Customer engagement is the new marketing.
The explosion of digital channels – from email to Web to social media – has rewritten the book on how we interact with customers. Our initial reaction was to start using these tools to generate leads. Over time, the art of lead generation has been honed into more of a science that works across many industries. But in all that lead getting, most companies lost sight of one important thing: how to keep their customers.
In a recent survey of CEOs and senior sales, marketing and customer service managers, we found that 60% of companies do not know how many customers they lost last year. And, by a 2-to-1 margin, those same executives ranked customer retention as more important than generating new customers.
Why are otherwise smart, successful companies not paying more attention to customer engagement and retention? First of all, it’s hard. It requires truly understanding your customers. That takes patience, dedication and time. It also requires that you measure customer sentiment on a regular basis, so that you can respond to feedback with personalized customer communications.
We launched Convero to help companies develop ongoing conversations with their customers that strengthen those relationships. The goal is to show customers that they are valued, which motivates them to stick around longer. When they do that, they spend more, pay more and tell their friends about their great experiences. That leads to more profit for your business. We call that return on engagement.
To simplify the process for companies, we developed Convero Voice, a five-step program that delivers a comprehensive customer engagement through:
- Customer Measurement
The primary tool for managing your customer engagement program, measureming your customers’ sentiment annually establishes a baseline data set and then tracks changes in the engagement level of customers.
- Messaging Framework
The messaging framework is a practical guide for how you engage customers with relevant information. This framework establishes the key themes for content and provides a programmatic approach to delivering valuable content to your customers.
- Conversation Plan
This roadmap to distribution channels, frequency and timing expands the messaging framework into a detailed content plan with specifics for topics, timing and channels.
- Ongoing Engagement
This is where the rubber hits the road: A consistent stream of communication that your customers find interesting and valuable.
- Feedback Loop
Completing the engagement cycle involves collecting input from customers on their evolving interests and interactions to drive refinements to the program.
In future posts, we will write in more depth about each of these steps. If you can’t wait to learn more, give us a call at 844-428-8844 or drop us a line at ready@www.converoinc.com and we will share our methodology with you in more detail.
