Establishing a loyal customer base is essential for business success these days, with the internet making it far easier for brands of all shapes and sizes to reach people. Competition is most certainly rife!
Which is why it’s so important that you regularly review your customer engagement strategies to see what works and what doesn’t. There’s no point in doing the same thing again and again if it doesn’t yield positive results, after all – and an excellent way of finding out if the results are there is to hire an analytical consultancy to have a look at your books.
Speaking to Marketing Week, Estee Lauder’s first vice-president of consumer engagement and retail Lesley Crowther – who set up the brand’s Consumer Engagement Centre of Excellence in order to centralise consumer learning and insight – explained that a team was required to understand trends and find out how UK consumers are evolving, so as to better understand consumer behaviour.
She went on to say that although retail is still a “huge driving force” for how people want to engage with beauty products, able to touch, smell and feel products, and get in-person advice, the online world is where people can research and learn about the products, replenishing their stocks and take advantage of live chats online.
“We all know the experience economy is on the rise, which is about creating fun and dynamic moments in-store that are unique and make it a destination for her to visit,” Ms Crowther added.
As the Harvard Business Review notes, the right kind of customer engagement can mean that the experience of something is actually more valuable than the service itself – creating a truly memorable event for the individual. And brands could certainly benefit from trying to do more in this regard.
