In a recent conversation on the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast, researcher and author Marcus Buckingham offered a compelling perspective on how companies can significantly improve performance by focusing on creating experiences and products that customers truly love, rather than merely like. Buckingham, author of the HBR article "What Companies Can Learn from Their Biggest Fans" and the book *Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business*, argues that organizations often expend energy on incremental improvements that fail to generate sustainable behavior change among customers and employees. Instead, he emphasizes the importance of designing extreme positive experiences that inspire love and loyalty.
Buckingham begins by explaining that many companies approach customer and employee engagement through traditional methods-setting goals, offering corrective feedback, or using incentives like loyalty programs. While these tactics can influence behavior temporarily, they do not create long-lasting commitment or enthusiasm. The key to sustainable outcomes, he notes, lies in understanding that people's experiences drive their behaviors, which in turn determine results. Therefore, companies need to become expert "experience makers," designing interactions that resonate deeply with individuals and motivate them to act productively over time.
This shift toward experience design requires moving beyond systems and processes, which, while necessary, are not sufficient to change behavior. Instead, leaders must focus on creating experiences that live inside the individual, whether customer or employee. Buckingham stresses that experience design is the fundamental mechanism for behavior change, yet it remains an underappreciated capability in most organizations.
Supporting his argument, Buckingham cites data showing a strong causal relationship between positive experiential feelings and desirable business outcomes such as customer loyalty, repeat purchases, employee productivity, and patient health improvements. Interestingly, he highlights that this relationship is not linear but curvilinear-meaning only the highest level of positive experience, what he calls the "five" or extreme positive, truly drives significant behavior change. Experiences rated below this threshold, even moderately positive ones, tend not to move the needle meaningfully.
This insight challenges common metrics like net promoter score, which often aggregate varying levels of customer sentiment without differentiating between merely satisfied and truly delighted customers. Buckingham suggests that leaders should focus their attention on those extreme positive experiences that elicit feelings of love. He acknowledges that the term "love" can feel uncomfortable or overused, but it accurately captures the emotional connection customers express when they are deeply attached to a product, service, or brand. Whether it's love for a restaurant, a pair of shoes, or a movie, this feeling is what predicts whether customers will return or recommend the brand to others.
The conversation also explores practical examples of companies that have embraced experience design to foster love among their customers. Buckingham points to The Walt Disney Company as a leading example. He discusses Disney's former parks and experiences leader, Josh D'Amaro, who exemplifies a commitment to creating exceptional experiences. D'Amaro's approach involves obsessing over details that move offerings from good to "five-star" love experiences. For instance, Disney's investment in redesigning the Millennium Falcon ride was not about increasing throughput but about enhancing the experience so that guests would love it rather than just like it. Disney's brand relies on consistently delivering this level of experience, as anything less risks damaging the emotional connection with customers.
Buckingham also addresses the challenge of creating love in businesses that do not naturally lend themselves to glamour or emotional appeal, such as manufacturers or service providers where price is a key factor. He argues that even in these contexts, companies can foster love by helping customers feel more fully themselves through their interactions. Love in business is about enabling people to take off a layer of armor, to feel understood, valued, and supported. This can apply to any company, whether it's a widget maker, a grocery store, or a car manufacturer. The key is understanding what love means in the context of the customer's experience and designing interactions that foster that feeling.
When it comes to skepticism about corporate motives, Buckingham acknowledges that some customers may doubt the sincerity of companies proclaiming love for their communities or employees. He counters this by emphasizing that love is not about superficial niceties or marketing slogans but about creating environments where productive human behavior can flourish. The data unequivocally supports that loveless environments do not yield sustainable positive outcomes.
Importantly, Buckingham outlines a practical framework for leaders to design loving experiences. He identifies five sequential feelings that form the foundation of love in business: control (over oneself), harmony (feeling understood and cared for), significance (feeling that one's story matters), warmth (support from others), and growth (becoming more capable over time). Leaders who intentionally design experiences that cultivate these feelings can guide customers and employees toward love. For example, Chick-fil-A's decision to close on Sundays respects employees' need for control and harmony, which fosters loyalty. These feelings serve as a blueprint for experience design and can be measured with simple questions, making love a tangible, operationalizable strategy rather than an abstract ideal.
Buckingham also critiques common business practices that undermine love by creating disjointed or frustrating experiences. He shares a personal example: at the end of his Audi lease, he received repeated robocalls about a "termination inspection," a process he did not understand and that left him feeling alienated. This reflects a failure to design a cohesive experience that guides the customer before, during, and after the key moments in their journey. Such "smoking Minnie" moments-disconcerting or jarring interactions-are all too common across industries, from healthcare to banking, and they erode customer love and loyalty.
Turning to the role of artificial intelligence (AI), Buckingham offers a nuanced perspective. He suggests that any technology or process a company adopts should be evaluated based on whether it brings more love into the system or drives it away. AI has the potential to help individuals flourish by enhancing their capabilities-through pattern recognition, summarization, and providing smart assistance-and in that sense, it can be loved. However, AI cannot truly empathize with human experiences or emotions such as pain, fear, or shame. As a result, AI-driven interactions risk feeling impersonal and unloving, often delivering only average, "three-star" experiences that fail to inspire loyalty or passion.
Buckingham warns that while AI excels at repeatable, predictable tasks, it struggles with the nuanced, deeply human process of experience making. Therefore, companies must be cautious in how they deploy AI, ensuring it augments rather than replaces the human elements essential to creating love. He encourages leaders to ask how AI can be used to increase love in the customer or employee experience, rather than simply cutting costs or automating tasks.
For leaders eager to apply Buckingham's insights, he offers concrete advice on what to stop and start doing immediately. First, stop designing solely around processes and systems; instead, design for the whole human experience, considering the before, during, and after of every interaction. This means mapping the entire journey of customers or employees and identifying moments where love can be cultivated or lost. Second, leaders should focus on creating experiences that allow people to feel in control, understood, significant, supported, and able to grow. Simple practices like regular, empathetic check-ins with employees can foster these feelings.
Finally, Buckingham emphasizes the importance of clarity and authenticity in communicating who the company is for. A company that shifts its identity or confuses customers about its purpose risks losing their love and loyalty. For example, United Airlines' recent changes to its frequent flyer program, which prioritize credit card spending over actual flying, may alienate customers who no longer recognize who the airline is for. Leaders should articulate clearly and consistently who they serve and why, creating a stable foundation for love to grow.
In summary, Marcus Buckingham's research and experience point to love as the most powerful force in business. By focusing on designing extreme positive experiences that enable customers and employees to feel more fully themselves, companies can drive sustainable behavior change and outperform competitors. This requires a thoughtful, intentional approach to experience design that goes beyond processes and metrics to the heart of human connection. Whether a company is Disney or a widget manufacturer, the goal is the same: create experiences that people love, because love drives loyalty, productivity, and long-term success.