Enjoyment: the key to exceptional experience?

In our Consumer Reconsidered report, we revealed that enjoyment and experience have become increasingly important in a consumer’s purchase journey. Not only that, but more than a third of all consumers would happily pay more for an enjoyable shopping experience, with this figure even higher among younger consumers.  

Emotionally connected customers are more valuable to brands: they buy more products and services, visit more often, exhibit less price sensitivity, pay more attention to communications, and recommend to others. 

It may sound simple enough, but the reality can be quite complex.

What is enjoyment?

‘Enjoyment’ is not only difficult to define, but it can vary wildly by individual, situation and experience. Even in the moment, many consumers may not be aware, and the fact that they’ve enjoyed something may only become apparent after the event. 

Broadly, it’s an emotionally driven positive response that can surface in many ways: delight, trust, or indulgence, among many others. Usually, it manifests itself when there is no negative factor to counterbalance a positive experience, so the individual feels free to enjoy that moment they’re in.

In a big-ticket transaction, for example, that could be being able to buy the product you’ve wanted for a while without any barriers about its price or concerns over its suitability. Or it could be as simple as a genuine connection or moment of joy with a sales assistant. 

Some brands already excel at finding ways to deliver enjoyment through exceptional experiences. Certain amusement parks, for example, enchant visitors through RFID chipped wristbands or cards that magically remember preferences and even link park tickets, relevant hotel keys or allow payments. Smartwatches and fitness trackers deliver feelings of pride, congratulating you on workouts and helping you explore your performance. Sportswear companies offer delight through the chance to personalise trainers.

But, equally,  enjoyment can be as simple as someone doing something in an interaction in a way to surprise or delight you.

A new way to interact with consumers

The pandemic not only changed the way we shop and interact with brands, but what we value in a shopping transaction. That enforced deprivation of sensory experiences and social interaction has seen people now look for experiences that give them joy or make them feel genuine connections - not just to a brand, but to other people. Recently, businesses have started to look at further enhancing sensory branding in an attempt to better engage with consumers, giving them complementary smells, tastes and sounds that add to the shopping experience.

This is largely in response to consumers placing increasing importance on physical experiences, with younger consumers, in particular, showing preferences for in-store experiences over online. That extends to other parts of the buying process too, with consumers also believing stores are better than online for customer service (56% vs 19%) and after-sales service (40% vs 23%). 

Pre-pandemic, we saw channels for channel’s use, but now the plethora of choices means people want to interact in a more personal, individualised way. They now choose when and how they do it - on their own terms - and are more in control of how they engage with brands. They will only choose the channels and brands they enjoy, in the way they enjoy them. 

With that in mind, how do you practically deliver enjoyment when it’s so hard to define?

Get the basics right: experience, training and measurement

Start by getting the fundamentals right and build from there. 

Enjoyment begins with experiences that are connected, effortless and personalised. Once the ultimate vision for consumer-facing brands, these factors are now the basic level of customer needs and expectations. Brands that focus only on those attributes - or chase efficiency over enjoyment - are in danger of becoming ‘transactional’ and may be unable to differentiate themselves. For some, that may be looking to invest in or incorporate sensory branding to engage with consumers. For others, it could be upskilling employees. For most, it will be a combination of many factors.

Think about what your people are there to do, how they represent your business, and what motivates them. Only then can you begin to embed the right behaviours, culture and values throughout, including third-party suppliers and those within your supply chain. 

Elsewhere, how you measure success will be key. Many organisations will need to rethink what - and how they do this. 

While efficiency and optimisation will remain important, too strong a focus on these performance indicators will only deliver a functional, data-driven experience. This may be enough for some, but it is unlikely to deliver the enjoyable, exceptional experience consumers are looking for. 

Metrics alone cannot guide your thinking, because it can be difficult to draw a line between an enjoyable experience and a return on investment. Balanced scorecards using quantitative and qualitative data are one solution to articulate the value of enjoyment. In turn, rethinking how you measure success can help you explain why investment in experience is so important, as well as the attributes you need to deliver growth. 

Be comfortable with being uncomfortable

Creating an enjoyable experience can take a lot of investment, and requires a lot of different parts of the business to work together to realise your goal. This can be a challenging undertaking. 

A consumer’s experience with a retailer is made up of 100s of different interactions, with each one creating a set of memories, stories and relationships. All those interactions together then account for a consumer's decision to pick your brand over another. To create one ‘enjoyable moment’ there might be 1,000s of other moments with your brand, across a plethora of channels, in the way they want it. To be consistent across those interactions, as well as surprise and delight at the right points is the key to delivering enjoyment. 

But it’s particularly challenging when you don’t know where that opportunity might occur - it could be customer service, a greeter, an unexpected interaction in-store or something else.

It can take a lot to get there, but those that are brave and bold enough to make those changes can differentiate themselves, attract and retain customers, and deliver growth.

Our growth through experience approach shows how to create an exceptional experience - including how to address the drivers of enjoyment - and link this to growth. To find out more about the enablers of experience for consumer-facing businesses and read tips for delivering greater enjoyment across the shopping journey, download The Consumer Reconsidered.