6 Questions to Evaluate Your Customer Engagement Program

In today’s constantly evolving customer landscape we all know that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to keep customers engaged. A customer engagement and loyalty strategy which encompasses data-driven marketing is the future of understanding and interacting with your customers on their terms.

So you have a customer engagement or loyalty programme and you’re collecting the data, but is it working? Here are 6 questions to help you evaluate your programme and strategy.

1. Are we using the data we’re collecting to better understand and serve our customers?

It’s easy to get swamped in a sea of big data, so make sure you’re only collecting data that is relevant and can be turned into actionable insight. Ask yourself why are we collecting it? How can we use this to get closer to our customers?

Your data analysis should provide you with the insight to understand customer patterns and behaviours; for example identifying when a customer is about to leave your brand so that you can take action to retain them; or knowing a communication channel preference, the times your customer is most active and the products they love to allow you to serve them more personal and relevant messages.

2. Is the programme achieving its goals?

It’s most likely that you set goals and KPIs when you started the programme to encourage customers to spend more when on-premise or online; spend more often; and to retain them. do your results measure up? Compare the value of an engaged customer (or one who is a member of your loyalty/engagement programme) against one who is not engaged.

If the results aren’t what you were expecting, it doesn’t mean you should abandon the programme, but reassess and refine your goals. Perhaps you need to segment and target further. For example, highly valuable, high-spending customers who have low levels of engagement with your brand should be incentivised to spend more often; whereas highly engaged customers who make regular low value purchases should be incentivised to spend more per transaction via cross selling.

SEE ALSO: 4 Truths About Customer Loyalty

3. Are we getting value or ROI?

We have found for some partners that for every £1 invested they get £6 return. Are you able to demonstrate the effect your programme has on profitability and your customer base?

To answer this, look at programme expenses vs. sources of revenue. Has there been an increase in physical and online visits, increased spending, referrals and other behaviour changes which have impacted on your bottom line and increased your profits?

4. What do our customers want from the programme?

Your programme should aim to encourage customers to spend more, more often and retain them, but to do this you need be giving customers what they want. Customers want choice and options – not only in rewards and redemption, but also how they interact with your programme.

They are demanding seamless experiences and interactions across all channels, and the huge growth in mobile devices, social channels and big data is driving the convergence of the digital and physical worlds. If you think your programme is misaligned to your customers, take some time to find out what they want.

SEE ALSO: Market Report: How to Reduce Churn and Improve Customer Retention in Telecoms

5. Are the mechanics seamless?

The loyalty mechanic, whether this is a plastic card, mobile app, web or social imprint, allows for the transactional information to be gathered and drawn together with other data sources such as social media, mobile or email activity, etc. This should leave you with a Single Customer View from which you can interpret the data in order to take action to drive the required behaviours; whether you are trying to get customers to stretch spend or increase their frequency.

6. Do we have the right resources?

You need someone who is going to take responsibility for the programme and drive it forward. Loyalty impacts on all areas of the business, not just the marketing department, and so it’s important that everyone is educated on how important customer loyalty is and the benefits it brings to your business.

The beauty of the data-driven marketing approach is that it allows you to put numbers against engagement. In summary, your programme should be measureable and accountable; and the insight you gather should not just fit into your business, but shape it. Remember, data doesn’t lie.