Customer Engagement 2.0

Boaz Ronkin just published an inspiring article on engagement and conversion. It is about the “engagement” stage in the online marketing paradigm: “acquire, engage, convert, retain”. He argues that engagement for engagement’s sake does not make any sense, and that engagement should always serve the conversion goal.

This blog is all about customer engagement, so we always emphasize the importance of the engagement phase. We’ve seen many examples where engagement plays an essential role on websites. Especially for complex products (for example mortgages or cars), customers will not make a purchase decision before they feel totally comfortable with all the options.

Conversion, however, is still the ultimate goal. I fully agree with Boaz that engagement by itself is not what you want to optimize for. Engagement should prepare the visitor for a purchase decision or a registration (e.g. becoming pre-qualified for a mortgage). With standard web analytics tools you can usually measure the correlation between visitor engagement and conversion, so that’s what you optimize for.

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Many people have different opinions of what ‘Customer Engagement’ exactly stands for. In this article I don’t want to create yet another definition, but I’d like to elaborate on our understanding of Customer Engagement. In my opinion, it’s all about: how do we give what the customer wants (and maybe something more), giving them a positive feeling about the brand/product/service, so they are likely to become more loyal to the brand.

But then of course, the next question will be: How do we (the marketers of a brand/product/service) persuade our customers that we are worth their time, effort, money and commitment? We won’t be able to engage everyone, and we must accept that those who do engage with us will do so to different degrees and in different ways. Customer engagement isn’t a nirvana that can be reached; it is a process of developing and nurturing relationships.

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A colleague recently introduced me to a book about engagement and wedding rings.  You can probably guess that I’m shopping for an engagement ring, and speaking from a guy’s point of view, this is a very daunting task.  I will be the first to admit that I know little about rings and it wasn’t until recently that I could identify the 4 Cs of diamonds. Online stores often offer the best deal, but – until recently – it wasn’t as comforting to buy online as it was to buy in a store. However, the latest Rich Internet Applications greatly improve the online engagement ring shopping experience.

Prior to researching online options, I visited a well-known jewelry store to speak with a “sales professional.”  After all, he professionally attempted to lure me into buying one of their expensive diamond rings.  Granted, the ring looked spectacular but given the price tag, it was way out of my budget!  I wondered if I could find a better deal online for a comparable ring, and while I was certain I could, I wondered if an online retailer could match the in-store experience of a brick-and-mortar.

It didn’t take long before I stumbled upon the bluenile.com website.  The first thing I noticed right away was how easy it was to search for a diamond.  With the use of Ajax, they employ what we call “faceted search”, a rich internet application (RIA) feature that uses criteria sliders to narrow your search results.  This is an intuitive functionality that makes it easier for the user to find a specific diamond they are looking for.

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This year’s Forrester Financial Services Forum for Marketing and Strategy Professionals was focused on how to deliver great customer experience.  It covered best practices, cross channel strategies but also many sessions were covering online experience especially through the use of software tools.  One such session I found pretty interesting was from National City.  I liked it because National City clearly made the effort to measure the return on investment of the Online Chat tool they implemented.  Their goal was to increase customer engagement which ultimately would increase revenue.

First, some interesting data from Forrester: 54% of the people who abandon an online application i.e. for brokerage accounts, home equity loans, mortgage accounts, and personal loans intended to complete the process. If you’re able to engage them before, then you might prevent them from abandoning the application. And according to Forrester research, human intervention has proven to help prevent abandonment by “intenders.“

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