Meditate on Happiness

We want our customers to leave happy. But as the best-selling book The Happiness Project and movies like “Happy” document, different strokes work for different folks.
     Researchers at Università Commerciale Luigi Bocconi in Milan, Italy concluded that gratitude caused customers to come back again and praise a store to others. However, the degree of customer happiness didn’t make a difference. Of course, maybe those researchers hadn’t defined customer happiness accurately.
     Another set of researchers—at University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology—find that what contributes to customer happiness is influenced by whether the customer is contemplating the future or meditating on the present. The future-focused say they’re happy when the store experience is exciting and enthusiastic. The here-and-now customers are happier when the store experience is calm, peaceful, and serene.
     In the study, consumers were offered choices in tea, bottled water, and music. The future-focused participants were more likely to select “a refreshing peppermint blend” over “a relaxing blend of chamomile and mint,” the bottle of “Pure Excitement” water labeled in bright orange over the “Pure Calm” one labeled in green, and the more upbeat version of the song “Such Great Heights.”
     The researchers then compared results for participants ages 18 to 25 years old with results for participants ages 50 to 68 years old. It was found that the younger adults were more future-focused and the older ones more present-focused, and the consumer preferences were in accord with this.
     There are broad differences within each group. The overall conclusions are generalizations, the Pennsylvania/Stanford/MIT researchers stress. And it is stress—or more accurately, producing the proper level of stress—which lurks behind the truly accurate definition of happiness. Too much or too little stress, and the shopper won’t feel as happy.
     But what should you do if you serve a range of consumer time orientations and ages? Based on research findings from Northwestern University and University of Hong Kong, here are suggestions for when shoppers are all feeling threats to their happiness from excessive stress:

• Feature items that are relaxing, fun, and/or indulgent.
• Make the items familiar choices.
• Limit the number of featured items.
• Use parity pricing. People are more likely to purchase certain types of items when presented with a group of similar alternatives all at the same price. The reason is that parity pricing—which is what this is called—eases decision making.

Click below for more:
Go for Customer Gratitude and Guilt
Kick Back for Happy Hour Customers
Use Parity Pricing to Help Customers Decide