Are You Engaging?

People talk about customer engagement as a single state instead of a relationship building process.  You start by engaging someone in a conversation; as you learn more you do more together, and eventually you might engage in a partnership.  Along the way are many stages of engagement, all facilitated by the great ‘selling’ art of listening and learning?

Listening and learning in CRM means collecting data and turning it into actionable insight.  A process fraught with difficulty as everyone seeking that ‘single customer view’ knows.  Drowning in data in a desert of insight is a familiar experience; but now crocodiles lurk in the waters - frustrated customers who give false data.

Customers cannot be blamed; they feel hunted by junk mail, intrusive cold calling, and fatuous communications at every turn.  Everyone wants their data - particularly the commoditised list brokers seeking competitive advantage - their renewal dates, family interests, and lifestyles; but it is not used to give them back value.  So they sign up to preference scheme to keep organizations at bay - 14.8m UK numbers are now registered with the telephone preference scheme alone.

The UK Government is now making things worse with even more intrusive surveillance - in October an act was passed to allow over 600 public organizations access to mobile and landline call logs, which telecom companies now have to keep for a year. The situation can only get worse.

Customers know their data is valuable and will soon start to trade in it.  On the horizon, advancing like Omar Sharif’ in Lawrence of Arabia lurk personal data banks and open ID’s where customers keep their own ID and data for online access to those granted permission.

The only recourse is a better engagement process.