MAL 19/17 (MARKETING AFRICA) | Page 76

DOWN MEMORY LINE THE MAKING OF MEMORIES: REMEMBER ME? INCREASING CUSTOMER PREFERENCE BY TURNING MOMENTS INTO MEMORIES By Daniel Oseman W hile we know that in-the- moment data is important, we don’t believe the way it is currently interpreted tells the full story. Most conclusions are missing the link between customers’ instantaneous reactions and the long- term effect of an experience. In many cases, there’s a time-span of weeks, months and even years between the experience and the customer’s next interaction with the company. So how do certain moments remain fixed in minds bombarded with millions of messages in the intervening period, while others are totally forgotten about? And how does this affect the customer relationship? Understanding and interpreting customers’ individual experiences with a company has become increasingly important in the last few years. The development of online social platforms coupled with increased sophistication in gathering customer opinion allows companies to get closer to the actual moment of truth. Not all experiences are created equal The normal assumption is that relationship strength is the sum of all interactions a customer has with a company – and thus that all experiences contribute in the same way. As a consequence companies ‘‘ Understanding and interpreting customers’ individual experiences with a company has become increasingly important in the last few years. The development of online social platforms coupled with increased sophistication in gathering customer opinion allows companies to get closer to the actual moment of truth.’’ 74 MAL 19/17 ISSUE struggle to reach smart and profitable investment decisions. But customers have so many experiences across a wide spectrum of touchpoints that they can’t possibly remember them all. So to give them an equal weight of importance and financial commitment seems unfocused and wasteful. Surely, some experiences must be more important than others. Thanks for the memory Flying in the face of conventional thinking, our research challenged the idea that each customer experience impacted with equal measure and therefore played an identical role in shaping company perception and long-term loyalty to a company. We set out to prove that in-the- moment experience is not the same as the memory of the experience at a later point in time. To put it another way, the impact of a particular experience on a customer decision months or years later depends on the memory of the original experience rather than the actual experience itself.