WHAT DOES YOUR BUSINESS SOUND LIKE?
At Glasgow airport they play natural, ambient sounds (birds singing, plus soothing chill-out music underneath it) over the loudspeakers to relax travellers. Sales in the airport shops have apparently increased by 10%.
Organizations spend millions on visual identity. But almost nothing on aural identity - what you sound like to customers. Yet sound has a massive impact on your customer experience.
Surveys have shown that two sounds that put customers' teeth on edge are espresso machines and diesel engines. The latter is not surprising but the former gives you pause for thought if you run a cafe and think your proposition is a relaxing place for a quiet cup of coffee...but your espresso machines are the equivalent of finger nails on a blackboard to your customers.
Gurus of the customer experience such as Shaun Smith tell us, in his most recent book - See, Feel, Think, Do - that we now need to design the customer experience for all the customer's senses to be memorable.
You'll also find Martin Lindstrom's book ‘Brand Sense, Build Powerful Brands Through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight and Sound' useful in designing a sensory immersive experience for customers. And in case you think it wouldn't work in your business, you're missing a trick: BMW design the ‘new car smell' into their cars on purpose.
So, what senses will you appeal to with your memorable customer experience?
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your ideas and the best one will be shared in an upcoming issue of ProfiTips.
