How To Use The Cloud To Improve Customer Engagement
Eric Savitz, 7/16/2012
Guest post written by John Dillon
John Dillon is CEO of Engine Yard, a cloud-based platform-as-a-service company.
Business leaders think and talk about the importance of customer engagement a great deal. They attend conferences about customer engagement. They draw up customer engagement strategies. They hire high-priced consultants to help them achieve their customer engagement goals.
So here’s the question: Why are so many companies still so bad at customer engagement? You don’t need a stack of analyst reports to know there’s a problem. Think about your own recent experiences. Within the last week, have you:
- Received emails that were totally irrelevant or impersonal from businesses you’ve patronized?
- Spent 10 minutes just trying to find basic contact information on a vendor’s website?
- Watched a webcast or online demo that was terrible – and found no place to comment?
- Done a Google search for installation help on a new product because you couldn’t stomach the thought of calling the vendor’s support hotline?
Why is doing a better job of customer engagement so crucial? Because it impacts customer loyalty, which directly impacts the bottom line. A landmark study published in Harvard Business Review asserted….”