What Is Customer Engagement and Why Should Companies Care About It?

Last week, CX Solutions and Voice Crafter announced that we recently collaborated to conduct a Comprehensive Benchmark Study of Customer Engagement. (1)  During the coming weeks, we look forward to sharing results and highlights of this study, and hopefully, to getting comments and reactions from those of you who choose to follow our blog series.

In today’s installment of the series, we attempt to address two questions:

There have been multiple attempts to define customer engagement.  One recent article alone shares 28 different definitions of the term that have appeared in management journals, white papers, and other business publications. (2)   Each of these definitions differs from the others with respect to the element of customer engagement that is emphasized and/or the exact language used.  However, taken together, all of the definitions seem to suggest that customer engagement is comprised of two critical elements:

Affinity is defined as “a liking or attraction to something, a feeling of closeness, and a quality that makes people or things well-suited to each other.” (3)  The importance of a customer’s affinity for a brand seems to be at the heart of Applebaum’s definition, which states that customer engagement includes “both rational loyalty (including intent to repurchase and intent to recommend) and emotional attachment (including confidence in the brand, belief in its integrity, pride in the brand, and passion for it.” (4)

We attempted to incorporate measures of affinity in our research.  We asked customers how likely they would be to repurchase and recommend a brand to others.  We also asked customers questions about their emotional attachment to a brand.  To illustrate, let’s take the Chick-fil-A brand:  We asked customers to indicate the extent to which they agreed with such statements as:

“Chick-fil-A is special to me.”

“I feel proud to be a Chick-fil-A customer.”

“I’d go out of my way to purchase from Chick-fil-A.”

“If I had a problem or complaint, I’m confident that Chick-fil-A would handle it to my satisfaction.”

The other key component of customer engagement is activation.  Activation is the behavioral side of customer engagement.  It includes repeat purchasing and patronage, but activation also includes “behavioral manifestations that have a brand or firm focus, that go beyond purchase.” (5)   Examples of additional behaviors that reflect engagement include actual referrals, following and/or posting about a brand on social media, actively attempting to organize and participate in brand-based communities, and participating in brand-sponsored public or charitable events.

Mindful of the above, we also attempted to include measures of activation in our research.  To illustrate, let’s take the Bank of America brand:  We asked customers “have you ever actually recommended Bank of America to a family member, friend, or colleague?”  We also asked those same customers if they had done such things as:

Thus, in our view, customer engagement is best approached as both a psychological and a behavioral construct.  In effect, affinity is what holds customer attention and keeps customers focused on a brand.  Activation takes the form of continued transactions and interactions with a brand, as well as attempts to get and keep other current/potential customers engaged with that brand.

We believe companies should pay close attention to both of the above aspects of customer engagement.  In the coming weeks, we will show that companies performing best on measures of affinity and activation also frequently out-perform their competitors with respect to:

Simply put, customer engagement is good for business.   We will furnish more proof of this in future blog posts.  We also will share insights into how companies achieve customer engagement leadership.  So please stay tuned!

Notes:

  1. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity and privilege of working with Stephen Butler, Joey Davis, Cindy Grimm, Christine Mazur, and Peggy Wu of CX Solutions on this very exciting project.
  2. Brodie, R.J., Hollebeek, L.D., Juric, B., and A. Illic (2011). “Customer Engagement:  Conceptual Domain, Fundamental Propositions, and Implications for Research.”  Journal of Service Research, 14(3); pp.252-271.
  3. Definition appearing in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/affinity.
  4. Applebaum, A. (2001). The Constant Customer, retrieved from http://gmj.gallup.com/content/745/constant-customer.aspx.
  5. van Doorn, J., Lemon, K.N., Mittal, V., Ness, S., Pick, P., Pirner, D., and P.C. Verhoef (2010). “Customer Engagement Behavior:  Theoretical Foundations and Research Directions.”  Journal of Service Research. 13(3); pp.253-266.