Customer Engagement

Here's the most simple success formula ever. It will drive business success by driving customer and employee trust.

This formula is especially effective when thinking about customers - their experiences; what you want them to feel, think and do; and what kind of processes and systems you need to build to support them.

1. Treat people the way you want to be treated without fail.
2. Given that human beings are involved you will fail at some point. When it happens see #1.
   

Seth Godin's blog posting today - How should you treat your best customers? poses a question all businesses should have an answer to. Seth's ultimate question is how to turn best best customers into best marketers.

So why do companies - large, small and in-between - not know how to leverage their best customers as their best marketers?

Satchel Paige, an American baseball player who pitched well into his 50s said, “Age is a question of mind over matter. If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.” (Actually, we’re pretty sure he “borrowed” that from Mark Twain.)

I get the sense that many companies feel the same way about their customer touch point programs – if customers aren’t complaining about their touch points, they must not mind them and therefore “it don’t matter.”

Really?

Customer centric approaches over the years have had many philosophical flavors and technical implementations including CRM, customer infallibility, consultative selling, NPS, loyalty programs, employee comp plans tied to customer satisfaction and others.

Social media has finally given companies the tools they need to really attain customer centricity.

I'm often asked what being customer centric means. Lately, the question is being posed more frequently. This is the result of companies trying to develop social media strategies, focusing on customer experience and customer engagement and dealing with tight budgets.

"Being" customer centric results from adherence to a set of core values that are appropriate for your customers, products/services, employees and business goals.