Emotional dependence is a customer’s psychological commitment to your organisation. It is their reliance on your organisation for support and guidance and decision-making. It also means the inclination to seek help from you when deciding or carrying out hard actions.
When things do not go as expected for an emotionally dependent customer, they might distance themselves and seek a relationship that provides the support they need.
Factors influencing emotional dependence include integrity, authenticity, reliability, depth of relationship, and empathy. A negative experience can have a detrimental effect on customer loyalty when the customer is in a heightened emotional state.
The three important things on how to create emotional dependence:
- Learn what your customers value on a personal level and go beyond their expectations to demonstrate that you care about them. Know your customers and their goals intimately.
- Show a high degree of emotional intelligence, especially the trait of empathy and responsiveness, when you sense your customer is getting emotional about an issue. They need to know that you know that they are important and that you will do what it takes to meet their personal needs.
- Put the right person in the right front-line job. People with high developed emotional intelligence and that WANT to be in customer support have the resilience to encounter a range of customers and deliver the solution. These individuals can provide power support and have the right mental processes in place to deal with trying issues. Make the customer feel good about working with your organisation