The last DC Marketing Tech Talk talked about Tips, Tools, and Data to Improve Customer Engagement (CEM). In my vision of a perfect DC Marketing Tech Talk, two terrific speakers took the stage. First, a marketer spoke of customer knowledge in CEM. And then next up was an IT professional. He showed his firm’s unique method of gathering customer knowledge.

Up first, Resolvere Insights’ Rich Toohey  defined customer engagement. In addition, he talked about why it’s so completely, important to have a solid customer engagement program. Finally, he closed with strategies for making it as effective as possible.

Second, Graham Kerster, Data Visualization Lead from Excella Consulting put customer engagement into practice. He showed the audience a really cool, live demo. It was a custom-developed technology platform to engage application development customers.  Overall, the evening had some valuable takeaways for DC area marketers.

3 Key Takeaways on Customer Engagement

1. Customer Experience Matters

And there’s proof a company can spend. Engaged customers are worth an average of 23% more.  This is true in share of wallet and revenue, as well as profitability when compared to average customers.

2. Customer Experience is All About Employee Commitment

All employees need to be involved. As our own consumer experiences tell us, one negative experience can shadow years of positive ones.  This is especially true in B2C markets. So consistency and authenticity are critical to the customer experience. In addition, employee training is absolutely non-negotiable.

3. Use Customer Knowledge to Improve Customer Experience

Getting smart about the customer, as we learned, is the foundation of a customer engagement program.

Now, let’s talk about this third point – using customer knowledge – to improve customer engagement. How, then do we actually get that customer knowledge?

What are Ways to Get Customer Knowledge?

So the obvious place to look is a technology solution. And there are loads of them to consider.

If you have budget, look at great CEM platforms like Clarabridge or Qualtrics. Both solutions offer comprehensive solutions for managing and analyzing social media data, customer data and surveys.  For the more budget-conscious, point solutions like CloudCherry or BrightInfo are invaluable for certain objectives.

But what if you’re just starting out with a customer engagement program?  What are some other great ways to baseline customer data?

As you get your program off the ground, two easy ways to listen to customers come to mind.

First, use social data and we’re not talking about the kind generated from paid social ads. It’s the enormous As we all know, it’s abundant and easily available. And tapping into Twitter or Facebook with an API can’t be easier. Then apply a text sentiment analytics solutions like Lexalytics or DiscoverText. After all, MarTech apps like these are fairly easy to learn and affordable. Most of all, they’re key to benchmarking and measuring customer experience. This is especially true for companies in early growth stages or just getting started in customer engagement.

In addition, you can grow your customer knowledge without killing your budget. With Google Forms or Google Surveys, or even TypeForm, you program your own questions.

Next, with a little more time and money, consider research platforms. On the less-expensive end, you many want to consider survey research using a customer survey platform like SurveyMonkey or SurveyGizmo.

Great Analysis is the Foundation of Customer Knowledge

Regardless of how you gather customer knowledge– there’s no shortcut to making sense of it all.  To start, you simply have to start. So, as more and more data comes available, change and refine over time.

Now, it’s time to talk about your company’s customer knowledge…

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