Must Companies Define Engagement Strategies For Their Customers?

The awareness that customers are their most important assets and that without customers they would not be in business at all has reached the minds of most business owners and C-level managers by now. In the last couple of decades this awareness has led to a shift of focus, from production and internal processes to consumption and the journey of the customer. Many companies today really make an effort to understand what their customers want and to deliver to their needs.

At the same time the technological development of the interactive internet has given customers a serious voice. A voice they can use to communicate with each other, to contribute to building the reputation of a company and to engage with customers. In all cases it is for each individual customer to decide when and how to use his voice. And, like with regular conversations, some customers like to talk a lot, while others are more like silent types.

Obviously, companies like it when their customers use their voices to engage with them. Because each interaction is a potential transaction and every engagement could lead to a sale. Actually, companies like it so much when their customers engage with them, that they have started to think about so called ‘Customer Engagement Strategies’. And while doing so many companies seem to fall into the pitfall of actually wanting to tell their customers how and when they should use their voice. Like in the old days, when focus was on product and process, companies once again are massively turning their gaze to the inside and are trying to dictate their customers how to behave.

Thinking about this it makes sense to say that customers and not companies should define their engagement strategy. Companies must answer the question what kind of customers they want to have, then reach out to these customers and ask them how they want to engage.