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I have watched with interest the rise and fall in the latest management fad - customer engagement . Engagement is the latest big thing cooked-up by desperate advertisers to enable businesses to differentiate their humdrum products from those of their largely identical competitors.
So let me see now, engagement is the metric that will save modern marketing from a slow but inexorable slide into irrelevancy.
Looks familiar? It should do. We are treading on well-worn management territory.
In the 1980s business was just as infatuated with customer satisfaction. But customers, by and large, were not satisfied. In the 1990s it was relationships. But customers didn't want to have them with the vast majority of companies. In the 2000s it was the turn of the customer experience. But the experience hasn't really got any better for most customers. Now, the latest management fad is customer engagement.
Why oh why oh why can't businesses just fix the basics that drives success; simple things like products that work first time every time, pricing that is fair and transparent, marketing that is authentic and honest, and service that adds to the ownership experience, to name just a few. Then they wouldn't need to invent fads like engagement to lure unsuspecting customers into thinking that things have changed. In most companies they haven't.
What do you think? Is engagement a load of advertising tosh? Or a valuable addition to the modern marketer's armoury?
Post a comment and get the conversation going.
Graham Hill
By Graham Hill, CACI Sophron
I have watched with interest the rise and fall in the latest management fad - customer engagement . Engagement is the latest big thing cooked-up by desperate advertisers to enable businesses to differentiate their humdrum products from those of their largely identical competitors.
So let me see now, engagement is the metric that will save modern marketing from a slow but inexorable slide into irrelevancy.
Looks familiar? It should do. We are treading on well-worn management territory.
In the 1980s business was just as infatuated with customer satisfaction. But customers, by and large, were not satisfied. In the 1990s it was relationships. But customers didn't want to have them with the vast majority of companies. In the 2000s it was the turn of the customer experience. But the experience hasn't really got any better for most customers. Now, the latest management fad is customer engagement.
Why oh why oh why can't businesses just fix the basics that drives success; simple things like products that work first time every time, pricing that is fair and transparent, marketing that is authentic and honest, and service that adds to the ownership experience, to name just a few. Then they wouldn't need to invent fads like engagement to lure unsuspecting customers into thinking that things have changed. In most companies they haven't.
What do you think? Is engagement a load of advertising tosh? Or a valuable addition to the modern marketer's armoury?
Post a comment and get the conversation going.
Graham Hill
Graham Hill is a principal at customer value management consultancy CACI Sophron. He has more than 20 years of experience in customer-driven change programs in the automotive, telecom, financial services and aviation industries, and in the public sector. Hill has developed the 'Lean CRM' approach together with Toyota. He can be contacted at graham(dot)hill(at)web(dot)de or through CACI Sophron . [Customer Insider Blog ]
