Customer Loyalty vs. Customer Engagement: Who Cares?
- by Jeb Dasteel-Oracle
Have you read the recent Forbes OracleVoice blog titled Customer Loyalty is Dead. Long Live
Engagement!? If you haven’t, take a look. This article prompted lots of conversation in
the social realm. Many who read the article voiced their reactions to the
headline and now I’m jumping in to add my view.
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Customer loyalty is still key. It’s the effect and
engagement is the cause. We at least know that to be true for our customers. We
are in an age where customers are demanding to be heard. We need them to be
actively involved – or engaged – as well. Greater levels of customer engagement, properly targeted, positively
correlate with satisfaction. Our data has
shown us this over and over. Satisfied customers are more loyal and more willing
to vocalize their satisfaction through referencing, and are more likely to
purchase again, all of which in turn drives incremental revenue – from the
customer doing the referencing AND the customer on the receiving end of that
reference.
Turning this around completely, if we begin to see the level
of a customer’s engagement start to wane, this is an indicator that their satisfaction,
loyalty, and future revenue are likely at risk. At Oracle, we’ve put in place many programs to target, encourage, and then
track engagement, allowing us to measure engagement as a determinant of
loyalty. Some of these programs include our
Key Accounts, solution design and architectural, Executive Sponsorship, as well
as executive advisory boards.
Specific programs allow us to engage specific contacts
within specific customer organizations (based on role) and then systematically
track their engagement activities over time, along side of tracking customer
satisfaction, loyalty, referenceability, and incremental revenue contribution. Continuous measurement of engagement allows
us to better understand customer views of what it means to partner with a
provider and adjust program participation to better meet the needs of the
partnership. We can also track across customer segments, and design new
programs that are even more effective than the ones we have in place today.
In case you missed any of my previous
Forbes articles, I’ve included links below for easy access.
Award-Winning
Companies Put Customers First
The
Power of Peer Networks: 5 Reasons to Get (and Stay) Involved
Technology
At Work: Traveling In Style
Customer
Central: 8 Strategies for Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business
Technology at Work: Five Companies Doing IT Right
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