Top Trends in Experience for 2024

Today, I am sharing my second of eight trends in Experience for 2024, and we are focusing on the new customer expectations around Wow moments. The traditional ideas about “Wow Moments” are stale and old-fashioned - not nearly enough to win over the majority of today’s consumers.

In 2024: The Old “Ways-To-Wow” Will Not Be Enough: The Rise of the Compound Wow Is the New Standard.

I hear leaders and employees talk about the “Wow Moments” they create all the time. It’s rare that I would actually score those moments as a “Wow” and based on our research and audit results, most customers agree with me. Yet, companies continue to talk about how they “Wow” customers based on old-fashioned and outdated ideas about what is a “Wow Moment”.

Consumers everywhere will tell you they have moved on, and your old ideas about Wowing them are really just….. good to great service.

Why is this?

Because most companies are just executing single transactional “Wow Moments” (and I use that term loosely) based on one discrete interaction. They have been taught that this is enough to win customer loyalty or produce some level of delight. For example, if you notice that my favorite drink is a Chopin Martini Extra-Dry-Three-Olives, and you produce it the next time I sit at your bar, I will think that is a nice gesture and good service, but it won’t Wow me. You have a good memory, and I do appreciate being remembered, but I’ll forget about that by time the day is over. If I won’t remember it 12 months from now, it’s not a Wow.

Companies that focus on transactional or single-moment Wow experiences will fall behind in 2024.

As many industries experience an array of new competitors, lower customer switching costs, and pressure to be the obvious customer choice, single moment / transactional experiences will just not be enough.

The answer is Compound Wows. Compound Wows derived from strong storytelling are now required to create raving fans, indelible memories, and delighted consumers.

Compound Wow experiences will create a narrative and string of thematic experiences that allow a customer to have strong emotional bonds to a brand. These are memories that last - which means that they drive loyalty and brand preference which translates to revenue opportunities.

This Compound Wow model is not overly difficult or expensive to execute, but it does require organizational alignment, empowerment, and operationalized processes that scale.

Just like compound interest, the long-term impact of Compound Wows is far greater than from Simple Wows!