From angry customers to disgruntled contact center representatives to social media sites flooded with disparaging remarks about companies, one thing has come across loud and clear over the last few years – customer engagement strategies are crucial for companies nowadays, particularly with the advent of the Internet.
But, just as industry experts couldn’t hone a concrete definition for CRM a few years ago; there exists tons of ideas about what the definition of customer engagement should be. Accordingly, many companies have developed lots of different tactics with regards to how best to promote these types of tactics.
“We try to follow Forrester’s (News - Alert) definition because we think it levels the playing field,” Tim Searcy, chief executive officer of ACCENT Marketing Services, told TMCnet in a recent podcast. “We see engagement as the level of involvement, interaction, intimacy and influence an individual has with a brand over time.”
“That’s what it is but what we are about and how you go about doing it are a little bit different,” he added. “We have to be seeking an ideal outcome in which that engagement, that intimacy, that involvement, that interaction is positive for the customer and that it doesn’t vary by touch point or by channel.”
ACCENT – a performance marketing company for brands that are passionate about keeping and growing customers – recently sat down with TMCnet to explore what customer engagement is and how important it has become.
And for ACCENT, a company founded in 1993, the importance of customer engagement is only becoming increasingly important.
“Back in 1993, we wanted to have a vision where we could help really high quality brands at every stage of their customer lifecycle,” Searcy said. “We knew that data was going to be a key component of what happened but we also knew that throughout a lifecycle there would be touch points – opportunities where we would be able to interrupt negative things that happen with customers and create positive experiences.”
One way ACCENT accomplishes this is through its Continuous Engagement ImprovementProcess, which couples ACCENT’s resources with a data-driven approach to help brands get the most out of their customer relationships.
For ACCENT, companies ought to go through five steps when trying to reach their customers –listen, learn, connect, influence and optimize. Each stage is centered upon making each customer interaction more intelligent and engaging than the last, regardless of interaction channel.
“When we have done this on behalf of clients, we help them understand their customers better but we also increase tremendous efficiencies by doing two things: driving more revenue, which is always valuable, but also eliminating the waste and cost of communicating with customers in means they don’t like.”
For more on ACCENT’s Continuous Engagement ImprovementProcess, click here to download the podcast. In a few weeks, Searcy will sit down with TMCnet to discuss the first stage of the process—listen. Check back at the Customer Engagement Channel for the next podcast.
Carrie Schmelkin is a Web Editor for TMCnet. Previously, she worked as Assistant Editor at the New Canaan Advertiser, a 102-year-old weekly newspaper, covering news and enhancing the publication's social media initiatives. Carrie holds a bachelor's degree in journalism and a bachelor's degree in English from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Jamie Epstein