A fascinating shift is occurring in consumer behavior, with recent studies showing that feeling an emotional connection with a business may matter more than customer satisfaction to today’s consumers. This insight prompts a critical question for business owners: How can they adapt and recalibrate their strategies to thrive in a more emotionally driven marketplace?
Here, 14 Forbes Coaches Council members explore the emerging importance of brands building emotional connections with consumers to win their business. Read on to learn about actionable strategies entrepreneurs and companies can use to forge stronger bonds with their customers in an age when feeling an emotional connection to a brand can boost loyalty.
1. Engage With Your Most Loyal Customers
Start by talking or engaging with your best, most loyal customers. Why do they love you? Understanding the emotional triggers, motivators and connections will help you build strategies that leverage these insights. Be transparent with your values and your higher purpose, beyond making money. Today’s consumers, particularly young ones, want to support brands that align with their own values. – Lori Bartle, Cultivagency
2. Align With A Social Good Organization
Nonprofit organizations tell powerful stories of ordinary people working to accomplish extraordinary things. Aligning your business with a social good organization demonstrates how you work to support these inspiring efforts. When it’s done authentically, this is a compelling way to show your values in action and connect with consumers on an emotional level. Companies, employees, consumers and communities all win. – Cynthia Knapek, LeadingBetter
3. Ask, ‘How Is Your Day Going?’
Emotionally connecting with your customers and consumers does not mean having to be involved in all of their emotions. You can still be personable and develop a connection with your client without being too personal. Too many companies have gotten away from connection with their clients when all it takes sometimes is asking, “How is your day going?”—and actually listening to the answer. – Jessica Stroud, She RULES
4. Survey Customers; Map Their Road To ‘Yes’
An emotional connection to a buying experience that leads to a purchase occurs when a consumer feels valued. Business owners must identify ways in which they make customers feel appreciated for their loyalty. The best strategy for doing this is to understand the road map potential customers follow to say “yes” to a purchase. If you’re not clear, use a survey to ask or engage team members to find out what they’ve seen and heard. – Lisa Marie Platske, Upside Thinking, Inc.
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5. Think Of Your Offering As A Vehicle To Create Value
What you sell is not your business. Consider what you sell as the vehicle to create value for the people you want to work with—your target customers. When you focus on the value you create and can clearly communicate why they should choose your business, you will stand out in your marketplace and customers will feel connected, knowing that you are taking care of them and solving their issues. – Patti Mara, Maranet Inc.
6. Make Customers The Center Of The Brand’s Narrative
Creating an emotional bond is achievable, particularly when customers sense that their voices are acknowledged and valued and genuinely believe that their opinions hold significance and are treated with sincerity. Customers must be at the center of a brand’s narrative and emotional bonding strategies must be consistently applied—360 degrees, across all touchpoints—to create a true emotional bond. – Stephan Lendi, Newbury Media & Communications GmbH
7. Adopt The Concept Of Strategic Rapport Building
There are no barriers to forming emotional connections if the goal is to build long-term relationships. Customers who are more positively engaged are more likely to become loyal before closing a deal. Business owners can adopt the concept of strategic rapport building. This does more than break the ice; it creates space for active listening, the showing of empathy and building a shared experience with unlimited possibilities. – Kurline J Altes, KURLINEJSPEAKS LLC
8. Utilize Focus Groups And Testing
Most businesses and brands today utilize focus groups and testing in their marketing plan and strategy. If you aren’t, it’s time to start. Understanding why your customers like your product or service is foundational to building a connection of any kind with them, and building brand intimacy by connecting with your customers is essential to growing your business. – Joshua Miller, Joshua Miller Executive Coaching
9. Create Personal, Memorable Experiences
Business owners can foster emotional connections by creating personal, memorable experiences. This might mean hosting community events, sharing stories on social media or offering exceptional customer service. It’s all about humanizing your business and making customers feel they’re part of your brand’s story. – Peter Boolkah, The Transition Guy
10. Shift From Transactional To Relational
Shift the perspective from transactional to relational: Initiate “emotion-driven feedback sessions,” where consumers share stories, not just ratings. Integrate narratives into branding, weaving customer emotions into company stories. By humanizing the brand and spotlighting emotional touchpoints, businesses can resonate deeply, moving beyond mere satisfaction to genuine connection. – Andre Shojaie, HumanLearn
11. Put Empathy At The Center Of Engagement
Business owners must put empathy at the center of their strategic engagement by humanizing every customer touchpoint. Customers want to be seen, heard and engaged with as humans; not as a means to an end for the business. We must quit thinking about customers in terms of numbers, data and product or service design perspectives; we must seek to consistently touch the hearts of customers. – Abiola Salami, CHAMP
12. Focus On The Head, The Heart And The Soul
Business owners should focus not just on rational values (the head), but also on forming genuine relationships (the heart) and ethical interactions (the soul). These become the cornerstone of the emotional connection you’re building. Translate your brand’s core values into authentic customer experiences that resonate emotionally, thereby elevating consumer loyalty beyond just satisfaction. – Angela Sedran, The Business Growth Accelerator
13. Share Your Stories, Your Values And Your ‘Why’
Emotional connections are often formed over shared values. Business owners who share their stories in a personal way often convey their values, or their “why,” in the process, allowing consumers to identify with and connect more closely with the values they also share. As Simon Sinek suggests, an easy path to connect emotionally, not just logically, with clients is to start not with what, but with why. – Christy Charise, Strategic Advisor
14. Build A Customer Community And Forum
Build a community by creating a forum to foster emotional connections between customers. This allows for open discussion and the sharing of experiences and gives customers the opportunity to help each other, creating a sense of belonging and trust. It also provides a direct line for gathering feedback and understanding customer needs and preferences. Encourage user-generated content to enhance engagement. – John Knotts, Crosscutter Enterprises
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