Think Customers: The 1to1 Blog

The best guidebooks maintain websites where you can download audio tours, augment information that is already in the book and receive updates online or on your mobile device, subscribe to podcasts, upload pictures, check recommendations from other customers, as well as browse and comment on staff experiences. These websites and discussion groups are often a seamless extension of their base product, brand, and offering. Readers/customers, as well as other members of the ecosystem (e.g. tour operators, hotel managers) can actively participate, add to, and shape their product, namely by providing advice and intelligence for travelers on things to do and to watch out for while maximizing the value they get from vacations. However, there is a wide range of sophistication across the major travel guide companies in how well they engage their customers and truly build a seamless experience across these different media. This has to do not only with how savvy they are with new digital media that are more engaging, but also with their ability to effectively integrate these different ways that customers can interact with them.

Recently, iPads have become wonderful travel companions, prompting the release of a number of travel apps, including the Lonely Planet among travel guides and Kayak for reservations. These apps are practical, interactive tools, providing information that is dynamic, timely, and informational. You can access maps, menus, recommendations, and choices at your fingertips and provide feedback or share quick impressions while the experience is still fresh and exciting.

This approach to building customer relationships -- providing a wide-ranging platform and facilitating a many-to-many relationship between your customers and prospects, while gathering invaluable intelligence and garnering repeat buyers -- is what customer engagement is all about. This is not just old marketing in a new channel or across multiple channels. Not all activities within this framework may have a direct or immediate payoff. In fact, many will not have a measurable or visible payoff at all. Immediate payoff, however, may be the wrong measure. The new customer ecosystem forces us to rethink our assumptions not only about marketing, but also, in many cases, our entire business model. The guidebook companies could be concerned about giving away valuable information (their primary product), but have to weigh that against the free and invaluable intelligence they get, in turn, from thousands of travelers who provide feedback. The value these companies can add is the filter they provide, because this customer-generated feedback is noisy and can be inaccurate, biased, or even manipulated.

This concept, unfortunately, requires some degree of innovative thinking and action and presents companies with the innovator's dilemma. Initiatives to foster this sort of change often crash into the rocks of organizational barriers and immediate business imperatives, which can be at cross-purposes with true long-term customer value creation.

Companies that have truly engaged their customers have seen positive impact. It has helped redeem some fallen icons, such as Starbucks and Dell, and put them on a renewed growth path. Apple is famous for having such a committed customer base that they provide customer support to their fellow Apple users -- for free. It is estimated that Apple would have to more than double its spending on customer service if the customer base did not help out in this way. It is no accident that Apple has passed Microsoft as the most valuable technology company on the planet.

Making customer engagement happen is not easy but can be incredibly valuable when done right. It will increasingly be central to companies' financial performance and market success.

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About the Author: Naras Eechambadi, PhD, is senior vice president and general manager of Quaero, a CSG Solution.