Tuesday, June 15, 2010

A New Model for Customer Engagement: The Relationship Mindshift

(Part of an ongoing series of articles about Customer Engagement strategies.)

In this period of economic uncertainty – marked by some signs of renewed growth, but with continued softness in consumer confidence and cautious discretionary spending – companies must focus more than ever on maintaining customer loyalty, cross-selling and up-selling offerings, and acquiring new customers efficiently. Coupled with the continued emergence of the web, mobile platforms, and social networks as viable business channels, companies must be prepared to engage with their prospects and customers anytime, anywhere, via any channel, at their convenience, or they will lose relevance, customers and market share.

Today’s customer looks vastly different from the customer of five, or even two years ago – and tomorrow’s customer will be more different yet. Customers are not only tech savvy, but are increasingly on-line around the clock. They are more driven to find their own answers and solve their own problems, and, when they cannot solve their problems on their own, to meaningfully engage through social media with others who are trying to solve the same or similar problems.

More and more customers are also showing a preference for subscription-based offerings, which means that companies need to offer web-based services that promote customer ‘stickiness’ – loyalty, regular and repeated engagement, etc. – in order to maximize revenue. But, because consumers have more choices than ever, it is increasingly easier to “unplug” one service provider and “plug into” another, when a customer is unhappy.

The Relationship Mindshift

The first step toward meeting today’s customer where they live is to make a fundamental mindshift in how your company will create and maintain relationships with prospects, customers, and business partners.

People want meaningful and positive interactions with the companies with which they do business – every single time they do business with them – and they expect consistency across all communication channels. Focusing on building and maintaining these business relationships will be the most critical success factor for businesses moving forward, across virtually every industry sector.

Companies must be well-positioned to maximize the value of their relationships with customers and partners through the continual and rapid launch of creative offerings – recombined or bundled products/services, personalized and targeted campaigns, etc. – and then be able to measure the effectiveness of those offerings while also guaranteeing optimized service levels tailored to the unique needs of each individual consumer. This will require movement toward campaign-driven sales patterns, agile business systems, and proactive business intelligence/analytics. Without re-evaluating an organization’s approach to conducting business, and embracing the shift to enabling and maintaining long-term, positive relationships, companies will likely repeat common mistakes of the past: siloed systems, disjointed and inconsistent functionality, fragmented and inconsistent customer touch points, all of which lead to dissatisfied and frustrated customers.

Unhappy customers are ten times more likely to stop doing business with their current proviers.

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

A New Model for Customer Engagement

I recently collaborated on a white paper about effective customer engagement and what it takes from an operational and technological perspective to achieve it. So, over my next few posts, I'll share bits of that paper, including the key steps to take in order to enable multichannel customer engagement in today's ever-changing customer landscape.

First, an overview:

In today’s competitive business climate, customers expect more than ever from the companies with which they do business. Customers are tech savvy and want to engage with companies when, where and how they prefer, and they want that engagement to be meaningful, consistent and efficient. What’s more, as new communication channels continue to emerge at a staggering rate, effectively engaging customers has become even more complex. Companies that are willing and able to embrace a new way of engaging their customers will be better positioned for acquiring and retaining customers and building loyalty.

This series of posts will discuss the six steps to effective customer engagement, including embracing a true multichannel strategy, having smarter conversations, delivering seamless experiences for delighted customers, enabling business collaboration, leveraging affiliates, partners and bundled offerings, and measuring customer retention, loyalty and revenue potential through real-time business analytics.

Additionally, I will take a closer look at ‘relationship architecture’ – the technology foundation that streamlines and helps manage all aspects of customer-facing business initiatives. Establishing a relationship architecture will provide lasting benefits to the company, partners and the customer, ultimately leading to success for the business.

Only those companies willing to embrace today’s ‘rules of engagement’ will emerge as leaders over the next decade. Acquiring and retaining customers and building loyalty calls for ‘A New Model for Customer Engagement’.