What you shouldn't remember, but you do.

There are a hundred good things you can remember about a person but the ones you remember are all the bad ones. Very few have the capability to remember the good experiences and memories. Years of being good is swept under the mat with just one bad experience. Is that wrong? No. I think the human brain is built to remember what effects you most and this is precisely what you do. No wonder you remember the bad things.

This is the problem with consumers too. You walk past the counter, buy a lot of stuff, sometimes not shopping at all and walk right out without any bad experiences. Sometimes, occasionally a good experience which you chose to smile about and ignore. But there comes a bad experience, a slightly out of the ordinary, may be a tired clerk, salesgirl who fails to understand why you need to check for 10 trails and still not pick one and is a bit restless with you, you jump to the conclusion and talk about consumer rights and all the stuff that puts the poor chap in defense. You call the manager, shout, yell and do everything possible to prove you have a better knowledge of the English language and more elaborate vocabulary and out him in defense too. If the case is going against you, you pool in support from a bunch of similar minded, usually jobless, customers who keep nodding in your support and say you want to report to their CEO about it. This seems funny, most of the times you don't send a mail or call about it. People who have an outlet like blogging will post about it, again in rare circumstances or post as a status in Facebook or tweet about it.

This is even more interesting. The moment you post something bad about a brand or firm, it triggers a churning process of recollection in the reader's brain searching for all the bad experiences they have had or heard from someone else they know and you get a lot of responses.

Why can't the consumer think in a positive way and be calm? Why do you choose to select the few bad experiences you have and make a fuss about it? It is in the consumer psyche like we started with saying you tend to remember experiences you let to effect you more. I am not against reporting insults and bad experiences but am strictly against strutting your ego on someone lower just because you can. The best way is to not allow the bad experiences to effect you. Grow out of it. It will help you more than anything. Applies to relationships too.

The challenge to marketers is to make sure the experience is not just good but delighting. Cut down on the bad experiences and be more flexible. If there is a bad experience, how can you make the customer forget it.

As a consumer think before you start making a scene. The fact that there are around 100 more people shopping comfortably around you and you are the only person having a problem. Let's say you are still right, the statistics say this is a rarity and exception. Should you really spoil the scene just because you can? Just a thought, but worth thinking. 

Picture is from here.