Do you Engage or Transact with Your Customer?

_{Submitted by:  Gill Bowmaker}

Customer engagement is considered by many as “The ongoing interactions between a brand and a customer, “offered” by the company and “chosen” by the customer.”  Expanding on the interactions the key understand is that they can be thought of as transactions as each require something of the other party.

The mutual exchange of value in each transaction is key to defining the type and volume of customer interactions that a brand has as a goal.   It comes down to the Customer Experience and whether the engagement is simply an exchange or whether the engagement leaves the customer with a need for more. 

Designing a Customer Experience Journey for the purpose of creating a long term, value driven relationship between your brand and your customers, the design should focus on your customer’s “needs and wants”, understanding that they have choices.  Creating a model that is just based on a transaction that produces revenue negates a Customer Retention plan. 

The Customer perception of their interactions with your brand defines their Customer Experience Journey.  The Journey is essentially a sub-set of customer transactions that create a series of engagement across multiple channels.  This in turn provides a broader context for how to drive value for both your brand and for your customers. In the current marketplace a customer spends their time happily engaging and interacting with your brand through various touchpoints, each experience taking them closer to their unique destination.

A single transaction, may result in a customer feeling satisfaction. 

A single transaction or interaction, may result in a customer feeling dissatisfaction. 

It take one single negative transaction to damage the memory of the entire experience and the association with the brand, which ultimately leads to a disengaged customer.  A “Gift to your Competitors”.

McKinsey source defines it clearly. “Customer engagement … should not be confused with the customer experience; engagement goes beyond managing the experience at touch points to include all the ways companies motivate customers to invest in an on-going relationship with a product or brand.  More customer interactions across more touch points are shaping the degree of engagement a customer feels with your company … companies that learn to design and execute effective customer-engagement strategies will have the advantage; the others will lose ground.”

To improve ROI brands need to think beyond individual interactions and focus on the Customer Experience Journey.