Tools for successful customer engagement
Bearing in mind the surge of the number of channels and devices used by customers, retailers are facing the need to be personal and relevant on every step of the customer journey. As an organisation or business you must be aware that customer loyalty is based on the experience the customer has with your brand or business. So you need to make customer engagement a priority. The Customer Engagement expert group – part of research programme ShoppingTomorrow – has spent the last year focused on the Customer Engagement Framework which will allow you to make customers engage and keep them engaged.
Customer engagement is all about the degree of emotional involvement your customer has for your business, brand or product. Customer data (profile data, contact data, purchases and click-behaviour) are the foundation for this. Analyses of this customer data will help you understand what customers want and expect. An organisation can use this understanding to not only personalise communication, improve its timing and improve the customer experience during orientation and purchase, it can also help to track the reason for purchasing at this organisation or even follow and improve the reasons why customers want to be an ambassador for it. By constantly keeping the customer proposition aligned with the customer expectation – or even surpassing it – the store formula will stay on the mark, be distinctive and keep the customer involved. Having a less-than-distinctive customer proposition equals customer disengagement.
Customer insights discovery
Customer insights are the insights based on customer data, and are part of the Customer Engagement Framework, thus feeding the other elements in the model. In order to improve customer engagement in your organisation, (customer) data-based useful customer insights and metrics (the aggregated result of measurements such as user experience) are a must.
Customer dialogue management
In order to create excited, engaged and loyal customers, who will recommend your brand or organisation as ambassadors, it is essential to set up a customer dialogue in tune with the customer.
Customer value management (CVM)
The goal of the customer value management (CVM) component of the framework is that customer interaction is managed and determined by the current and predicted future value of that customer.
Customer experience optimization
The part played by the customer experience optimization component is to improve the operational (online) purchasing process, along various stages of the customer journey. This will not only create satisfied customers, it will also build a preference in them for your business, from which the customer will be prepared to share ideas and contribute in other ways to improve the brand and the organisation of which they are a fan.
The completed and perfectly combined components of the Customer Engagement Framework ultimately produce two types of value: one is engaged customer (or fans) and the other is continuity for your business. In two words: full circle.
If you like to read more about the findings of the Customer Engagement expert group, download the blue paper ‘Tools for successful customer engagement’. This expert group was run by Squadra, Bloomreach and Sazas.