Customer Engagement – Has it really changed?

Customer Engagement, what does it mean?

“Brands need to deliver the right information at the right time to the right device in order to succeed with today’s travellers. Those that are engaging with customer touchpoints throughout the entire travel journey are the ones making the most impact” – Travelport

This is the first line of a recent article from Skift, read the full article here.

At first glance, this makes sense, but having read the full article, I found myself taken back thirty years to when I was first doing my CIM qualifications and the lecturer was explaining that “order to fully engage your customers you must understand where they are going to be and what information they want from you as a brand”. The wording might be slightly different, but the meaning is exactly the same.

Marketing has not really changed over the past 100 years, yes, every sector has got more crowded as competition increases, yes, the channels that are available to us as marketers have now greatly increased and yes mobile and digital technology means we can communicate with customers instantly and wherever they are, but the principals are the same and can be summed up as follows:

• Understand your customer, where, what and when to talk to them
• Understand your competitors
• Create a message that is different from your competitors
• Communicate with your customers regularly and build a relationship.

It is also worth remembering that a “relationship” is a two-way process, so always try and get customers talking to you as well and the engagement will follow.

Please excuse me if I sound patronising or am “teaching grandma to suck eggs” but, as with many professions, marketing has a habit of over-complicating things to try and justify their being in business. Communication is simple really, just keep talking and the relationship will build.

Let me know what you think.