Discover why universal human behavior traits are key to a successful XM activation. Show
Experience management (XM) is becoming increasingly vital to organizations’ long-term business success. Understanding human behavior – how and why people act the way they do – can help you design and execute more emotionally engaging experiences. Why human behavior is important to XMCustomers. Employees. Partners. Suppliers. What do these groups have in common? They are all made up of people. Everyone who encounters your organization is a person, and how they think and feel about their experiences with your business is going to affect their loyalty to your company and, ultimately, your bottom line. Consequently, neglecting the human-side of XM is a huge and costly mistake. Before you can effectively manage experiences, however, you must understand the needs and preferences of people across your ecosystem. This means embracing how people actually think and feel, catering to their needs and preferences, and then translating those insights into engaging experiences. Find opportunities to design more compelling experience with our free design worksheet Understanding the basics of human behaviorExperiences are how human beings interface with the world. They can be as boring as responding to a work email or as life-changing as having a child. This means that whenever someone interacts with an organization, they will have an experience. And that experience - whether it’s mundane, transformative, or something in between - is going to generate an emotional response, which in turn will influence their attitudes and inform their future behaviors. Like whether they purchase more products, recommend the business to friends, or stay late at work. So if organizations want to drive profitable behaviors, they need to recognize the ways in which people’s experiences affect how they think, feel, and act toward their business. Just recognizing this connection isn’t enough, however. Organizations actively need to shape how people process and respond to their experiences by managing the five elements of the Human Experience Cycle.
How human behaviors are formedWhile recognizing and managing the relationship between experiences, emotions, and actions is critical, to forge lasting emotional bonds, organizations also need to understand why people feel and behave the way they do. This can be tricky, however, as human beings are incredibly complicated. We’re not completely rational decision-makers who act solely on cold, hard logic. There’s a lot of other hidden factors that influence our behavior. If organizations don’t understand and address these underlying - often unconscious - determinants, they’ll struggle to create consistently engaging experiences. Fortunately, all people share some fundamental characteristics. Recognizing and embracing the Six Key Traits of Human Beings will allow organizations to make deep and lasting connections.
Human behavioral research has many definitions and theories, but generally, it is considered the study of how individuals interact with each other and the environment around them. Findings from behavioral science show that our brains usually rely on heuristics – or mental rules of thumb – to make swift and satisfactory (though not always optimal) decisions. However, sometimes these heuristics fail and lead to cognitive biases, which are systematic errors in our thinking. When creating and managing experiences, organizations need to anticipate and design around these heuristics and biases as they will significantly impact people’s perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors. While behavioral research has identified more than 100 different heuristics and biases, they can be grouped into six general categories:
When organizations are able to create experiences that reflect how humans actually think and behave – rather than treating people like entirely rational, logical thinkers – they will build deeper emotional ties with their audience, ultimately resulting in stronger loyalty and higher profits. Connecting human behavior to XMBy combining your understanding of human behavior with Experience Management skills and capabilities, you can identify experience gaps, uncover opportunities for improvement, and make systematic change throughout your organization. Keep these tips in mind as you develop, refine, and execute your XM program.
Taking actionBusinesses that transform into XM leaders design their experiences around a deep understanding of people’s real goals, desires, and beliefs, which they then translate into opportunities for the business. They design with Intuitive Thinking, not just their Rational Thinking. They create positive memories by focusing on the moments that matter most and ending experiences on a high note. They put aside their fear of discussing emotions to get to the heart of what people truly want and need. And they manage experiences across the Human Experience Cycle. From activating to embedding XM into your organizationMany organizations heavily invest in technology to measure experiences, but you must also have a grasp of the human side of XM in order to create real change. Businesses that recognize this, use behavioral science insights to shape their XM programs, and nurture an XM culture will be able to truly embed XM into the core of their entire organization. What influences the behavior of people?Behaviour is affected by factors relating to the person, including: physical factors - age, health, illness, pain, influence of a substance or medication. personal and emotional factors - personality, beliefs, expectations, emotions, mental health. life experiences - family, culture, friends, life events.
What is cognitive affect?Cognitions might trigger affective feelings or behaviours, and affect might influence cognitive processes like memory and attention but the two are considered to be separate in some real and fundamental way (what philosophers would call “ontologically” distinct).
How does psychology affect behavior?Essentially, psychology helps people in large part because it can explain why people act the way they do. With this kind of professional insight, a psychologist can help people improve their decision making, stress management and behavior based on understanding past behavior to better predict future behavior.
How do emotions and thoughts influence the behavior?Emotion has a substantial influence on the cognitive processes in humans, including perception, attention, learning, memory, reasoning, and problem solving. Emotion has a particularly strong influence on attention, especially modulating the selectivity of attention as well as motivating action and behavior.
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