Wowing Customers Through Their Senses

Keith Kennedy is a grower of thousands of chickens which he supplies to major chicken producers. Chickens come to his farm in East Texas as baby chicks and end up in supermarkets worldwide. Growing a healthy chicken takes knowing the right amount of space, temperature, and feed. But Keith has also found that playing the right music in the chicken house enhances their health and growth. "We experimented with all types of music until we found the tone, beat, and style chickens liked best." Think of it as serving through the senses.

Customer experience can be completely reconceptualized and fundamentally overhauled when you ask: "What does your customer experience smell like, feel like, look like, sound like, or taste like?" Here are perspectives on ways each of the five senses can be a portal to delivering a compelling experience and a customer memory that ensures advocacy.

The Look of Fidelity

An ordinary furniture selling ordinary furniture became an extra-ordinary destination when a new employee with a perchance for novelty began work as a salesperson. She put an elegant antique chair in the middle of the showroom. Everyone just had to sit in it. A realistic-looking black cat positioned under a nightstand delighted kids-in-tow who argued over whether or not it was real. When her brother's antique Rolls-Royce had to be mothballed for a while, she had it towed to the store and parked at the front door. Even the bathroom got an overall with funny posters and fresh flowers.

Most customer experiences start with what we see. Make every detail of customers' visual experiences match the "script" of your business. Sports bars have TVs with several channels on ESPN-like stations. An antique store had employees costumed in old-fashioned formal wear. Ask twenty customers to critique your website home page. Does that picture add value? If your bathroom was your customers' total experience, how would they grade it? What role does the color of signage play? Would an employee uniform matter?

The Nose Knows

A famous study by Alan Hirsch discovered that customers were 84% more likely to buy Nike shoes in a room with a pleasant scent than at all. The study also showed that a Brooklyn supermarket had a 7% sales jump after installing scent machines. Another study on MRI patients found that 64% of patients who inhaled a vanilla aroma significantly reduced pre-procedure anxiety, compared to 4% of patients who did not.[1]

Lincoln has introduced a showroom scent called "Essense of Lincoln." The scent features top notes of green tea to encourage a sense of upscale well-being and undertones of jasmine and tonka beans to create a relaxing atmosphere. "While every sense plays a part in forming a client's perception of an experience, scent has one of the strongest connections to not only memory but emotion," said Dennis Carnevale, Lincoln experience training manager. "Essence of Lincoln is a subtle, yet powerful tool for our dealers to use to help clients make an emotional connection to their store and the Lincoln brand."[2]

The Sound of Loyalty

You would expect to hear classical sounds in a Steinway piano dealership, but how can it be used in settings where sound is atypical? Auditory works when it does not dominate the experience or distract from customer interaction. Having to yell over the dominating piped in music communicates the server cares more about their music than their customers' desires. Effective sound must be congruent with the setting and customers' preferences. Call centers often give customers a choice of music types when required to wait. The magic of sound is most impactful when it is an element of surprise.

Billy Rivera of Karaoke Cab in Charlotte was the subject of a story by Simone Orendain on the NPR news program All Things Considered for his novel approach to a mundane service. With a laptop in the front seat next to him and a screen scrolling the words on the back of the seat that the passengers can view, he offers customers a choice of over 39,000 songs. Some passengers so enjoy their wild sing-along that they ask Billy to keep driving around the block until the song ends, not minding while the meter continues to run.

The Touch of Advocacy

The super modern Fairmont Hotel in midtown Vancouver places antique toys on the desk of each guest room—a kaleidoscope, a slinky in its original box, and a box of pick-up sticks. It helps balance old with new and has become the hotel's most commented-on feature. Part of the magic of touch is congruence, ensuring sight and feel are in synch. Bentley Motors uses the same leather on the dealership chairs as the seats in their luxurious vehicle; the table on which purchase papers are signed is constructed of the same burr walnut found in the motor car.

The MACq01 Hotel in Hobart, Tasmania, is a storytelling hotel. It cleverly celebrates the five characteristics of the Tasmanian people: hearty and resilient, colorful and quirky, curious and creative, grounded yet exceptional, and a fighting believer. Each hotel room and section of the hotel uses the senses to convey one of those five characteristics. The Old Wharf restaurant, for example, tells the history of local industry, reflecting pioneers in mining, fishing, and boatbuilding. It is expressed through raw finishes, rusted steel, and recycled wharf timbers, conveying the strong sense of hearty resilience. Like a tactile-designed museum, you can physically feel its history.

The Taste of Retention

Miller Brothers Ltd. is an upscale men's clothing store in Atlanta. Owners Robby & Greg wanted their store to be a great place to hang out and have a beer with the boys but also be the best store in town—a sophisticated but fun place. Miller Brothers combines a seasonal trunk sale with low-country barbeque and brew. They provide cushy, melt-into-the-cushions comfortable seating. The bar is stocked only with premium brands. And the attention to taste even extends to the potential little customer in tow. A large, colorful gumball machine is on the table near the store entrance. Beside it is a child's dream come true: a glass bowl filled with shiny pennies, there for the taking.

Among the five senses, taste it the most challenging to employ. Not only is there a safety consideration, but customers also vary in their culinary preferences. The secret to making it work is surprise. Even if you get it wrong, customers' admiration for your ingenuity will put them in a forgiving mood. When a Western wear store in Texas added a large barrel of ice-cold beer, sales jumped even though most patrons turned down a salesperson's "May I get you a cold beer" offer. A seafood restaurant put salty toothpicks at the cash register for exiting patrons. Be bold in taste-full service, and customers will reward you with their loyalty.

“Nothing we use or hear or touch can be expressed in words that equal what is given us by the senses,” wrote philosopher Hannah Arendt. When customers experience service through elevated sensory stimulation, those experiences literally “come alive.” Unlike a product, which by nature is inanimate, service is by definition alive. And the more the service experience captures and reinforces the quality of aliveness, the more it adds value and elevates loyalty.

1] Bhardwaj E, Gowda R, Hofstätter V, Mallya S & Shan J, "Follow your nose to enhanced customer experiences," American Marketing Association, 2017.

[2] Nordqvist C, "Aromatherapy: What you need to know," 20 March 2017, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/10884.php