Here comes the science
How a person’s RAS (reticular activating system) affects the way they perceive products and services.
What is a RAS (reticular activating system)?
The RAS is the name given to the part of the brain believed to be the centre of arousal and motivation in people.
The universal law of attraction
"It’s a common phenomenon. Almost everyone can relate. You start looking for a new car, something special, something not like anyone else’s, something unusual. You pick out what seems to be a unique, unusual choice of a special red car and all of a sudden, there it is – your red car, the one you thought was only yours. It’s on every street corner. It is at every stoplight. You see three of these red cars just driving down the motorway. You never saw these cars before. What happened? How did all of these people get your unique red car at the same time?"
"Well the fact of the matter is that your brain is seeing the red cars that were always there. Since you picked out this car for yourself, that car has become special for you and now you are noticing what was really there all along."
-Karren Lynch, The Universal Law of attraction
The same can be said of when you’ve had a bad experience; your brain has a conceived conception that the product or service is not good. No matter how many people from then on tell you that the product or service is good your opinion rarely changes. This is where the phrase ‘first impressions really matter’ comes from.
What causes this to occur is RAS, the part of your brain that automatically filters out what is not important to you and brings your attention to things that are important to you i.e. good and bad experiences.
Basically the RAS is how the ‘Law of Attraction’ works. We get what we focus on; we create what we think about, we focus on good and bad experiences, the RAS system of our brains just helps this process along.
 First impressions count
Imagine walking down a busy street, hundreds of people talking, music playing, advertisements shown and 100’s of shops selling products. How much of this is brought to your attention? Not a lot. True, you can hear general background noise, get glimpses of advertisements but not one thing comes to our attention.
But then you see a shop advertising a new product, the offer is great but you’ve had a previous bad experience with that store, suddenly your attention is full on. Your RAS mechanism acts as a filter between your conscious mind and your subconscious mind. It takes instructions from your conscious mind and passes them on to your subconscious. It tells you there is something of interest, but no matter how good the offer the bad experience is the one at the forefront of your mind.
An elephant never forgets
Reticular activation cells are some of your most powerful memory cells in the brain and are untapped in day to day thinking.
When you have a bad experience with an organisation it is stored by your RAS in your subconscious. It may be years later until you next come across that organisation. When you do however you’re RAS will filter the memory from your subconscious and alert your conscious mind, alerting you of your negative experience.
This is why it’s so important for organisations to rectify bad experiences with their customers as and when they happen.
The importance of RAS to organisations
While good experiences are of great benefit to your organisation bad ones can be detrimental.
Dissatisfied customers not only defect, but on average tell 10 people about their bad experience. They might be having a conversation about your products with a friend or spouse years after but thanks to their RAS they will remember their negative experience.
Organisations need to put measures into place to change these people’s opinions sooner rather than later. It’s more likely you’ll help change their opinions with positive measures immediately after their experience occurs, rather than later when it’s too late.
To find out how your organisation can find out what customers are thinking click here
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