1. The Science of Experience

Marketers, perhaps more than others, know about the remarkable power of the story. After all, they are in the business of storytelling but, on the other hand, my story is very telling about business. While business knows about the power of the great story, it has neglected a critical part of the equation. And that’s this: It’s one thing to create an experience, but it’s yet another to create a memorable experience. It turns out that a good experience isn’t nearly enough. Marketing strategists typically have a good understanding that the experience is essential, but they have very little recognition of the fact that it’s how those experiences are interpreted and remembered that is critical. There are a dozen books on the shelves all which claim to hold the keys to a remarkable customer experience! They say things like “wow” the customer by providing exceptional customer service, but that’s only part of the equation.

To understand the core of the Customer Loyalty Loop that I’m going to outline in this book, you need to come on a brief journey with me into the mind. It’s not complicated, and it probably won’t be a surprise to you, but the implications of what I am about to tell you are pretty profound.

Human beings like to think they are rational, but very often they are not. While we have the capacity to be rational, the latest scientific research shows that by and large, we are more intuitive than rational. We make decisions more often with our hearts and minds than we do with our brains. There are a variety of reasons for this.

First, the brain’s primary goal is survival and the first step in that process is recognizing threats. To function efficiently in this regard, we have to take what is going on around us and make sense of it—and to do that quickly. Without an understanding of what is happening, we can’t anticipate threats or defend ourselves. So, we take in information through our senses and interpret it.

In other words, we create a story—and we do it very, very quickly, often without thinking. The idea or story just pops into our minds without any awareness of considered analysis. We, meaning you (who is reading this) and I, are customers, and we think this way. It apparently makes sense that your customers feel this way too.

Most of the time, the story we create is not based on a critical, reasoned analysis of the situation. Rather, it is an almost instantaneous, seemingly reflexive response to what we sense is happening all around us. Our stories are colored by many factors about which we are unaware. Subconscious experiences, intuition, instinctive reflexes, and the vast tapestry of our past experiences all quickly shape “the narrative” or our stories. The story quickly forms in our minds and for the most part, we accept it without too much, if any, analysis. Daniel Kahneman, the Israeli psychologist who perhaps has done more than anyone in articulating and explaining the relevant cognitive neuroscience research, calls this processing “fast and frugal.” We create the story, and unless there is something that is obviously irrational about it, we accept it and move on. Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics, brilliantly describes our mental process in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow.¹ He describes two ways of thinking based on two separate systems. System 1 is fast and frugal, as described above. System 2 requires critical, rational analysis.

Several biases influence the narratives we create. These are important factors that help us create those fast and frugal stories. Here’s an example. Tell me, does this sound familiar?

Normally this product sells for $99, but in this special offer you can buy this amazing product for just $39! That’s a saving of $60! But wait! There’s more! Order now and we will give you a second one free! That’s a $200 value for just $39!

This is an example of what is called the anchoring bias. The first number (or fact) anchors the context to a specific point, in this case $99. Everything else is seen relative to that, so the offers do indeed sound like an awesome deal. Now, here’s an important point. This tactic works even though most people understand that the initial number is likely to have been inflated! You have to make a concerted effort to override the bias. A vague awareness that the initial number is probably inflated isn’t enough to counter its powerful effect. In other words, you have to make a very conscious effort not to be misled, and as we shall see shortly, most of the time we don’t want to make that effort. We all know someone who has purchased the latest and greatest set of knives, the pan where absolutely nothing will stick to it, ever, or the latest and greatest piece of exercise equipment.

Another bias is the availability bias. This one means that if we can remember relevant examples, they will significantly influence our narrative. Here’s an example. When there is a plane crash, and it’s all over the news for days, many people will vow never to fly again. Or, they’ll seriously consider alternative forms of travel. They do all this even though that as horrible as a plane crash is, that one plane crash hasn’t significantly altered the safety of flying or the probability of being in an aircraft accident. If anything, that single crash is usually likely to make flying even safer. But because the accident is in the forefront of our minds due to the extensive media coverage, and the disaster is available to us, it significantly influences our perceptions of flying.

Now, here’s a very critical point: It doesn’t matter how accurate the remembered information is, it’s the fact that we remember it that’s important. Again, our thought process is not deep, critical analysis; it’s fast and frugal. For example, you may have been hearing that coconut oil prevents dementia and cognitive decline. You have seen the research several times, so the repeated exposure makes it more available to you. Wow, so it must be true then, right? People rush to the stores and get a giant tub of coconut oil only to hardly ever use this stuff. I’ve got one in my kitchen.

