Emotion critical to impactful brand interactions

Consumers who have a very positive emotional response to interactions with a brand are more likely to trust, forgive, recommend and purchase it more as a result, according to a new study.

How the study worked

• The XM Institute, a unit of research firm Qualtrics, conducted an online survey featuring a demographically representative sample of 9,055 consumers.
• Members of its panel rated the level of perceived success, effort and emotion from their recent interactions with companies featured in a set of 22 industries.
• They also stated how likely they were to recommend, trust, forgive and buy more from these brands as a result of their experiences.

Emotional connection drives purchase likelihood

• A high emotional rating, indicating a very positive feeling, was correlated with the strongest likelihood to trust, recommend, forgive and buy more from a brand.
• Eighty-six percent of customers who reported this kind of emotional connection in a brand interaction were likely to purchase more in the future.
• That figure hit 81% for interactions that were low-effort and frictionless, and 80% for the complete success of an interaction.
• Consumers who were “delighted” by an interaction were 10.3x more likely to recommend a brand than someone who was “upset”.
  
• People registering high emotional scores were also more likely to forgive, trust and recommend brands than people reporting equivalent satisfaction with effortlessness and success.

Companies underperform in emotional terms

• People who found it “very easy” to interact with a brand were 8.1x more likely to recommend this product.
• That total hit 6.3x for shoppers who “completely succeeded” in reaching their goal.
• Shoppers were nearly 5x more likely to trust and buy more from a company following a positive experience when measured against a negative one.
• More consumers, however, reported that companies performed well in terms of delivering successful and easy interactions than in terms of the emotional component.

Sourced from XM Institute