Quick: Think back to your last vacation. What stands out to you as the most memorable aspects of your trip?
If you’re like most people, you’ll recall the extremes (aka the “peak” moments) and the end (unless your trip just wound down to the travel equivalent of milk toast). Research shows that we tend not to remember the overall experience of our vacation. Instead, our memories weed out the routine or even fun parts (as well as some of the down moments like that crowded flight getting there or the three-day-old sushi). Thus, if you want to have more amazing memories on a trip, build in some major highlights and finish well.
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The same thing applies to brand experiences. You can muster all your customer service reps to try and optimize every touchpoint a consumer has with your brand, but that not only gets expensive, it may not matter. Your audiences will likely forget all the good moments because we’ve come to expect “good” from products and services. This is why measuring customer “satisfaction” doesn’t really help you: no one today wants to be merely satisfied. We want great. Outstanding. Awesome.
But how do you make every touchpoint a superlative? You don’t have to. Just concentrate on creating those peak and end experiences, those defining moments.
In their book, The Power of Moments, authors Chip and Dan Heath lay out a helpful framework for how to create such moments. Normally, it’s easy to think of those standout moments in our lives as being accidental or circumstantial. But as the Heaths point out, they can be constructed and intentional without any loss of impact or authenticity.
The authors provide a simple framework for the four elements that make defining moments. In general, a defining moment will be or contain one or more of the following:
The Power of Moments provides numerous examples and strategies for each point. For a quick summary, check out Dan Heath's talk. From a brand perspective, the power of The Power of Moments lies in making it easier to engage your audiences with experiences they’ll remember and that matter to them. And when that happens, they’ll be far more willing to forgive any less-than-stellar experience they may have had with the brand. They’ll also be more likely to tell their friends about your fabulous company.
Steve Brock is the owner of BrandWallop. He has 30 years of experience partnering with some of the nation's leading corporations and not-for-profit organizations in the areas of branding, internet and social marketing.