However, if you take the time to do the critical analysis and look at the research, you’ll find there is absolutely no scientific evidence for coconut oil as a preventive measure against cognitive decline. But who’s got time to do the research on the research? It reminds me a lot of my father-in-law. One week he’s eating eggs because the research shows the health benefits of eating eggs. Next week he’s off them. New research shows how horribly unhealthy they are. Hardly anyone has the time or the skill set to do the research themselves.

It’s much easier to go with what is available, that is, what we have seen in the media or what we think we saw in the media—and usually what’s available at the present moment, hence the eggs. This availability bias will become critical later when we consider what factors influence the formation of memories, and how those memories influence decisions, including purchasing decisions, or the willingness to make a second purchase after the first one.

Another cognitive bias is risk aversion. Fear of loss is a powerful motivator, and most of us will overvalue risk because we’re more afraid of getting hurt than anything else. It’s a classic marketing hack known as “while stocks last” or “hurry, supplies are limited!” Some years ago, Beanie Babies were incredibly popular because the company making them was always implying that it was going to discontinue certain models. Amongst collectors, this fear of loss of missing out on one or more of the collection fueled the buying mania. You had to have them all.

There are numerous other biases. For example, I’m sure you have heard of the halo effect through which we exaggerate the qualities of someone we like by over-generalizing and assuming that they can do no wrong. Another bias is the social environment or what is called social proof. Dr. Cialdini argued that social proof was one of the six most powerful tools of influence. In a classic experiment, subjects had to say which of two lines was shorter than the other. It was relatively easy to see that line B was shorter than line A. But if you observe numerous people choosing line A rather than line B, there is a good chance you’ll change your answer, even though B is indeed still fairly obviously the shorter line. What we see others doing influences our perceptions and our stories more than we care to admit.

All of these and many other biases serve the minds tendency to be “fast and frugal.” We live in a complex world, so to minimize the effort of making sense of this complexity, people simplify wherever possible. This drive for simplicity is the default mechanism of the brain. As a result, the brain is binary, reducing the complexity of our world to simple either–or alternatives: right or wrong, Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal (for my Canadian friends and family), and so on. As soon as we get away from the convenience and comfort of the binary brain, thinking becomes more difficult.

For example, what if someone proposed a three-party political system or even a four-party system? It’s hard to wrap our heads around ideas when they are not presented as two opposites, or mutually exclusive choices.

The fact of the matter is that fast and frugal thinking is not only more natural, but it’s also much, much easier. Critical, rational, logical thinking requires a lot of effort. Ask someone to do a mental arithmetic calculation while they are walking along, and they will almost certainly stop because rational thinking takes an inordinate amount of effort, and it’s hard to walk and think critically at the same time. Even asking someone to do a small, less mentally exhausting task and the result is the same. For example, ask someone to text and drive, and you’ll see why it’s been proven to be almost more distracting than driving drunk. It seems every few days we hear about someone else who has walked into a fountain, fell down a manhole, or walked off a cliff while texting.

In fact, critical thinking is stressful, activating changes in the brain and body that are part of the physical stress response. Not only is critical thinking difficult, but most people aren’t equipped in how to do it. Unless you have been trained in science and math, and even if you have been, the complexities of critical, rational thinking are likely to escape you. For example, Kahneman uses this great example in Thinking, Fast and Slow.

Fact #1: The lowest rates of kidney cancer occur in small, rural communities.

When you hear that statement, your mind will automatically go into a storytelling mode to make sense of the information you have just been given. Perhaps people in small rural communities eat healthier? Perhaps they have cleaner environments? Perhaps they are more active? Whatever factors you focus on, you will start to construct a story in your mind about why rural communities are healthier.

Here’s the next piece of information.

Fact #2: The highest rates of kidney cancer occur in small, rural communities.

The natural reaction to this new fact is that there’s a mistake and that the person giving you this information has contradicted himself. “That can’t be!” you howl in protest.

You’re wrong.

The answer to this particular problem is in the phrase “small, rural communities.” In some small communities, there will be no kidney cancer, resulting in a very low/nonexistent rate. But if there’s a couple of cases in a small community, the rate will be relatively high because it’s a small community. In other words, this is a sampling problem. Small samples are going to produce a much wider range of probabilities because of the very fact that they are small.

