Designing your customer experience to evoke nostalgia….
Author: Colin Shaw
A recent study has found that customers prefer nostalgic products when they are feeling left out, or are missing a feeling of belonging.
Science Daily reports on the study that “when participants were excluded (from the same ball game as in the previous experiments) they not only felt a higher need to belong, but their need to belong was “cured” by eating a “nostalgic cookie” — a brand that had been popular in the past.”
This has potentially interesting ramifications for designing your customer experience to promote customer retention. The study goes on to report:
They conducted a series of five experiments in which they found that the key to preferring nostalgic products is the need to belong. “Whenever a situation arises in which people feel a heightened need to belong to a group, or generally need to feel socially connected, they will show a corresponding higher preference for nostalgic products,” the authors write.
How often do you exert your efforts to marketing new customers, rather than concentrating on your current customers? You may have loyal customers that love your brand, they are the perfect brand advocates and have consistently chosen your brand throughout the years. Yet you don’t reward them, market to them, or even reference them. These are the people that in times of need will reach your product, contact your service or visit your site.
How does your customer experience promote customer retention? Is it geared towards to drawing in new customers, or improving the experience for existing customers?
By Colin Shaw | Published: May 19, 2010