7 Principles for high Customer Engagement

3. Personalization

Unpopular opinion: There’s no such thing as personalization at scale. Why? Because they are diametral opposites.

All companies actually do is breaking up the one-size-fits all into a limited number of options based on product usage, health scores or consumption.

It’s one step forward but if you really want to personalize customer engagement you need to understand the context.

Because you can have 2 customers

• Roughly the same size

• Comparable revenue

• From the same industry

• Trying to accomplish the same goals

• By solving the same goals

• Starting from the same skill levels

plus similar usage patterns, health scores and consumption that still have different needs. Because they don’t have the same people and culture.

When it comes to personalization, context is king.

4. Relationships

There’s not a shortage of tips and ways to improve customer relationships. But what they are all missing is the most important thing: The beginning.

“There’s no second chance for a first impression” is not only true when it comes to customers trying your product for the first time.

It also applies when you start building relationships. How can you make the best possible start? Show your customers that you really care about their success.

The best way to do that is to meet with customers for a good old-fashioned 1:1 conversation.

Ask your customers open questions to learn more about their business and their needs but otherwise let them do the talking.

Aim for listening 80% of the time and only do 20% of the talking. Make your customers feel heard and understood and they will become emotionally invested.

If they feel like you are just checking off items from a list with zero enthusiasm you will achieve the exact opposite.

5. Transparency

Strong customer relationships are built right from the start. A key ingredient is to win your customers’ trust. The best way to build trust is with transparency.

Answer your customers’ questions even when it means to do something uncomfortable.

Customers need to hear the truth about

• the outcomes that are possible (even when they were sold otherwise)

• the time and effort they need to put in

• painful roadblocks they might be facing

What if customers are leaving afterward? You have saved both time because it was not meant to be.

Being transparent also means to keep your customers updated without them asking for it. Walk them through the process, share the next steps and explain them to your customers.

6. Speed

Your customers don’t care about the number of open tasks on your to-do list. They don’t care about the number of E-mails in your inbox that require a response.

They want answers to their questions and responses to their requests asap. How can you ensure high responsiveness on your side? You need to prioritize ruthlessly.

Of course, you want to have all the customers in your portfolio highly engaged. But ask yourself whether that’s even possible.

Isn’t it better you have a highly engaged minority instead of a mediocre majority? Review your activities through the same lense.

Eliminate the could do’s and postpone the should do’s after the must-do’s.

7. Simplicity

Your customers want to achieve their desired outcomes. And they want to get there as fast as easy as possible.

Eliminate redundancies, potential misunderstandings, double work and most importantly cut the c***.

• You are not creating guides for SEO purposes, you are creating them to educate your customers

• You are not creating tutorials to present every feature, you are creating them to help customers solve problems within minutes.

• Don’t write lengthy E-mails - none wants to read them.

• Don’t invite customers to a meeting that could have been an E-mail

Simplicity is actually about doing “more with less”. Switch sides and view everything you do from the customers’ perspective.

If there are things you would hate to do, content you find difficult to consume, etc. there’s a high chance your customers feel the same.