Now, unless you have studied statistics, the idea of sample size probably hasn’t occurred to you. Moreover, if you never got to hear the second fact, you would go on your merry way with the notion that small, rural communities are healthier firmly implanted in your memory. And that memory would then influence your behavior in the future. It would influence your discussions with others, and it would shape your worldview.

Now, while some simple arithmetic and math is not beyond most people, numbers aren’t always what they might seem when viewed through the “fast and frugal” lens.

What’s your first, instantaneous response to this question? You have to choose one.

I will promise to give you $3 million at the end of the month, or alternatively, I will give you one single penny today and double the amount every day for the next month, and give you everything at the end of the money.

Which would you choose?

Taking the latter option of starting with one cent and then doubling the amount every day will give you more than $10 million at the end of the month but “intuitively” that doesn’t seem possible. In other words, rational analysis often results in answers that are counterintuitive.

There’s something else that is critical in our storytelling; we need to be consistent. Our narratives, by and large, need to jive with each other. This drive for what is technically called coherence influences us in many ways. For one thing, we are always looking to reinforce and find proof for our stories. In the late 1950s, social psychologist Leon Festinger called this cognitive dissonance.² We have a selective perception that seeks to confirm our choices. So, for example, if you had to decide between car A and car B and recently bought car B, subsequently, you will find all the evidence that suggests car B is a great car and look for (and interpret) the evidence that shows car A’s deficiencies. Today we call this tendency confirmation bias, where we overvalue information that supports our views and dismiss information or interpretations that run counter to our views. In other words, our narratives themselves are the lens through which we filter the world. What this means is that once you have a narrative about something, it is tough to change, or to quote the cliché, “you never get a second chance to make a first impression.” This is a paramount part of the Customer Loyalty Loop, with one subtle difference.

The impression isn’t the experience; it’s the memory of the experience.

The cognitive neuroscience literature tells us that our perceptions and narratives are not based on rationality. Instead, they are significantly influenced by biases, including our existing stories, as well as a drive for simplicity. Subconscious memories and emotions also influence them.

There is some interesting research that shows that when people are asked to smile, they view (and remember) things more positively than when not smiling, even though the smile is forced. Emotions influence our perceptions and our stories, even when those emotions are artificially induced. The fact is that existing emotions color the experience and the memory of a situation or event. How would you react if you were just given a gift card immediately after learning that someone had been bad-mouthing you on social media? You’d almost certainly see the gift card as trivial and unimportant. Now how would you react if you got the same gift card after reading something flattering about you posted on social media? Chances are the gift card would be much more appreciated. In fact, you might even make a story about these two independent events. After getting the gift card and after reading the flattering social media piece you might think something like, “Wow, this is a great day! I’m getting a lot of love!” However, you might be so mad after reading the nasty social media post that it would be difficult to feel positive about anything, even the gift card, in which case you are likely to minimize it, or find a way of directing your anger toward it. For example, you might think the gift card is not appropriate, or the amount is too small, or it’s too impersonal. You get the drift; emotions dictate the narrative even about things or events that have nothing to do with why you are feeling the emotion to begin with. In this case, the gift card could be a victim of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and is perceived through the emotion of the moment. And this, again, is because our response and thoughts tend to be fast and frugal and reflect our emotional states, rather than being a function of a rational mind.

These biases conspire to create not just our perceptions of an experience but our memories of it, too. The dynamic relationship between cognitive bias, emotion, and memory is a critical part of the Customer Loyalty Loop. More important, understanding that relationship is the key to improving your customer’s experiences in ways that drive profits straight to the bottom line, and that’s a narrative we should all be able to wrap our heads around.

The Memory of Experience

Let’s continue with a bit more of the science before we dive deeper into the loop. Elizabeth Loftus is a well-known, highly honored psychologist.³ For the last 40-plus years, she has been researching something that is critical to each and every one of us, and a subject that has major implications for every aspect of your business, from marketing to customer service. Loftus is arguably the world’s leading researcher in memory. But Loftus isn’t someone who researches memory loss; rather, she investigates the process of remembering, which is critical to the Customer Loyalty Loop.

Loftus’ research as well as that of others has highlighted something everyone could benefit from knowing: memory is unreliable. While most of us like to think that our memories are perfect recordings of events, the fact is that they not recordings of reality but highly individualized reconstructions that are subject to numerous sources of bias and distortion. As I have already mentioned, we invent our version of reality so it should be no surprise to learn that our memories are reflections of those stories, not a record of objective reality. Moreover, not only are those memories very individualized, but they can also be significantly altered by subsequent events. We’ll talk about this in a bit when we discuss how imagination impacts our sales and marketing efforts.

