How memory and emotions inspire customer loyalty

Customer loyalty is the willingness of customers to consistently choose a brand over another and recommend it to others.

At one of his lectures, Daniel Kahneman shared a story that is familiar to me and maybe even you.

A man was listening to a twenty minute symphony. He loved every bit of the orchestra but just as it ended, a dreadful screech ruined the final moment. “It ruined the whole experience,” the man said. But Kahneman gently corrected him: It didn’t ruin the experience. It ruined the memory of the experience.

He still had twenty minutes of joy. But what stayed with him was the ending, that's the story his memory kept. He had a joyful experience, but was left with a bad memory of it. 

This brings us to the concept of the two selves

Kahneman describes two distinct selves that live inside all of us:

• The experiencing self — who lives in the present moment.

• The remembering self — who stores the story, makes sense of it, and makes the decision.

In his talk, he shared the results of a study involving two patients undergoing a painful colonoscopy.

On the surface, patient A had less pain overall. Patient B’s procedure was longer and more intense. But when both patients were later asked how they remembered the experience, their response was shocking.

Patient B — the one who suffered more; recalled it more positively.

Patient A — who had less total pain; had a worse memory of the entire experience.

Why?

Because patient A’s pain peaked at the very end. And that final moment became what the remembering self kept.

Now, the experiencing self has moments of experience but most of those moments don’t even leave a trace.

Kahneman calculated that the psychological present lasts about three seconds. That adds up to 600 million moments in a lifetime, and roughly 600,000 in a month. Yet the majority of them are completely forgotten by the remembering self.

And here’s where it gets interesting for us as business leaders: It’s the remembering self that decides whether to return to a brand not the experiencing self, because as Kahneman puts it, “We don't choose between experiences. We choose between memories of experiences”.

So what makes an experience memorable?

In one word, it's emotions!

Actually, from our open source study on ‘What drives deep customer loyalty’ emotion is one of the four key factors we found that inspires loyalty in customers. One of the established works we analyzed was that of Zheco Dobrev's research which proves that emotions account for 50% of business value.

As business leaders, if we do not intentionally operationalize emotions, we would be missing out on 50% chances for growth. chances for growth.

The more emotionally impacting a moment is, good or bad, the more deeply it etches itself into our memory.

The opportunity most businesses miss

Every customer journey is full of tiny moments. And whether we acknowledge it or not, those moments are shaping experiences. The biiig question is: Are those moments worth remembering?

The Peak-End Rule shows us that what people remember most is:

• The emotional peak, and

• The way the experience ended

So if your customer journey ends flat with a generic thank you or silence, you’re missing an opportunity to leave a lasting impression and inspire loyalty in your customers.

But what if you went further?

A moment of honest reflection 

You might be wondering and rightfully so: “But there are businesses that offer terrible experiences, and yet customers keep going back. How does that fit into all this?”

That’s a fair question. And it’s one we've asked ourselves many times here at The Potior Satori Limited .

What we've found is that such businesses are not thriving but merely surviving because of convenience or lack of alternatives.

Let me give you a personal example.

There’s this eatery near me that has consistently left me with bad experiences — questionable food, dishonest staff, and female workers who treat women customers like they came to steal their boyfriend (I wish I was joking, their attitude is very toxic 😅).

And yet, I kept going back twice or thrice a week because I was tired, couldn’t cook, and they were the only option nearby. I wasn't loyal to them, but was only trying to survive.

But the moment I discovered a restaurant around even with a slightly higher pricing, I switched. I've never had any memorable experience with the restaurant since my switch, but that doesn't matter, at least I don't get to receive cold looks from the ladies at the eatery.

So how does this all add up to a commercial advantage?

Convenience can bring customers in, but positive and emotionally impactful memories is what makes them choose you even when they have a choice, (when prices, quality, or access are similar across brands).

The brand they remember and feel connected to is the one they return to and recommend to others.

That’s partly what turns emotional connection into a commercial and competitive advantage: it keeps you top of mind when it matters most. It makes you the easiest to choose when other competitive factors like price and quality are same with other brands.

A reminder

Customer loyalty doesn’t belong in your marketing department.

 It belongs in your culture, your people, and your everyday decisions because those are what shape how your customers will feel and what they’ll remember when it’s time to choose you again, (I'll share more about how culture and employee experience impact customer loyalty in an upcoming article).

Make every moment memorable. This doesn't mean you have to be dramatic, you can be quiet and subtle but yet leave customers with profound experiences they can't forget. 

One more thing before you go

There’ something else we found in our study on what really drives deep customer loyalty: People make decisions on an emotional basis and don't even realize it. If you ask them why they chose a brand, they’ll immediately give a rational answer. But the truth is that their emotions were involved in making the decision.

I’ll be sharing more about that (and other surprising findings from our study) in an upcoming article. I think you’ll love it especially if you're desirous of  building a brand people don’t just use but also stand by.

So let's connect 

If you're exploring ethical, human-centered ways to build real customer loyalty and earn the advocacy of your customers, let’s connect and talk.

These are the conversations I love to have. Schedule a Loyalty Chat or connect with me on LinkedIn.