So now, instead of rummaging through toolboxes and cupboards, trying to find the right tool to pry their weird old thermostat off the wall, customers simply reached into the Nest box and took out exactly what they needed. It turned a moment of frustration into a moment of delight.

And then it turned into a lot more than that.

The screwdriver was never just for installation. It had ripple effects all the way up and down the customer journey.

A vital part of the customer experience is post-sale. How do you stay connected to your customer in a way that’s actually useful? How do you keep on delighting people instead of just marketing to them, selling and selling until they’re sick of you?

The process of convincing someone to buy and use your product needs to respect the customer, needs to understand their needs at different points of the user experience. You can’t just shout your top ten features at people in a billboard and a website and packaging just like you can’t simply hand someone your résumé at an interview, then lunch, then on a date. Sure, you’re giving them important information, but different moments in the journey

require different approaches.

Your message needs to fit the customer’s context. You can’t say everything everywhere.

Habit #4: Unearth the Unmet Needs

Sometimes you have to open your heart to open your mind. You have to get close enough to customers to feel what they feel. Only then will you see opportunities to transform the customer experience in ways that lift the human spirit.

Bureaucracies value thinking over feeling. That’s why most businesses are astoundingly bad at reading customer emotions. Every day they irritate their customers in countless ways. You’ll know this if you’ve ever been stuck on hold waiting to talk to a customer service rep. What makes the hold time even more intolerable is the pointless prattle you have to endure —which seems to have been designed solely to increase the production of cortisol.

To figure out what your triggers are, ask yourself the following questions:

• When was the last time someone said something that annoyed me more than it did others around me? Why did I feel so strongly about it?

• What would my closest friends say my pet peeves are?

• Who have I met that I’ve immediately been wary of? What made me feel that way?

• What’s an example of a time when I’ve overreacted and later regretted it? What made me so worked up in that moment?

Knowing what lifts you up or brings you down is enormously valuable. Like how athletes have structured diet and exercise regimens to keep them competing in peak condition, the work you do to help yourself operate at your best will lead to many more winning days on the job.

Being nice is good, but eventually decisions need to be made and problems need to be solved.

And that is where less emotional, more cognitive language becomes important. Indeed, when customer service agents used more emotional language at the beginning of conversations, and more cognitive language in the middle, customers were more satisfied with the interaction and purchased more afterward.

Don’t just solve. And don’t just connect.

Connect, then solve.