The first law of CX is...
A customer’s perception of your business begins the moment your brand enters their mind at the first impression.
The first law of CX directly impacts this point in time. It is the moment that a potential customer finds your business via:
Search
Content
Paid ads
Word of mouth
If the outcome is positive, it should prompt what has become known as the Zero Moment of Truth, when a potential customer begins researching you.
Before I reveal the law, I want to take you back to 2005, when I was in the process of picking out a wedding photographer for my marriage to my soon-to-be wife, Maren. Maren and I had acquired a copy of the “417 Weddings” magazine, and had flipped to the photographer section.
This wasn’t a big-budget, glitzy wedding - we paid for it ourselves without having to burden our parents. We therefore had a limited budget and needed to make considered trade-offs.
As we were going through the magazine, we saw a lot of extremely impressive photographs next to each business name, along with their blurb. And whilst it was undeniable that these photos were spectacular - many were in-front of huge castles or sweeping panoramic locations - they immediately positioned themselves as out of our reach. Now, to clarify, there were no prices listed. These were just impressions or signals that were sent out by the images and, to a lesser extent, the business name and copy.
The business name can be quite consequential if you do it either really well or really badly. I distinctly remember, back in a former life as a film director and producer, a conversation I had with an executive at the Sony stages in Hollywood. He asked me what my production company name was. Based off of my answer he was able to tell me a lot about my philosophy towards the industry and movies themselves.
“I’ve been in the film business for years, and I’ve generally found that the company name reflects some truth in the owner,” he said. “For example, if you were called ‘Steamroller Films’ you’d probably be the kind of guy that would literally try to crush everything in your path to get your way.”
That always stayed with me. I wasn’t necessarily convinced by it, but it did get me thinking. Words have meaning, after all. Association is the ultimate heuristic. And so, when you have a company with the name “Elite” in it, it does send a certain kind of signal, which has a chain of associations tied to it. People with my budget may write it off immediately as being out of their league.
And it started to feel this way with every photographer we looked at. They were all competing on the same dimension. They were telling me how wonderfully competent they were. For any of you familiar with my book, The Dark Side of CX, you will remember that humans judge people and businesses on two dimensions, especially when you first receive their signals. Competence (How good are they at their job) and Warmth (How friendly/trustworthy are they).
Just as I was giving up hope, I turned the page and saw something different. A picture of a photographer, leaning up against a wall, smiling, looking back at me. The blurb was about him and his company. I looked over at Maren, showed her the page and said “Hey, Maren. He looks like a nice guy.” He listed his website where I was able to see the quality of his work, which was outstanding.
A few wedding pictures. But also pictures of himself on his travels all over the United States. Pictures trying out different visual effects in cities. Unusual takes on classic themes. He had a sort of explorer mentality that really jived with my personality and identity.
There was also something very down-to-earth about him. I would obviously still need to meet him in person and discuss details. But in that moment - that critical first impression - he had passed a very important test: in a crowded field of lookalikes, he had sent me signals of both competence and warmth when nobody else had.
Many years later, in 2019, I became interested in the field of Internet Marketing. Facebook quickly picked up on this interest and started bombarding me with ads by all the usual gurus. Once again, a lot of competence was demonstrated; but I never felt I could really trust any of these folks. Especially with all of their super-expensive packages ending in a 7.
Then one day, out of the blue, I saw an ad by a female ads coach. I don’t remember anything about the headline or the copy. I do remember the price, which was very agreeable to me at the time. But the thing that created the most influence over me in that moment was the image used in the ad.
The image was the expert standing in her living room, dressed extremely casually, teaching at a whiteboard (possibly with a pointer) to a camera. She looked very relatable, relaxed and friendly - strong signals of Warmth. And her whiteboard drawing, plus the testimonial quote beside it, provided a lot of reassurance on how competent she was. Both signals had been received. I went ahead and signed up.
Competence and Warmth are so important because they add extra grease to The Persuasion Slide:
Roger Dooley, author of Brainfluence, created the Persuasion Slide to help people visualize the forces at play when a customer moves from an initial state to a desired decision, such as buying a product.
The Nudge is the first impression. The customer comes onto the top of the slide with a problem they want solved. Even it is something simple, like being in the market for a designer pair of shoes to signal status, it is all part of their initial motivation. That problem, combined with any signaling that you have teased, is the Gravity. A strong Angle will then help them slide down towards the desired outcome. That is where your persuasion comes in. The key is to avoid any Friction that will slow or possibly even stop the progress. Some sales processes are so bad that they can singlehandedly stop all momentum on the slide and kill a deal.
Competence and warmth during the first impression give an extra push to the nudge. They then contribute to the gravity and angle, accelerating both initial and sustained motivation. Your goal is to exceed expectations in both as the buyer journey progresses.
And thus, our first law of CX is this: humans judge brands on two dimensions: competence and warmth. They relate to some of our deepest needs of control, safety and relatedness. It’s a hard-wiring, of sorts, that everyone has. The sooner you can start sending those signals in the buyer journey, the better. Ideally you will find a way to put them in as many first impressions as possible.
It’s great if a previous customer tells a prospect: “They did a great and professional job.”
But it’s better if they say “I really liked them. Really decent, genuine people - and their work was outstanding too.”
A recent sales call more than confirmed this. We asked a new client why they signed with us over a competitor. They simply said “You were much friendlier and seemed to genuinely care about our success.”
I hope you enjoyed this article and were able to find some insights to apply to your own business. Until next time, treat yourself well. I look forward to sharing more laws of CX with you soon.
This is great. I wonder about whether we have to think about safety. Is safety a subset of warmth?