A rather smelly Customer Experience….
Author: Colin Shaw
Greasy Fish & Chip shops, fresh pine needles or a plasticy manufactured pong.
What does your customer experience smell like? Have you included any olfactory forethought when you were designing your customer experience? A recent study at Florida State University has shown “that the natural scent of an ovulating woman can boost the testosterone levels of men exposed to that scent”. The men participating in the study smelt t-shirts worn by women at different stages of ovulation and the researchers then measured levels of testosterone.
What relevance does this have to how i design my customer experience i hear you ask? Well, it’s twofold really:
1. What immediate impression does the smell of your product, service or store give your customers? Do you think this improves or detracts from your Customer Experience?
2. To quote the original Neuroscience Marketing article: “There can be no doubt that other scents are hardwired into our brains and can evoke specific physiological or psychological changes. Developing a library of such scents could make for some interesting olfactory marketing opportunities.”
Remember, a customer experience isn’t just something that is sold into upper management and forgotten about. Your customer experience is every touch, smell and word of your brand and its offering.
By Colin Shaw | Published: May 6, 2010