In this chapter, I will examine the experience–memory–recall cycle. This is essential to the Customer Loyalty Loop. Companies spend a lot of money building their brand and creating a culture that supports a particular perception. However, that perception is going to be influenced by many factors, some of which are controllable by the organization and some of which are not. However, to give yourself the best shot at creating the impression, the brand, and the business you want, it is essential to understand the experience–memory–recall cycle.

Creating the Experience

The way we construct our stories, and our first memories of an experience, is a function of numerous factors. For example, we can only focus on one thing at a time, so when we focus to the left, we are missing what’s happening on the right. And what’s happening there might provide important clues that would influence the narrative. So, the first thing that shapes our story is where we focus our attention.

Once our attention is focused, we receive sensory input, mostly from the focus of attention but also from other strong stimuli that might be present. So, for example, as you’re sitting at your desk focusing on the report you have to write, or as you’re reading this book, you might be distracted by a loud noise, a strong smell, or even an unexpected vibration (those of you who live in places where there are earthquakes will know what I mean!). When distracted like this, the intrusive sensory input is likely to dominate your perception and subsequent narrative. It has got your attention for a reason; your brain thinks it’s important as it is potentially a danger signal, and detecting danger is the brain’s priority.

You’re sitting at your desk writing an important report and doing very creative work. As you are doing this, you hear a deafening noise and looking out of your window you can see that there has been a major traffic accident right outside your window. What you will remember about this moment is almost certainly going to be the traffic accident and not the great work you were doing (but hopefully someone else will point out how talented you are!).

The human brain also works by focusing on contrast because contrast signifies change, and detecting change is a priority. As a result, the brain can be hijacked as it pursues contrast, sometimes at the expense of other important features in the environment. In their book Sleights of Mind, neuroscientists Stephen L. Macknik and Susana Martinez-Conde recount their experiences learning magic tricks and illusions. They show that most of these tricks use the brain’s natural mechanisms to fool us. The brain will fill in the gaps by creating illusions. For example, because the brain operates on contrast, if you show someone three red cards and one black one, the mind will focus on the black one first. If you withdraw the cards before there’s time to look at the red ones, the illusionist has a pretty good idea which card has been remembered.

A classic example of how focus can influence perception is given by psychologist Dan Simons, as reported in the American Psychologist in 2006. In his talks, Simons performs the following trick. He has six playing cards projected onto the screen.⁴ He asks a member of the audience to step forward. As Simons covers his eyes and turns away from the screen, he asks the audience member to select one of the six cards and point to it, so the audience knows which he has picked. In this case, let’s assume it is the Queen of Clubs, but it could be any card. Dan then opens his eyes and says he will remove the selected card from the screen. With a click of the mouse, the screen changes, there are now only five cards left and, hey presto! The Queen of Clubs is no longer there!

How did Simons do it? Did he secretly sneak a peek when the card was being identified to the audience? Was it all a prearranged deal, and the audience member was part of the stunt? These are standard explanations that people give when they see this trick, but they are both wrong. In some ways, the answer is simpler than that.

No one notices that when Dan put five cards up on the screen after the audience has been alerted to the selected card, that they are five completely different cards from the original set! It’s not just the Queen of Clubs that is missing, all of the original set are missing! Very few people notice, however, because they are all locked on to the Queen of Clubs and not focusing on the other cards. Our focus and expectations will determine our perception. There is a famous study on inattentional blindness featuring a flight simulation game. Professional pilots in this simulation were relatively weak at detecting when they were about to land their plane on top of another airliner! This is because it is not their common experience and expectation to see another plane in this situation, and they were focusing elsewhere. Many subconscious processes like these hijack our perception, experience, and ultimately our memories.

When we receive sensory information, we quickly interpret it with little if any focused analysis. Instead, our subconscious, past experiences, and expectations influence the story. For example, if I see smoke in the distance I might automatically assume that I smell burning as well. In that sense, the formation of our memories is based on associations and assumptions, of which we are not conscious, or at least conscious when they are occurring and influencing the story.

In the September 11, 2013, edition of Scientific American, Melanie Tannenbaum uses just such an example in her recollection of the events of 9/11.⁵ Her recall of seeing the smoke from the Twin Towers from 30 miles away was always accompanied by the memory of the smell of burning. That was her enduring memory—until she looked at the numerous e-mails she wrote that day, not one of which had any mention of the smell of burning. It is an excellent example of how our memory fills in the gaps and uses unconscious assumptions that shape not just the narrative but the memory of it, too.

