2. Repeated exposure leads to weaker emotional responses: Keep the experience fresh so customers don’t burnout
3. Emotions can color an experience in a variety of ways: Consider using scenarios or personas that reflect how customers feel in different modes
4. Memories are important, even if they don’t match reality: Memory is strongest at the most intense moment, and at the very end of an experience. Give special attention to the most memorable moments.

Emotional motivators

Motivators drive customer behavior and emotional responses to an experience. Think of a motivator as an ideal goal or end state for a customer, and emotion as the byproduct. While an emotion is easier to identify and track, the motivator is the underlying reason for being. An HBR research study uncovered the following top 10 most powerful emotional motivators associated with customer behavior and value:

• Stand out from the crowd; be seen as special
• Have confidence in the future
• Sense of well-being (stress-free)
• Sense of freedom
• Sense of thrill
• Sense of belonging
• Protect the environment
• Live up to one’s ideal self-image
• Feel secure (pursue without worry)
• Lead a meaningful life

It’s important to identify the motivators that are relevant to your brand and leverage them in your CX design. Once a motivator is identified, track it through the emotional response of your customers. If emotions are positive, the motivator has been fulfilled—customer needs have been met or exceeded. Negative emotions suggest a motivator is unfulfilled, and customer needs have been ignored or offended.

When customers fulfill their motivators through an experience with your brand, they will create an emotional connection to it, and both parties will gain more value.

For more detail on how to drive customer behavior and emotional connection, download the Ultimate Guide to Customer Engagement.