I’m often challenged by brands that want to engage their customers online. If only they could get past customers involved…how can this be done?
The challenge is greater if large groups of customers are not recently active purchasers, or aren’t opening or responding to customer relationship management communications.
However, brands can interest consumers online, even if theirs is a commodity product, such as energy.
Just look at the little fella below…
Above is screenshot from my dual fuel account page at Octopus Energy, one of the new, challenger energy suppliers, who in 2017 won the Utilities category at the UK Customer Experience Awards. I judged this category last year, and now I’m a happily engaged customer.
Octopus Energy have a great proposition and focus on green energy at a great price with great service…but we’re not here to talk about product propositions.
Not only is the little fella the cutest thing you’re likely to see today; online and on mobile he actually levitates up and down and his tentacles move!
But it doesn’t stop there…
Normally, customers engage with an energy supplier only when they have a service issue or need to provide a meter reading. So Octopus Energy don’t wait for you to engage – they suggest that you supply a reading every month and engage you with a fantastic visual in which you are asked to ‘Spin the Wheel’.
This is a chance to win either nothing (what I’ve got so far), or credit to your account.
Now in case a Chief Value Officer has not yet been appointed at your company and someone from Finance is reading this, please note that this is not the same as an email going out to all your best customers offering them a 15 percent discount on their account (as I received recently from a top high-street fashion brand).
“What? Can we really buy engagement and automate those marketing and CX teams?” ask Finance?
No! You can’t!
The brand experience is the communications experience.
A famous David Ogilvy quote states: “You cannot bore people into buying your product; you can only interest them in buying it.|”
Too often organisations place a great deal of effort at the sales end of the customer journey and often ignore other components of CX in the consumption and re-purchase or decision-trigger cycles.
This is how John Lewis do it in their offline channel, and multi-channel engagement done right has a magnifying effect on maximising value from customers. The magic of online or mobile engagement is that you can provide a deep, visual brand experience or video, build relevance, and possibly even sell (not overtly though…remember, it’s about engagement).
All brands should consider fully how their communications experience interweaves deeply with and through their product experience, not just at initial purchase but throughout consumption and service lifecycles – the complete end-to-end Customer Experience.