Now think about how this works at every level of customer interaction. If I see an ad that features a person who looks a lot like my brother, my perception of the ad will be influenced by memories and feelings associated with my brother (fortunately, in my case, mostly good!). Obviously, this can work in an almost infinite number of ways. Whenever you present people with a stimulus, they can react in many possible ways based on their experiences and associations. Sure, you can go out of your way to make the stimuli as pleasing as you want (for example, play soft music), but there are always going to be some people who react to that stimulus contrary to your expectations. For some people, soft music has negative connotations.

The Role of Emotion

Previously, I mentioned how emotion not only influences the narrative, but it also affects the memory of the story. The example I gave was receiving a gift card either immediately after discovering you had been bad-mouthed or praised in social media. The emotion not only influences the experience, but it also influences the memory of the experience. To give another example, you go to the movies with your friends to see a romantic comedy. Just before you walk into the movie theater, you have an upsetting phone call with your spouse/girlfriend/boyfriend. In the first scenario, you are in the movie theater and are distracted. You’re thinking about the call and your relationship while your friends are laughing their heads off, which you find highly irritating. There’s a decent chance that you will encode this experience as frustrating, and your memory is likely to be that the movie sucked as a comedy.

Now, back in the movie theater, let’s suppose that hearing your friends cracking up makes you smile. Laughter is infectious, which is why sitcoms use laugh tracks. Now you are laughing, or at least smiling, and it is tough to laugh and be mad at the same time. So this laughter takes your mind off the relationship issue. Now, rather than underrating the movie, you’re likely to overrate it! It must be a funny movie if it could distract you from your worries, right? But what about later when you recall this evening? The chances are that, regardless of how you felt at the time, if you now remember the association of the movie with the upsetting phone call, you will recall the movie as a disappointment.

In a relevant 2011 experiment, researchers showed that the more relaxed shoppers were, the more they were going to spend. Relaxation implies that the brain is not perceiving a threat, and therefore it is more capable of thinking abstractly about the value of the object and is less “defensive” about everything, including spending money. The defensiveness that stress brings might inhibit everything, including reaching for your credit card.⁶

As you experience events on a moment-to-moment basis, you are consciously but mostly subconsciously processing them. And after a few seconds, this experience is encoded into your memory. It’s believed by the experts that the different sensory components of the experience—the sight, sound, feel, taste, smell, and the emotion—are encoded in different parts of the brain. When you recall the event, those separate memories are recruited and put together as a whole memory. Imagine having a separate file cabinet for each of these memory components. As you try to recall the event, subconsciously you go to each of the filing cabinets and collect the information needed. Of course, there’s always the chance that you pick up the wrong file—a sensory impression that is similar, but belongs to another event.

If you have ever been traumatized or have watched or read about someone who has gone through a trauma, you will often hear that traumatized person be able to recall the difficult event but with no emotion whatsoever. In fact, they might say something like, “I remember it, but I am numb.” This is because the emotional component of the memory has not been recruited, typically because it is too painful to bear. Sometimes the emotion is so overwhelming that it prevents the memory occurring at all, what is called repression. How memory is laid down in the brain makes subsequent recall susceptible to distortion.

So, now you have a memory of an experience in your short-term memory. At some point, it is put into long-term storage in a different part of the brain. Because it has been consolidated, you might think that this longterm memory; even though it has been influenced by the processes described above and is likely flawed, nevertheless will now remain stable. For better or for worse, this is how you will always remember this experience. But not so fast.

Remember Elizabeth Loftus, the memory researcher I referenced earlier in this chapter? She has been a leader in the field of how recall can be influenced long after the memory has been encoded as a long-term memory.

If you had been a subject in one of Loftus’ classic studies, you would have seen a picture of a car accident and then later asked questions about it. If you were in one group, you would have been asked to estimate the speed of the cars when they smashed into each other. If you were in another group, you would have been asked to determine the speed of the cars when they hit. The chances are that if you were told that the cars “smashed” into each other, your estimate of their speed would be higher than if you were told that they had hit each other. Moreover, if you were told that the cars had smashed into each other, you were much more likely to recall broken glass in the picture than if you were told that the cars had hit each other, even though no broken glass was present in the photo.

