The brain already decided


In this week's CX Passport, The One Where the Brain Doesn't Lie, Dr. Laura Beavin-Yates draws a line.

Real-time emotions are automatic. Unconscious. Happening in the brain whether you're aware of them or not. Feelings are something else entirely. They're what you consciously reflect on after the fact, filtered through whatever is happening in your life at that moment.

"You can go ahead and do social media. ... We can create blogs. We can create what we call knowledge base articles ... but as consumers, no matter what, even if you give them all those resources, they're still going to go, I want a human person." - Greg

That distinction matters more than most CX programs are built to handle.


A break before we continue...

Some of you know me from CX Passport. Some of you may not know there’s another storytelling world in my life.

That world recently turned into a book co-authored with my wife, Clancy.

📖 Our book is here! The Loud Quiet – Love, Laughter and Life in the Empty Nest.

It's an engaging, heartfelt, and humorous book that explores the transition from parenting to the next stage of life.

Get your copy here: https://amzn.to/4rpo7rA


Now back to the newsletter...

When you send a post-experience survey, you're not capturing the experience. You're capturing a memory of the experience, reconstructed days later while the dog is barking and the inbox is full. The brain that actually lived through your customer journey has already moved on.

The good news is there's now a way to read what the brain actually felt in the moment. Oxytocin, the neurochemical released during meaningful, fully connected experiences, leaves a distinct footprint in heart rhythm. Not heart rate. Heart rhythm. New technology can read that pattern through a smartwatch, passively, in real time, no needles, no interruptions, no survey landing in an inbox three days late.

That's not a tweak to the old methodology. That's a different methodology entirely.

We are genuinely bad at predicting our own behavior. NPS asks customers what they'll do next. The brain already decided. Those two answers are not the same thing. And if surveys are your primary lens, you're working with a filtered, retrospective, mood-contaminated version of the truth when the real signal was available the whole time.

The brain doesn't lie. It just doesn't fill out forms.

Put those tray tables up and buckle those seat belts. Let's go!

-Rick

P.S. If you know someone who might benefit from this week’s newsletter, please feel free to forward this to them. Or they can sign up here.

What’s on tap this week?…


Host - Rick Denton

Rick believes the best meals are served outside and require a passport

The One Where the Brain Doesn't Lie - Dr. Laura Beavin-Yates E259


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