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Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business. You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)
 

Consumers choose brands like they do people

There is compelling new evidence that consumers judge and behave toward brands in much the same way they do toward other people and social groups, according to research from the Relational Capital Group (RCG), Princeton University, and the University of Louvain.

The research, published in the April 2012 edition of the Journal of Consumer Psychology, applied a well-established human perception framework, pioneered by Dr Susan Fiske at Princeton, to the study of 22 well-known brands. The researchers found that consumers respond to brands using the same pattern of perceptions, emotions and behaviours predicted by Dr Fiske's work on the Stereotype Content Model, which has been used extensively in the study of societal stereotypes and ethnic bias around the world.

This suggests that consumers perceive and judge brands and companies using the same criteria they use for people and social groups, which has major implications for the future study and management of brands of all kinds.

"It turns out that recent efforts by brands and companies to digitize, automate and outsource their interactions with consumers are fundamentally at odds with the way humans perceive, judge and build loyalty to brands," said Chris Malone, co-author of the lead research paper and Chief Advisory Officer for RCG. "As a result, consumers are more cynical, distrustful and disloyal toward large brands and companies than ever before."

The brands studied in the research include Advil, AIG, Amtrak, BP, Burger King, Campbell's, Coca-Cola, Goldman Sachs, Hershey, Johnson & Johnson, Marlboro, McDonalds, Mercedes, Minute Maid, Porsche, Rolex, Rolls Royce, Shell, Tropicana, Tylenol, US Postal Service and Veterans Affairs Hospitals.

"We found a strong statistical correlation between consumers' perceptions of each brand's warmth and competence and their intent to purchase and remain loyal to that brand," concluded Fiske. "These findings are consistent with other studies we've conducted that validate the influence and predictive power of warmth and competence on human behaviour."

In addition to Malone, the authors of the research paper were Dr Nicolas Kervyn (Post-Doctoral fellow at the University of Louvain) and Dr Fiske (Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology at Princeton University).


Sources: Relational Capital Group RCG /
The Marketing Factbook.
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    Categorised as:

  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Loyalty
  • Knowing The Customer
  • Marketing Know-How

Have you seen The Customer Experience Factbook?

In this 180+ page report, you'll find all the information and support you need to build a profitable, effective CX Improvement Program that spans every part of your business.

You'll be able to implement and manage meaningful and profitable change, and grow your bottom line despite a slowing economy. Grab this goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, technologies, research, suppliers and partners, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid CX strategy.

While most marketers could list maybe a dozen key points for improving their brand's Customer Experience (CX), the researchers and writers at The Marketing Factbook have identified FORTY main 'CX Keys' which will help you drive your customers to new levels of delight, loyalty, advocacy and profitability.

The areas in which customers have direct contact with your organization are perhaps the most obvious places in which CX improvements can be made, and this report addresses all 24 of these 'Direct CX Keys', applicable to offline and online businesses alike.

At the same time there are many other areas that indirectly affect CX (such as the supply chain, policies and processes) in which every business can make simple but far-reaching improvements. This report guides you through the problems and solutions for all 16 of these 'Indirect CX Keys', many of which are often forgotten or under-played even in the best CX strategies.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)
 
Copyright © 2001-2025 Peter J. Clark