Thanks for being a valued customer.

Many of us never hear this anymore; it’s sad. What happen to businesses valuing their customers? Now I know some of you are cringing right now and shaming me because you do value your customer. But let me explain…

Today we’re a transactional culture. We demand fast capabilities, service and the ability to consume content from any device and anywhere in the world.

What does this mean to us? Simple answer? Don’t get lost in the product and forget about the customer. They’re both equally important.

Are customers dumb, lazy or what?!

No, it means we need to return to our genetics as humans. When you look at our human biology; helping is in our genes. But…we’ve culturally changed this genetic mindset to “helping” isn’t ok, unless we have something to gain…out of the “transaction” of helping someone. So does this make sense to anyone? haha…simple answer is no. We all want to help in one way or another, just differently. If that resonates… According to Batson (you’ll read below) we actually yearn to help people and we get satisfaction from helping.

There’s a theory called “empathy-altruism” Daniel Batson (Princeton) wrote:

According to this ‘empathy-altruism hypothesis’, if you feel empathy towards another person you will help them, regardless of what you can gain from it. Relieving their suffering becomes the most important thing. When you do not feel empathy, the social exchange theory takes control.

What does all the mean? It means we need to be nicer to our customers, help them out when we can. Be the advisor and the hero. Give them a personal touch and surprise them at every corner. Empathize.

Don’t forget. What a customer says in a crowded room full of people is what they “really” feel about your brand and product. You want to create advocates of your brand and products. So spend some time getting to know your customer and empathize what they go through during the discover, evaluate, purchase and support exeprience.

Listen, Learn, React, Measure and try again. You’ll fail, but you’ll learn a lot from your customer during the journey.

Thanks for reading.

I study Customer Experiences, Customer Touch Points, Digital and Physical Designed Experiences, User Flows and how digital pairs the physical exeprience. Oh and I design for web, mobile and R&D.

I’m Evan Scronce and I design at Monotype.