Is better customer engagement one of your resolutions for 2017? If it is, then what is the best recipe for success?
Improved customer experience, increased customer satisfaction and a better understanding of your customer’s journey contribute to improving your customer engagement.
Better customer engagement generates loyal customers that trust your company. These customers will be more inclined to make repeat purchases from you, often with a higher price premium; and will be more understanding if there is a supply glitch – knowing that you will go the extra mile to resolve the issue. If you are a trusted supplier they may even involve you in their future planning for new products or services. This contributes significantly to customer retention and ultimately increased profitability.
Measuring and identifing areas of improvement are key to success in this area, here are some key ingredients for doing this. Mix them up in the best way for your own organisation. Although mainly applicable in the B2B area they still have relevance for B2C too.
Let’s start with some NPS….
Net Promoter Score (NPS) measures a customer’s satisfaction with a recent transaction and asks if they would recommend your company to others based only on this transaction. NPS is a valuable tool but restrictive as it only measures the likelihood of customer recommendations without identifying underlying organisational problems or providing a direction for improvement.
Add some other metrics…
- Analyse your customer journey – take a look at your organisation from your customer’s point of view using customer journey mapping or similar techniques
- Gather in-depth customer insight – you may be pleasantly surprised at the insights gained from speaking to your customers on a peer-to-peer basis. Use this technique to understand areas of dissatisfaction, probe deeper into areas where you can help your customer and understand the real benefits your customer gets from working with you
- Regular monitoring of customer sentiment over time through customer satisfaction surveys – make sure you know what answers you want before you start
- Analysis of internal company measures – help desk enquiries, Twitter feed, late deliveries, customer complaints etc
Success in this area depends on excellent measurement and understanding of information gleaned. Great ingredients for a successful recipe.