A lot of Loftus’ work has been on this misinformation effect. How things are presented, the stories created, and the metaphors used all influence perception, subsequent memories, and more important, decision making. In a Stanford University experiment, researchers found that the metaphor used to describe the crime in a particular city influenced suggestions for how to deal with the problem. When the metaphor used for crime was to describe it as “a wild beast preying on the city,” 75 percent of subjects suggested solutions that involve punishment and enforcement, like more prisons. When the metaphor was changed to a “virus infecting the city” only 56 percent suggested greater enforcement and 44 percent social reforms.

The misinformation effect also demonstrates that following information changes the reliability of memory. Loftus observed a murder trial where there was conflicting witness testimony, and after publishing an article about it, she became a sought-after legal expert who has testified in many high-profile legal cases, like the O.J. Simpson trial. What she has discovered is that various factors can distort the subsequent recall of memory. For example, the memory of witnesses can be significantly influenced by information they have got either at the time of recall or in the intervening periods since the event.

One aspect of this misinformation effect research has generated a lot of controversies and personal criticism of Loftus. In one study, in which the researchers created a false childhood memory of subjects being lost in a mall, 25 percent of subjects subsequently bought into the suggestion and recalled being lost in the mall as a real event that happened to them. Loftus then used this evidence to criticize certain forms of therapy, particularly where hypnotic techniques are used to retrieve memories. These techniques risk implanting false memories, especially of childhood abuse, Loftus argued. Interestingly, Sigmund Freud found himself in this predicament. Using fairly aggressive associative techniques, he believed that many of his patients were recalling experiences of childhood sexual abuse. However, when confronted with these “memories,” these patients denied having any such experience. Were they in denial? Was there another explanation for the discrepancy? Freud resolved the matter by creating the notion of infantile sexuality, that children have a repressed desire to have sex with their parents, which in retrospect is probably the least likely explanation.

In any event, Loftus’ contention that leading questions by therapists could create false memories led to howls of protests from therapists. Given what we know about the human brain and its binary nature, we should expect this argument to descend into a simple battle of opposites even amongst supposedly ultra-rational scientists (i.e., that there’s no such thing as a false memory, or that all memories are false). Of course, what the research suggests is that memory is unreliable and can be influenced, not that it is always critically distorted.

And talking of the binary brain, there is some relevant research that relates to choice and buying decisions. One of the difficult tasks for the brain is to scale a list of alternatives. It is far easier to see the world as a choice between two opposites, than say a choice between several things that vary in different qualities. The binary brain might be behind the finding of one researcher on buying decisions.

Sheena Iyengar is the author of the book The Art of Choosing,⁷ and in one of her experiments, she found that when subjects were presented with more than 20 types of chocolate or wine, compared to a list of fewer than seven, they consistently chose the premium varieties. Moreover, they paid considerably more than the product was worth. One explanation for these findings is that when faced with many alternatives, we’re likely to simplify the choice by going to a binary solution and looking at the extremes. This would mean selecting either the most expensive or the cheapest. Moreover, we would overvalue those choices, making the “best” wines more expensive and the “worst” wines more affordable. Research of 63 wine auctions held in London between 2006 and 2009 confirmed this. People at these auctions overvalued the higher appraised wines and undervalued lower appraised products.

The nature of the binary brain, the focus on change and contrast, the influence of emotion, the way events are presented, our past experiences, subconscious processes, and expectations all not only shape the experience but also fundamentally influence the memory of the experience. And it is the memory of the experience that drives decisions. Also, each time a memory is recalled, it can be influenced by context and the availability of information that has assumed importance.

Melanie Tannenbaum, who was quoted earlier about her recall of 9/11, gives a great example of how subsequent input changes memories. She writes:

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both reported vivid memories at the ends of their lives where they recalled in graphic detail how wonderful it felt to sign the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, the most momentous day of their lives. Except for one minor problem: July 4th was the day that the wording was approved by Congress. No one signed anything until August 2nd.

July 4, 1776, was obviously a very important date for Adams and Jefferson, and it had been so lauded after the event that even these signers of the Constitution forgot that it was not the day they signed the famous document. But you can see how easily that date would be part of their narratives and influence their memories of details. It’s an example of the availability bias. The date of July 4th was so available to them because it was such a critical date that it influenced their memories.

Businesses go to great lengths to create the right customer experience, but what they should be doing is creating the right customer memory. And as you can see, there are many intervening variables that shape the memory from the experience.

The rest of this book deals primarily with how to create the “right customer memory.” This starts long before the sale is made and continues as the customer continues to do business with you. To do this, let’s start to unravel the various steps of the Customer Loyalty Loop so you can wrap your head around each step of the process.