The 5 I’s For Customer Engagement

Understanding the shopper journey was a key consideration at the CEM Telecoms Global Summit 2016, with many wanting to unlock potential insights to better serve their customers. As part of my ‘Digital Transformation to the Customer Experience’ workshop at the event, 40x CEOs, UX Managers and CTOs worked together in uncovering the key personas, and the most appropriate touch points to engage during the shopper journey stages

The journey mapping exercise is an essential task to put yourself in the customer’s shoes and understand what feelings, attitudes and behaviours are being displayed throughout the journey stages.

What we further discussed during the exercise is how we continue to keep customers engaged with the brand, to which we discussed the following 5 principles:

Inform
Keep the customer informed with your latest news and developments. Keeping them up-to-date with your service offering and product range will ensure you’re front of mind, and that the customer will feel valued.

Inspire
Showcase content that is innovative and will ultimately inspire the shopper. Encouraging the shopper to dream and feel energized from the brand interaction will create a positive sentiment that will stay with the shopper for longer. Vodafone launched their ‘pitch your #first’ campaign, encouraging participants to share a video of what they’d love to do for the first time’.

Instruct
Be clear with your shoppers in what you want them to do. This is particularly important when they’re exploring your website, which is a stage that they potentially feel the most overwhelmed with your content and offering. Clear ‘call to actions’ that guide shoppers through the process will keep them relaxed, comfortable, and increase your conversion rate.

Involve
Make the shopper feel involved to increase advocacy and deepen the relationship. Asking them through social media about services and products that they will like to enjoy is an effective way to strengthen your engagement. Not only will the shopper play a part of the brand’s growth and feel valued, you will furthermore receive insightful feedback that will enable you to make informed decisions and choices about your brand.

Incent
Following on from involve, incentivize any valuable shopper engagement to illustrate your appreciation to participation, and also to encourage wider interaction with prospective shoppers. Telecommunications company Viking Co rewards customers with Viking Points that can be redeemed against Uber rides, restaurants and retail.

So when you’re assessing your shopper brand engagement, consider the 5Is to enable you to increase positive sentiment and word of mouth, both of which are vitally important in the overall Omni-channel customer experience.