Customer Engagement Is Critical Amid Economic Uncertainty: HBR
Harvard Business Review Analytic Services released a new report sponsored by Intercom, the Engagement OS, called “Future-Proofing Businesses with Modern Customer Engagement”. It reveals a significant gap in how companies are engaging with their customers. This comes at a time when delivering exceptional experiences is even more critical to retention and revenue, amidst both an […]
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Harvard Business Review Analytic Services released a new report sponsored by Intercom, the Engagement OS, called “Future-Proofing Businesses with Modern Customer Engagement”.
It reveals a significant gap in how companies are engaging with their customers. This comes at a time when delivering exceptional experiences is even more critical to retention and revenue, amidst both an economic downturn and increasingly competitive landscape.
According to the report, 88 per cent of global business leaders surveyed recognise that customer engagement has a significant impact on their organisation’s bottom line. Additionally, 92 per cent view effective customer engagement as “very” to “extremely” critical to their organisation’s success, but only 9 per cent say they have excellent engagement today.
What’s more, less than half are investing in new or improved customer engagement technologies, and only 40 per cent say they are effectively using data to send customers the right message at the right time via the right channel.
“As customers engage with leading brands that provide exceptional accuracy in their personalisation and recommendations, they’ve come to expect that same level of service from all companies,” said Blake Morgan, author of The Customer of The Future: 10 Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow’s Business.
“Accurate engagement today is more than just knowing a customer’s name—it requires a deeper understanding of their preferences, values, and demographics to show that an organisation cares and can provide relevant engagement.”
Organisations are turning to customer engagement efforts primarily for increased customer loyalty and retention (69 per cent), increased revenue growth and profitability (59 per cent) and improved brand reputation (42 per cent). But the main obstacles that prevent businesses from fully realising these benefits include:
- Poor Cross-Functional Collaboration: Nearly half (44 per cent) of respondents say a lack of collaboration and siloed efforts are the top impediments to successful customer engagement.
- Siloed Data: 32 per cent of respondents say their organisations are failing to properly distribute data-driven customer insights throughout the organisation, and another 32 per cent say customer data is siloed or hard to extract insights from. 60 per cent also don’t feel they’re doing a good job of tailoring communications to customers with data.
- Scarcity of Talent: Over half (56 per cent) of respondents encounter difficulty finding the right personnel to manage customer engagement efforts, and nearly three-quarters (73 per cent) of respondents “strongly agree” or “somewhat agree” that their organisation is in need of employees with experience and expertise in customer engagement.
“This research shows that while business leaders understand the importance of customer engagement, they are encountering barriers in execution,” said Alex Clemente, Managing Director of Analytic Services at Harvard Business Review.
“Fostering a culture that supports more personalised engagement, eliminating data silos, deploying the right technologies, and recruiting robust talent are all barriers that organisations will need to overcome to achieve effective customer engagement.”
“Engaging your customers and delivering deep value for them has always been key to driving retention and repeat customers, and fueling a healthy business. During times of economic uncertainty, engagement and retention become more important than ever,” said Karen Peacock, CEO of Intercom.
“Now is the time to double down on creating an exceptional customer experience – one that’s personalised, contextual, and engaging across the customer journey and doing it in a highly efficient way that saves you money. The businesses who do this are the ones who will thrive and emerge as winners.”
