Customer Engagement
Who has seen the movie Bohemian Rhapsody? Most of you will have, but for anyone who hasn’t, the movie follows the band Queen, their legendary music and the story of Freddie Mercury. If you ever get a couple of hours, watch it – it’s worth it.
But we’re not here to promote movies, let’s get back to what you came here to read about: During the movie, a scene shows how Queen came up with the song We Will Rock You. Kat, a Bolstur Performance Partner, was watching it and all she could think about was customer engagement. The band’s aim was to create a rhythm allowing concert goers to be involved and interact with their music.
According to the business dictionary customer engagement is defined as “the entirety of the interactions a customer has with a company and its products”. We have seen what that means in terms of interacting with a song, but there are a heap of other interactions for concert goes that will have an impact on their engagement with the show and the music (the main ‘products’ they are showing up for): ticket purchase, information availability, travel to venue, entering venue and purchase of supplementary products and services (food, drinks, merchandise) and leaving the venue, as well as travelling back home. Now, what the hell does this mean for your business?
It is no secret that customer engagement is an absolute must and should be a priority if you want your business – whether it is a product or service – to succeed. And if you don’t believe us, check out these stats:
1. 67% of consumers list bad customer experience as one of the primary reasons for churning, and 95% of consumers have taken action as a result
2. 39% of consumers avoid vendors for over 2 years after having a negative experience, and 58% of consumers will never use a company again after a negative experience
3. Unhappy customers act FAST — Half quit doing business with a company immediately after a bad sales/marketing experience, one-quarter took to social media, and 54% started engaging with other companies.
4. Accenture found that 54% of customers switched service providers in the past year, citing frustrating customer service as the top reason (64%)
5. Experiences that would make customers take their business elsewhere include unfriendly service (60%) and employees’ lack of knowledge (46%)
6. 22% of consumers would leave for other brands after a creepy experience
7. 23% of customers who had a good customer experience told 10+ people
8. 30% of customers share positive reviews via social media
9. 50% of consumers would use a company more frequently after a positive customer experience
10. 24% of consumers continue to seek out vendors for 2+ years after a positive experience
So we’re on the same page right? It’s a BIG freakin’ deal.
Now we’re clear on the importance of customer engagement, you may wonder how you can make sure that your business creates a good one. Before making any radical changes, take some time to reflect on positive experiences you had yourself with various brands.
What stood out for you? Was it their website, content that was informative, billboards, a jingle in their ad that you can’t forget or their customer service?
Whatever it is, write it down and have some conversations with your leadership team and peers about it. Experiences are perceived differently by everyone, in order to create a successful customer engagement, you need to know who your target market is, which you can do by putting together some personas. From there, it’s about critically reviewing your current customer interactions and understanding how they impact now, and how they can be improved.
Shout out if you wanna chat more about this or have any questions, we love bouncing ideas around too.