As an account manager, you want to build strong and lasting relationships with your customers. But how do you measure their level of satisfaction, loyalty, and engagement with your products or services? In this article, we'll explore some tools and techniques that can help you track and improve customer engagement.
Customer engagement is the degree to which your customers interact with your brand, beyond the initial purchase. It can include various actions, such as using your product regularly, providing feedback, renewing contracts, referring others, or participating in your community. Customer engagement is important because it indicates how much value your customers get from your offerings, how likely they are to stay loyal, and how willing they are to advocate for you.
Tracking engagement can be really tricky.Some of the key pointers to key in mind while tracking positive engagements are as follows : - Positive NPS Survey Responses from Promoters. - Favorable trends in product or service consumption. - Positive overall customer health and satisfaction. - Willingness to accept recommendations. - Availability and openness to face-to-face meetings. - Actively seeking & providing suggestions. - Regular attendance in weekly/bi-weekly meetings. - Willingness to engage in repeat purchases. - Positive behavioral signals, reflecting a strong connection.
Customer engagement today goes beyond sending your customers boring surveys and forms to rate your services. For an effective engagement, you got to create a cadence of multiple touch-points across multiple channels, not limited to their work. Assuming, as an AM you're not handling a 100 accounts and follow a personalized approach is the key here.
Customer engagement can be seen as such a broad topic. Ultimately it's about customer interactions that drive value (for customers and for us).
I closely monitor a number of crucial variables to determine client involvement. Regular communication is critical, therefore I evaluate the number and quality of exchanges, such as emails, phone calls, and meetings. Analyzing client participation in webinars, events, or surveys offers information about their interests and involvement. Tracking their use of our product or service, such as logins, feature usage, and feedback, helps us determine active involvement. Social media activities such as comments, shares, and mentions can also provide useful clues. By continuously reviewing these elements, I can take a proactive approach to preserving and improving client engagement.
Identifying customer engagement as an Account Manager entails monitoring key indicators and fostering ongoing conversations. Focus on metrics like event attendance, email opens, clickthrough rates, social media activity, NPS scores, and product usage patterns. Additionally, engage clients directly, asking about satisfaction, pain points, and future plans during routine meetings. Encourage two-way dialogue and act swiftly upon gathered insights to deepen partnerships, increase loyalty, and detect potential risks early. #AccountManager #CustomerEngagement #Metrics #KeyIndicators #FeedbackLoop #PartnershipDeepening
Customer engagement is not a single metric that can be easily quantified. It depends on various factors, such as your industry, your customer segments, your goals, and your expectations. Different customers may have different preferences and behaviors when it comes to engaging with your brand. For example, some may prefer to communicate via email, while others may use social media or phone calls. Some may be more active and vocal, while others may be more passive and silent. Therefore, you need to use a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods to assess customer engagement.
One could measure customers engagement by regular communications with your customers and thereby making them aware that they are not left alone. To achieve that, you have to measure their engagement via so many means; either by using a phone call, mails or by social media networking.
Readjust your business approach. Every year brings new challenges and changes for businesses. This means you’ll need to readjust your business strategy and your approach to meet the needs of your customers and your business. With the right account manager KPIs, you can identify problems before they impact your business. This means you can determine new ways to improve the sales process, your marketing initiatives, and the client relationship by staying on top of the right metrics.
Measuring customer engagement is essential, and surveys and feedback forms are some of the most effective ways to do it. These can help you get direct and honest opinions from customers about their satisfaction, needs, expectations, and challenges. You can use customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT) to measure their happiness with your product or service on a scale from 1 to 10. Net promoter score (NPS) can measure how likely they are to recommend your product or service on a scale from -100 to 100. And customer effort score (CES) can measure how easy it is for them to use your product or service on a scale from 1 to 7. You can send these surveys periodically, after specific interactions, or at key moments in the customer journey. SurveyMonkey, Typeform, and Qualtrics are just some of the many tools available to create and distribute surveys and analyze the results.
Stay on top of revenue and retention goals. The truth is – it’s easier to keep current customers than it is to bring in a new prospect. Studies suggest acquiring a new customer can cost five times the amount to retain your existing customers. This means account managers must keep up with customer interaction and keep customers committed to their business. If they are engaged with your products and services, it can positively impact your revenue numbers and lead to high churn rates.
Measuring customer engagement can be done by tracking customer behavior and actions. This can provide insight into how often, how long, and how deeply customers use the product or service, as well as their response to marketing and communication efforts. Various metrics can be used, such as usage frequency (daily, weekly, monthly), usage duration (minutes, hours, days), usage depth (pages, modules, options), retention rate (months, quarters, years), churn rate (months, quarters, years), and engagement rate (emails, social media, webinars). Tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or HubSpot can be utilized to collect and visualize analytics and metrics.
As an account manager, I was able to validate that analyzing customer performance metrics provides valuable insights that can be used to improve customer relationships, optimize processes and drive business growth. These metrics include action points such as proactive problem management, which allows you to detect problems or customer dissatisfactions before they become critical, alignment with customer objectives, data-based decision making, among other important actions for the relationship. By incorporating customer performance analytics, account managers can build stronger relationships, boost customer satisfaction, and contribute to the company's long-term success.
Measuring customer engagement through customer interviews and testimonials can help you gain a better understanding of customer motivations, emotions, and stories. There are various types of interviews and testimonials you can use, such as customer success stories, case studies, customer reviews, and customer interviews. For customer interviews, you can use tools like Zoom, Skype, or Calendly to schedule and conduct them. Additionally, tools like Trustpilot, Yelp, or G2 can be used to collect and display reviews. Overall, these methods can give you valuable insights into your customers’ experience, needs, expectations, and challenges.
As an account manager, you wear two hats when analyzing engagement: detective and cheerleader. Customer interviews are your magnifying glass, revealing deeper motivations and pain points. Actively listen for mentions of brand affinity, excitement for future plans, and proactive problem-solving – all signs of true engagement. Testimonials on the other hand is your megaphone, amplifying positive experiences. Analyze their language for emotional connection, frequency of use, and willingness to recommend.
Customers engagement can be done by tracking customers behaviour and action. Conversion rates. Net promote score. Average session duration. Return users frequency. Customer Retention rates. Customer Churn rates.
As the main interface between the business and clients, account managers should have a good understanding of how engaged your customers are. It's good practice for AMs to create 'engagement plans' that detail key stakeholders, how engaged they are, what their motives are, their buyer persona, and any challenges or pain points they have. You can then identify where certain stakeholders may need some additional attention to increase their engagement, and plan how you will address it.