Understanding Your Customer’s Emotions: Why Should They Buy From You?

In today’s crowded marketspace, customers have options—and I mean lots of options in some cases.

Your business needs to stand out from the pack.

Now, most businesses usually add unique features to their services that their competitors don’t offer, or even try to compete by offering lower prices altogether.

But the truth is, even the fanciest features and the lowest prices aren’t enough to convince customers to buy from your brand.

See, at the heart of it, your product or brand must solve a problem for your customer. That’s the basics of business, right?

But once customers realize that their problem can be solved—thanks to your product or your competitors’—they must find the motivation to get moving (i.e. buy). No amount of features or simply having the lowest price is going to push them to do this.

Instead, it’s actually their emotions that are going to propel them to solve their problem. Unfortunately, this is one huge area that most sales teams miss.

This is partly due to the fact that they’re so focused on the selling points that they lose sight of the person making the sale. And that’s a costly error.

I know, I can hear the moans now. My guess is you probably didn’t get into selling because you like to talk about emotions. And I get it.

That’s the second issue.

Emotions conjure up those sappy feelings you only see in movies like The Notebook. But this doesn’t always have to be the case.

With the help of today’s article, I’ll show you how to tap into your customer’s emotions in order to understand why they should really buy from you. And I promise not to get all emotional on you either.

We know from experience that people buy from people they like. And they fall in love with brands because they’ve made a connection with them.

This is what breeds those magical brand ambassadors you’re always searching for; like finding a unicorn at a zoo.

In order to get customers to like your brand, they have to start liking you first. And for them to start liking you or your brand, they must make a connection with both of you (your brand and you). Hopefully I didn’t lose you there, and if I did, stay with me.

Any time you’re trying to make a connection with someone, you better believe there are a few emotions involved. I mean, it’s human nature. Whether we’re talking about a business relationship or a personal one, making connections is emotionally-based. It opens up the vulnerability doors. There’s just no getting around it.

People need to figure out if they can trust you first before they even consider making a connection with you or your brand.

Okay, so that’s great, we know we need to build trust, but how should we go about doing that?

In short, start tapping into the emotions that come up for your customers.

Let’s take a look at what those may be.

Top Emotions to Pay Attention to

We talked about the fact that you’re in business because you figured out how to solve a problem your customer is facing. And whenever we talk about problems, emotions are bound to come up.

Here are some of the top emotions that come up for customers when they have a problem:

• Overwhelm: “Things are getting out of hand. If I don’t do something now, this is going to get much worse.”
• Frustration: “I’m so tired of dealing with this!”
• Helpless: “I’ll never be able to fix this problem. I don’t know where to start.”
• Hesitant: “What if I make the wrong choice? I will have wasted my money.”
• Defeated: “This problem has gone on for so long, I doubt it can be fixed.”

As you can see, this short list is filled with a bunch of negative emotions.

After all, not too many people are excited to shout, “Yes! I have a problem. This is great!”

But here’s the thing—that means your customer is already approaching you with negative emotions, and you haven’t done anything to deserve it. Talk about unfair.

Well, it’s actually the opposite.

These emotions are a good thing. They help you understand what your customer is really going through. You’ll know what it feels like to be that overwhelmed, or how it would feel to be so frustrated that you’re ready to give up.

It’s these feelings that give you key insights as to how you should react. And this reaction goes beyond just having empathy.

Empathy is Old News

Okay, so that statement is only partially true.

You know you need empathy. You need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Again, this should be business 101 here.

But nowadays, empathy is just the beginning.

If you really want to know what’s going to make your customers buy from you, it’s understanding how to get them through those negative emotions that were stirred up thanks to this big problem of theirs.

And here’s how you’ll do that: Take each negative emotion and demonstrate to your customer how you’ll drastically reduce or eliminate this feeling with your product or service.

It’s not enough to say, “I understand how frustrating this can be.” In fact, I’d argue that hearing that canned response tends to add more distance between you and your customer.

In your customer’s eyes, it’s almost as if you really don’t understand what they’re going through, but you’re willing to say you do just to close the sale.

Instead, you need to show how your product can reduce these uncomfortable feelings.

Try doing this by sharing case studies from past customers who have experienced a similar situation with your new customers.

Make This All Go Away/Why Your Customer Should Buy From You

The point is, your customer just wants to make this all go away. They want to stop feeling so [insert negative emotion], and your job is to help them accomplish this.

Once your customer can see that you’re trying to reduce (or eliminate) their discomfort, as opposed to only pushing your product for your own benefit, they’ll be more likely to trust you.

And with trust comes that all-important emotional connection that you’ve been striving for. It’s like your customer is saying, “You know what, you’re not so bad. You helped me solve my problem, which means I think I like you.”

It’s this whole cycle (identifying negative emotions, connecting how you can eliminate them, and establishing trust as a result) that’s going to get your customers motivated to buy from you.

With this process, they’ll see you as a person instead of a salesperson. It’s like you’re just a friend helping them get through a tough time. And who doesn’t want that kind of help?

So your homework for today is to identify and brainstorm the emotions that come up when your customer experiences a problem that can be alleviated by your product or service.

Do you think they’d be overwhelmed? Frustrated? Ready to throw in the towel?

Whatever it is, your next step is to show them how your product or brand can eliminate or reduce these feelings.

And once you do that, you’ll need to communicate this message clearly with your customers in order to earn their trust and establish that long-lasting connection.

If you focus too much of your time and attention on only selling the features and benefits of your product, you’ll have a much harder time closing the deal.