Emotive Surveys: Yay or Nay!
Customer behavior is largely determined by their emotions. But, emotions differ based on situations. Emotions can often take over a person’s rational way of thinking and can influence whether a product will be purchased or not.
Say for instance, if the customer is angry or agitated with the brand for reasons within or beyond your control they are less likely to purchase it as compared to those who hold your brand in high regard. Thus, a positive brand image is crucial in managing emotions towards a brand.
Discovering customer emotions for your brand is essential in knowing how loyal they are towards it. While some emotions can be rationally explained and understood, others emerge from irrationality making it inexplicable.
One way of questioning customers to know their emotions is to directly ask them how they are feeling about a certain product or brand. The response should ultimately bring you to basic emotions.
The other way to understand emotions is to ask indirectly in the form of stories, images, etc that indicate emotions without mentioning them directly. The respondent is asked to explain the reason behind the choice so the researchers can gauge the emotion behind it.
Another technique that is quite effective is voice or facial coding. Coding uses facial expressions or voices to connote certain emotions. This negates the need for people to report emotions by detecting them automatically. However, such a technique could also be subject to manipulation.
A customer’s emotional response to a brand is of utmost importance. It has an impact on its image, sales, growth, etc. However, emotions are volatile. What a customer may feel at one point, they may not feel at another. Similarly, there may be moments when a customer feels an emotion towards a brand without a rationale behind it. Therefore, while evaluation of emotion as a form of research is beneficial, it is not always accurate.
