People tend to be less sensitive to improvement the more things improve.
9Diminishing sensitivity is why what exceeded customers’ expectations and delighted them in your experience on its introduction becomes what customers expect and appreciate—but don’t celebrate—upon return. So, let’s look at what diminishing sensitivity today means to your experiences, the implications of it in your customer evaluations, and what you can do about it.
There is plenty of bad news to be had about a recession. However, if you think about it, there are some silver linings, too. With that in mind, we are going to explore some of these surprising advantages to manage how we respond to the looming threat of recession that we all are doing business under today.
Before we get into that, I would like to start with our younger listeners by explaining that recessions are part of a normal economic cycle. As a “mature” member of the business world, I know that this recession is only the next in a long line of recessions that came before.
Customer strategy results in some interesting questions. Recently, Claire Hillman, a listener (and viewer of our new YouTube channel) asked us one she has been mulling in her strategic planning: Should I move to where my customers are or move them to where I want to be?
It’s an interesting question. My knee-jerk reaction is to say, where they are. It’s a customer-centric answer, and we know how critical customer-centricity is.
The world is crazy. There’s a war in Ukraine. The UK has a cost-of-living crisis as energy prices are rising, and loads of people are moving into fuel poverty. There’s inflation, strikes, and the looming threat of a recession and catastrophic climate change.
The current environment I describe is very stressful, with many things you cannot control, which makes a few things on the path forward uncertain.
Change is hard. So, when you have to make changes in your organization, you face many challenges. However, we have a secret superpower you can unlock to help you: Influence.
On a recent podcast, we hosted writer, teacher, researcher, and Climate philanthropist Zoe Chance, Ph.D., author of Influence is your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. Chance is an assistant professor of marketing at the Yale School of Management, where she teaches the most popular course, “Mastering Influence and Persuasion.” Her research on influence has been published in top academic journals and often garners the attention of global media outlets. Her website, zoechance.com, also has numerous content resources regarding using interpersonal influence for a positive impact. In addition, half of the profits from her book go to 350.org, a global network of climate activists seeking change through the power of ordinary people.
Fear is a powerful motivator for what we do. It is also a powerful tool for marketing.
So, with Halloween coming up, we decided we would dive deeper into why this is and why it works to get people to do things. Some of the reasons might, well, scare you.
Okay, they probably won’t scare you but will surprise you. See, we were tricking you. Wasn’t that a treat?
