Customer Experience Podcast

Why Are We Scared of New Technology?

We have some exciting new technology for CX. Facial recognition technology and facial expression analysis yield some new and exciting data about how customers feel during a Customer Experience. The only problem is that many people find it creepy.

This episode of The Intuitive Customer asks the question Why Are We Scared of New Technology? It turns out, we have been here before with new technology. Of course, that time, it was something far more crazy than recording facial expressions and using software to determine how a person feels.

What was this crazy technology? It was trains.

According to mentalfloss.com, some people believed back when the first trains were running that if women traveled over 50 mph, their uteruses would fly out of their bodies. Other people thought humans would just melt.

Luckily, neither prediction came to pass. Now we travel at hundreds of miles an hour with no concern for melting or reproductive organs flying out of anyone.

In other words, we got used to the idea of riding trains and other transport at high rates of speed, and we don’t worry anymore.

I believe the same pattern of fearing technology and then getting used to it will be valid for facial recognition and facial expression analysis technology also. However, before we get into it any deeper, we should clarify the difference between the two technologies.

• Facial Recognition: Uses your facial features to identify who you are.
• Facial Expression Analysis: Uses your facial expression to identify how you feel.

In both technologies, the software records the spatial relationships of your features and compares them to a database. However, with facial recognition, it’s a database of people’s identities. With facial expression analysis, it’s a database of unconscious reactions our face makes in response to how we feel, e.g., dilation of the pupils or a widening of the eyes, tightness around the mouth, etc.

There are excellent applications for this technology for Customer Experience strategy and design. As global customer loyalty consultants, we believe knowing how your customers feel at the different moments of their interaction with your organization is invaluable when you are seeking to foster customer retention. Best of all, you don’t have to ask them about it, which can introduce some other influences that may or may not skew the data.

However, we have also learned that many don’t like the idea that cameras are recording their reactions and analyzing their unconscious reactions to how something makes them feel.

Facial recognition and facial expression analysis is the future of research for Customer Experience. I think we can get over this creepy factor and embrace the technology for our industry. Also, before too long, I believe we will wonder how we ever lived without it.

Listen to the podcast in its entirety to learn more about Why We Are Scared of New Technology for your Customer Experience.

The Intuitive Customer podcasts are designed to explain the psychological concepts behind customer behavior.  

If you would like to find out from one of our CX consultants how you can implement the concepts we discussed in your organization’s marketing to improve customer loyalty and retention, contact us at www.beyondphilosophy.com.

To subscribe to The Intuitive Customer and never miss a podcast, please click here.