Nose Blindness at Work: Why You Stop Smelling Your Business

Nose blindness is an amusingly descriptive term that describes how repeated exposure to an odor causes the subject’s awareness of it to decrease. Other terms that describe the phenomenon include odor fatigue and olfactory fatigue.

Basically, your sensitivity to aromas fades as you regularly encounter them. That means you and your employees get used to the smells at work, and don’t notice them as readily as non-employees do.

Here’s a more scientific explanation of olfactory adaptation. A review of data published in the National Library of Medicine defines it this way: “Non-associative memory allows organisms to adjust their behavioral responses to sensory input based on recent stimulation history.”

What does this mean for you and your business? It suggests that an “aroma gap” exists between you and your customers, one caused by your repeated exposure to your store’s everyday smells. Being aware of this perception difference can help make your scent marketing efforts more impactful.

Let’s explore the reasons why this smell gap exists. There are a variety of factors involved:

• Habituation Through Repetition – Because employees breathe in the same “store smell” every day, they get used to it. Repetition dulls awareness.
• Fresh Nose, New Perspective – Visitors to your store arrive with a fresh awareness of a new space. As a result, they’re more likely to notice how your store’s scent differs from the other spaces they’ve visited.
• Intense First Impression – Sometimes, your store’s scent is skewed to one area and is not as strong in other areas. For instance, if your lobby/entrance are frontloaded with aroma, it could be the intensity of that area that causes comments.
• Everyone Smells Differently – It’s important to remember that sensory experiences hit each person differently. Perception varies. However, you can still look for patterns in the data you gather.

Listen to your customers. Engage in those conversations about your store’s smell. They might be awkward at times, but they’re a goldmine for gathering real-time info.

What does your business smell like?

You’re not the only one to experience nose blindness. It’s common in a business setting. But when it comes to your store’s scent profile, there are risks to relying solely on your—and your staff’s—perception.

Treating Employee Feedback as the Only Quality Check

How your staff feels about workplace aromas is important. But getting an objective assessment is essential, and to do that, you have to go beyond that circle of familiar voices. Their built-in bias may be complicating matters.

Because they come in with fresh noses, so to speak, customers offer a fresh perspective. Their feedback is key. You can expand even further—and get a even more detailed feedback—by partnering with a professional scent marketing service.

Learn how the scent professionals at Aire-Master can help.

Increasing Intensity Because the Scent Seems to Have Disappeared

If your employees have been helping you manage your DIY aroma delivery, you may run into this scenario. Your “opener” comes in and turns up the setting or adds scent because, to them, it smells weak. Your second shift assistant manager does the same, saying they can’t smell much, either.

Then a customer comes in and says, “Wow, it really smells strong in here today!”

This cycle is real, and it has real consequences. Left unchecked, the increase in intensity can simultaneously feel off-putting to customers, but unremarkable to longtime employees.

The goal is to find a balance.

Learn How Workplace Air and Scent Impact Employee Performance.

Missing Uneven Scent Coverage

As air travels through a building, so does scent. Consider all the things that can affect air movement and scent travel:

• HVAC unit size and frequency of use
• Height of ceilings
• How an area functions
• Size/volume of rooms
• Number of doors, including garage doors and doors that open outside
• Customer foot traffic, especially at peak times

Generally speaking, your goal is to achieve a subtle aroma profile in each area. That way, the customer’s journey through your store has more balance and fewer surprises. But each room/area is different, so that’s easier said than done.

Assuming a Scent Program Is “Set It and Forget It”

You want your store to have a balanced, subtle aroma. But finding that “Goldilocks zone” takes work and attention to detail. If the effort and variables are too much for you to manage, it might be time to hire a service.

The only way to truly get that “set it and forget it” peace of mind is to partner with a professional scent marketing outfit like Aire-Master. They’ve been helping clients control odor and manage scent since 1958, and they’re ready to help you.

To evaluate your business with more objectivity, follow these helpful tips:

1. Stand outside the entrance. Close your eyes and take 5 deep breaths.
2. Enter the store with full awareness, your senses fully engaged.
3. Walk the store in a customer’s shoes, assessing the space as they would.
4. Wander through the entire store, ensuring you enter each room where customers are allowed.
5. Gather feedback by chatting with people whom you don’t see—and who don’t see/smell the store—every day.
6. Assess the setting. Look for anything that could complicate a balanced scent marketing approach (airflow, doors, traffic, room size, bathrooms).
7. Take a more scientific approach to your sense of scents. Document results and changes over a finite period of time. Repeat and compare. Look for patterns.

Once you’re done, you will likely have learned a lot. But if a second opinion would be helpful, contact your local Aire-Master for a professional perspective.

Cranking it up to 11 won’t work with fragrances. Nose blindness can complicate matters. Just remember: Balance and moderation are key.

For scent marketing to be beneficial, you have to find a scent that fits your brand. That could be a classic fragrance, or it could be a signature scent that’s made just for you.

Then you have to find the right intensity level for that scent. And if you have a business with multiple rooms, you’ll need to adjust for that, too.

There’s also the delivery method to think about, as well as equipment and supplies. Not to mention the fragrance itself.

Or, you could partner with the pros at Aire-Master. Their unrivaled know-how, huge library of fragrances, and reliable equipment make it easy to succeed with scent marketing.