Crash Course in Human Emotions

Emotions you really need to recognize when interacting with customers and employees. For everyone involved in customer experience, marketing, sales, and operations.

Over the last couple of days, my emotions have been more intense than they were a month ago. I feel sad when I see horrific images from ICUs and when I hear stories of loss. I feel disgust toward companies that just keep sending their stupid sales newsletters via email, as if nothing is going on. I felt fear while my fiancé had COVID-19. I felt anger seeing people out on the streets, pretending the world was still normal and that they could go to the beach or the park, putting lives at risk. But I also feel joy when watching funny videos that I receive on WhatsApp. I felt relieved that my fiancé recovered from COVID-19. I was surprised to find a thoughtful, handwritten card with kind words in my mailbox.

Somehow, my emotions run deeper. They’re more visible and more intense. And this isn’t just happening in my emotional world. It’s also happening in yours, in your family, in your community—in fact, in the lives of most people who are currently affected by the coronavirus. This means that we—Customer Experience Professionals, as well as those working in marketing, sales, and operations—need to be aware of the intensity of our employees’ and customers’ emotions.

We definitely need to recognize and learn how to deal with emotions so we can best support our customers and employees.

To help you understand emotions and the range of emotions, I’m sharing the insights of Professor Robert Plutchick and his wheel of emotions. Once you understand this, please apply it to scripts, customer journeys, emails, campaigns, conversations, and likely many other situations. So, here we go….

The basics:

Plutchik believes there are eight primary emotions: anger, fear, sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy. Plutchik argues for the primacy of these emotions by demonstrating that each triggers behavior with high survival value, such as the way fear triggers the fight-or-flight response (source: Wikipedia).

How are the eight emotions related:

As you can see in the emotion wheel, each primary emotion has an opposite; joy is the opposite of sadness, trust is the opposite of distrust, fear is the opposite of anger, and surprise is the opposite of anticipation

The emotions that fall between the eight basic emotions are composite emotions. For example, disgust combined with anger results in the emotion of contempt. Or fear combined with surprise results in awe. Since emotions are complex, this way of looking at them helps us understand where these emotions come from.

The intensity of emotions:

The emotions I feel during these times of the coronavirus feel deeper, as if they were more intense. That is what Plutchik illustrates through the brightness of the colors on the wheel. The deeper the color, the more intense the emotion feels. Looking at the yellow column, the lightest emotion is serenity; deeper down is joy; and the most intense emotion is ecstasy.

Plutchik’s wheel of emotions provides a perfect framework for understanding emotions

Now what?

It is important for all of us to delve deeper into the emotions of our customers and employees—to understand what emotions they are experiencing. Because these emotions need to be taken seriously. As I learned in a mindfulness course, failing to take your emotions seriously is like pushing a cork deeper and deeper underwater. Eventually, it will pop up faster than ever before. Remember my example of the company that keeps sending me sales-oriented newsletters, which, in my view, aren’t appropriate right now? I unsubscribed from their newsletter. When I explained why I was unsubscribing, they replied, “Thank you so much. We value your opinion.” I know for a fact that this is a templated email, so they aren’t listening at all. Now I’m really done with them, since I’ll remember this for a long time.

Three suggestions on how to apply knowledge of emotions:

1. In customer interactions—Acknowledge emotions when speaking with customers. Or train your staff to acknowledge emotions. It has been proven that the more you ignore red or purple emotions, the more they will intensify. This also means that in these uncertain times, customer interactions regarding health, money, and other uncertain topics will take longer. So take that into account when calculating average handling times.

2. In customer/employee communication –Assess what your customer or employee is feeling and experiencing right now. Describe and acknowledge these situations and emotions so that people will continue reading or watching. When showing videos, make sure the person in the video is sincere and also conveys emotion. A best practice is the video featuring Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott, in which he explains the impact of COVID-19 on Marriott to its associates.

3. In customer journey mapping sessions—I oftensee that “Happy,” “Neutral,” and “Unhappy” are used to map emotions. As you’ve just read, there are many more emotions, and this will help you diversify the emotions of your customers. What are they really feeling right now, and how do you want them to feel in the “To-Be” journey? Use the wheel in your design thinking processes. This more detailed wheel, which includes descriptions of emotions, might come in handy. It illustrates the diversity of emotions. Kudos to Danny Peters, who uses this wheel in his customer journey mapping training sessions.

I hope this insight helps you better understand the emotions of your customers and employees. Maybe even your own emotions and those of the people close to you. Our emotions have become more intense; perhaps we’re even experiencing different emotions. So it’s now even more important to be mindful and give them the attention they deserve.

Let's get active; share your thoughts in the comments.

Was this article helpful? Please let me know. And even more importantly, how could you apply this knowledge—or how have you applied it? Please share your thoughts in the comments. Let’s deepen our understanding of emotions and their impact on our CX work even further. Thank you, and since this is important for all of us, a little personal note: stay safe.

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Nienke Bloem is often referred to as the Customer Experience speaker in the blue dress.

She is a global CX thought leader, educator, and keynote speaker who inspires audiences with best practices and proven methodologies. She runs a speaking practice, a CX game company, and a training business; she lives and breathes Customer Experience and is the author of two books on CX.

Her two-day Customer Experience Masterclass is known as the best program to prepare for the CCXP, and she is the go-to person for CX leaders who want to advance their leadership and achieve immediate results from their Customer Experience transformation programs. Since 2020, she has been hosting a CX Leadership Masterminds program and helping leaders enhance their leadership skills and deliver an engaging CX story, including a solid CX strategy. In addition, she is a modern-day pilgrim and has drawn parallels between her journey and leading customer-centric transformations.

With over 20 years of corporate experience, she speaks the language of business. Her keynote speeches and training programs on customer experience are inspiring and practical. She is one of the few Recognized Training Partners of the CXPA, and her mission is to make customer experience work and help you achieve business results.