Tuesday 29 December 2009

Customer Engagement & The New Consumer Demands


As a planner I'm always looking for ways to create customer engagement for clients. Typically we do that by finding ways to meet customer demands in ways that create an emotional connection, or value, or of course, both. As 2009 comes to a close there were two reports relating to these topics that were published. I am proud, honoured and slightly surprised to have been a contributor to them but thought I should mention them here:

The first is the 4th Annual Customer Engagement Survey Report from cScape and E-consultancy. “It is the most comprehensive and influential report  available on customer engagement, based on a survey of more than 1,000 companies and agencies. Companies can benchmark their customer engagement strategies and tactics, and see how others are adapting to changing customer behaviour and increased use of social media and the mobile channel.” As the most comprehensive survey of its kind it includes commentary from experts such as Jim Sterne, Dr Dave Chaffey and none other than my talented colleague Richard Wand.


Some highlights are:
  • 55% of company respondents regard customer engagement as essential for their organisation
  • The presence of companies on social networks has almost doubled from 23% in 2008 to 44% in 2009
  • 31% of respondents say their interest in customer engagement relates to emotional investment in their brand
My piece within the report looks at the need for organisations to be more ‘ballsy’ when considering their ventures into new or social media spaces but the full report is definitely worth a read. To download visit:



My contribution to the second report came as a little more of a surprise. I was pointed to the new report from Paypal titled  “Online Retail: the new consumer demands” naturally I was intrigued and downloaded a copy. Being slightly old school I printed it off to read on the tube home. Very quickly I realised that those clever folks at The Future Laboratory had undertaken the report. However, on reading I came across several comments by myself and after the initial surprise I remembered doing some interviews whilst I was in Dublin at a Google conference.  Anyway, it makes for interesting reading, other than the obvious “growth in online shopping” the report also reveals that:
  • Four in ten (41%) city dwellers surveyed have increased their reliance on online shopping over the last year, despite having easy access to local shop
  • Quicker, more reliable home delivery services (16%) and greater choice (12%) has helped persuade an estimated 15.6 million people living in urban city areas to move more of their shopping online over the last 12 months
  • Glaswegians and Mancunians have moved more of their shopping online than anyone else
For a full copy of the report click here

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