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Sounds
good." "Feels right." "Leaves a bad taste in my mouth."
Our language is flooded with sensory wording, yet we are mostly unaware of how
our gut instinctual reactions "color" our likes and dislikes as we
enter a place. The multi-sensory cues we feel "tell" us a lot. People
have millions of almost instantaneous, brief, sequential reactions to someone's
home, hotel, hospital, stadium, store, or other site, yet they are consciously
aware of only a few. But they do draw strong conclusions about what they think
they experienced. You can put people off or put them at ease if you know how to
influence those perceptions. If
you are operating a site, you face increasing competition, not only from your
kind of business but also from other kinds. Some hospitals have three-star
restaurant food. Some convention centers will have
museum-quality retail displays. Some hotels feature live and virtual
entertainment so people don't have to leave their cozy hotel entertainment room.
And some places have a bit of all these features and more. Don't wait until a
competing venue becomes more savvy and strategic about the design of the
experience they offer staff and attendees. No
matter what size or kind of place you want to enhance, here are a few simple
"first impression"-related cues to cultivate a warmer relationship
with the people who enter your doors and even inspire their bragging rights when
they talk about it later. 1.
Larger-Than-Life Landmark An
outstanding focal point that can be seen from first sight of your place until
people are almost inside provides several positive effects on attendees. It can
orient them toward what is ahead, literally by moving them toward your structure
and emotionally by preparing them for entering. A steeple, for example, will not
have as strong an emotional impact as a 30-foot turning mobile, illumined by
changing colors of light and visible through an entrance-side, first-story
window. 2.
Move to Motivate Motion
increases the intensity of your emotion, while you are in motion or watching it.
If this impermanent or permanent landmark feature of your facility moves or
otherwise changes (color, shape, size, lighting), it can increase the viewer's
sense of involvement and anticipation. Their expectation that the ensuing event
will be exciting often positively colors what they then think they experience
inside. Every small and large motion heightens emotion. An employee's turning
head or body or outstretched hand makes attendees remember more of what was said
in that moment and feel more strongly about that interaction than they will feel
about other moments at your place when they are, for example, seated and not
moving, around others who are also seated and not moving. 3.
Create a Foot Oasis If
people feel something soft underfoot within two minutes of entering your place,
they are more likely to be comforted and more comfortable about the site and the
other people in the place. Further, they will tend to pause where it is soft and
take more positive notice of whatever they are looking at during that moment.
Wherever people have to wait, such as in a refreshment or restroom line, you can
mitigate their irritation, anxiety, and capacity to become disagreeable by
placing cushioned surfaces underfoot, beginning before the place where waiting
is most likely to begin. 4.
Purge Perplexing Patterns In
your staff dress, avoid patterned garments, especially on the upper half of
their bodies, because patterns break up the viewer's attention span. People are
less likely to hear and take direction or listen to instructions, even those
they have requested. Your staff will have to speak more slowly and repeat
themselves more frequently to attendees, who will be more impatient. 5.
Don't Go Up the Wall Patterned
walls also make people who walk past them less attentive and more anxious. In
some cases, passersby even reduce their peripheral vision and bump into each
other more often. 6.
Soften Senseless Sounds People
don't have "sound lids" to block out sound they'd prefer not to hear.
Females and older people are especially sensitive to even subtle ambient sounds
from air conditioning and other systems, let alone crowd noise. Few are
conscious of how deeply and adversely steady background noise influences their
perceptions of others. Several studies have shown that such noise heightens
listeners' views that the people near them are thoughtless. Such listeners are
more likely to engage in hostile words and behavior. 7.
Generate Early Good Will When
people are offered some small memento for free, up front -- especially before
they have given up anything such as money for a purchase -- they have a more
positive perception of the store, staff, and ensuing experience. For example, a
smart restaurant manager has the wait staff offer a free glass of wine to
customers who are kept waiting for a table, which not only placates the
customers but increases per-customer spending. Similarly,
a store manager could partner with a vendor outside your industry who wants
access to the kind of customer who will be visiting your store. You give away
their sample item to each customer who makes a purchase in your store. The
souvenir value could be small and proportionate to the range of product prices
in your store. The positive effect will be far beyond the actual value because
it sets an early tone of generosity and openness that inspires reciprocity. 8.
Increase Per-Customer Spending I
tried a simple test at two movie theatres in my county. With the agreement of
the management, I hired five high-schoolers to distribute wrapped,
single-sample, coffee-flavored ice cream bonbons to everyone in the movie line
for the early seating. We did not give bonbons to those coming to the later
seating. We reversed the process the following weekend: people coming to the
first showing did not get bonbons but the second crowd did. We interviewed all
four groups as they left the theatres. On both evenings, the crowds that
received bonbons spent 24% more on movie refreshments than the other audiences.
Over two-thirds of the money they spent was on non-bonbon choices inside.
Further, when interviewed afterward, the bonbon folks viewed the movie, the
movie theatre, and the movie staff far more positively than did the non-bonbon
audiences. 9.
Keep Them Happy Longer Take
the "free offerings upfront" procedure a step further in inculcating a
feeling of good will and camaraderie among your music-event or in-store
"audiences." Offer something up front that engages their attention and
increases the chance they will talk with your staff and with each other.
Perceived waiting time is reduced, people are less restless, and their view of
anyone with whom they speak goes up. Overall,
they consider the people around them more thoughtful, more interesting, and even
more good-looking than those who were not given freebies and thus engage in
fewer discussions with others. In these audience situations we have increased
positive perceptions, even with objects of negligible cost such as multicolored
fortune-cookie-size fortunes (with no cookie). 10.
Make Them Passionate Fans We've
also used more expensive (but still low-cost) mementos, such as lightly scented,
playing-card-size cards with, on one side, action images of people related to an
in-store display and, on the other side, a quote from a related celebrity. These
were "keepers" that inspired bragging rights in the recipient. People
are more likely to stick these cards in a purse or pocket, show them to more
friends and colleagues, and display them and refer to them more frequently and
for a longer time. That's great word-of-mouth reputation-building for your
place. With
each action visitors take on behalf of the experience they had at your site, the
more they deepen their belief in the positive memory they have. You are creating
passion-bond connections with customers. As they comment on their souvenirs,
they are self-training themselves as your salespeople, using the positive
selling points in which they most deeply believe to sell others. With each
action they take, they deepen the rut of memory in their brains and are more
likely to be more fervent in their descriptions and to want to participate in a
future sale or other event at your site. |
