customer engagement

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?

There's a retired life insurance salesman in my neighborhood whose success in a 40+ year career was largely based on his ability to build a community of trust. He built trust by being committed to helping people first and selling insurance second.

Walking his Lower East Side Manhattan territory, he knocked on many doors, made many acquaintances and accepted many requests for advice and help

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.