How emotions are influencing customer behaviour during the pandemic

28 Sep 2020by Abra Dunsby

How can travel businesses encourage their customers to have a positive emotional response to them during the pandemic? Inspiretec’s Richard Baker offers his guidance.

Abra Dunsby

Former TTG Features Editor

Abra Dunsby

Former TTG Features Editor

Travel businesses and their customers have gone through a whole spectrum of emotions during the coronavirus pandemic. So how can travel businesses ensure they are eliciting positive rather than negative emotions from their customers as the crisis continues?

Richard Baker, chief commercial officer at Inspiretec, tackled this subject during the recent “Let’s Get Emotional” webinar by Travel Technology Initiative (TTI).

Baker drew on the Plutchik Model of Emotions, which was devised by American psychologist Robert Plutchik in the 1980s. Plutchik’s theory is that there are eight primary emotions – joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, anticipation, anger and disgust – that serve as the foundation for all others.

Using the main emotions from Plutchik’s theory, Baker explains that it is vital for travel businesses to elicit positive emotions from customers – such as trust, surprise, joy and anticipation – and gave tips for how businesses can avoid encouraging negative emotions such as fear and anger.

To encourage positive emotions during the booing process, travel company websites need to offer an intuitive, seamless process and user experience. “If I I have to think when using a site, you’ve failed,” he says, and advises companies to “take away frustrations to encourage joy in the booking process”.

Here we condense some of Baker’s top tips for inspiring customers think positively about your brand and booking experience.

Plutchik's Model of Emotions

Instil trust

Gaining customer trust is key to encouraging brand loyalty, believes Baker. Baker’s examples of how to gain trust in the current climate include:

Giving live rather than “from” pricing on your site.
Countering the negativity around refunds by not adding any hidden charges to your services and product.
Using technology to improve human interaction – not replace it.

Surprise clients

“Surprise and delight marketing gives customers unexpected rewards” that will make your travel business stick out in clients’ minds, says Baker. You can surprise clients by:

Personalising your service touchpoints.
Adding the human touch where you can, for example by sending clients handwritten notes or cards.
Going the extra mile for clients to deliver standout customer service. Baker gave the example of a Travel Counsellor who arranged for her husband to drive to Italy to pick up clients who were holidaying there back in 2010 and who were worried about being stranded in the wake of the Eyjafjallajokull ash cloud eruption.

Inspiretech's Richard Baker.

Build anticipation

Anticipation should be present throughout the entire customer life cycle, believes Baker, which means engaging with the customer from end to end. To build anticipation:

Plan for the full life cycle when it comes to marketing, from enquiry through to the next booking.
Use all channels to communicate with customers, but use them wisely and avoid over-use.
Personalise all communications to clients and avoid sending anything generic.

Fight fear

“We’re all feeling fear and anxiety due to the pandemic, but fear rarely drives positive behaviour from customers”, says Baker. Customers might be feeling apprehensive about travelling and many will have questions about the travel experience, from taking a flight to the “new normal” resort experience. It’s incumbent on travel companies to allay those fears. They can do so by:

Harnessing the power of brand advocates by asking for testimonials and reviews from clients, and building those into the sales process.
Removing the financial fear factor by offering clarity on refunds.
Knowing your customer to offer a personalised service.

Quell anger

To avoid inciting anger from customers, travel companies must “think like a customer service business, not like a travel business”, says Baker. This can be achieved by knowing your customer to deliver the best customer service and user experience. You can quell customer anger by:

Fixing systemic problems. For example, look at your data around complaints to see if it’s a specific destination or tour operator that’s leading to complaints. This will allow you to spot patterns and make changes.
Giving the customer self-service channels – allow clients to log in and address certain issues without always having to speak to you or one of your colleagues, for example.
Knowing your customer and never asking them for repeat information.
Handling complaints quickly. Don’t let them fester as unchecked emotions can quickly escalate.

When it comes to complaints, Baker believes that travel agents shouldn’t be afraid to deal with angry customers, and that “a customer complaint that you turn around could become your best ever customer” – one that is happy and more likely to remain loyal in these testing times.

“A complaint can allow you to improve your connection with your customer and learn more about them as an individual, which will build trust,” he adds.