AmEx: Small Biz Engagement Drives $5.5 Billion in Spending

The Challenge: In a study by the Business Marketing Association, most BtoB marketers say customer engagement is a high priority within their marketing organization (72%), but 43% grade their company’s level of customer engagement, a C, with even more giving their companies a D or an F.

The opportunity for BtoB marketers: successfully engage their customers by establishing new avenues of relevant communication.

Despite such poor self-ratings, 72% of surveyed BtoB marketers cite customer retention and loyalty as their primary reasons for establishing customer engagement efforts. Other motivating factors are recommendations for products and services that match customer needs (54%) and a more compelling customer experience (41%).

A company that has set the standard for BtoB customer engagement is American Express. Not only has AmEx developed events and contests to drive engagement but it has also made itself an invaluable resource to it’s merchant customers with two information-packed websites.

1. Events: In 2010 Small Business Saturday was conceived and promoted by American Express. The goal: drive small business holiday shopping. It is now a year round BtoB commitment. It has set new revenue records each year since its launch, and surpassed all expectations with $5.5 billion in spending in 2012.

2. Contests: “Big Break for Small Business” was designed to transform the way small businesses connect and engage with customers online. It not only rewards 5 winners with an in-person consultation with AmEx and a $25,000 free Facebook ad campaign but it incentivizes engagement by giving all entrants with a $50 Facebook ad credit.

3. Websites: AmEx has established two information packed websites: American Express Small Business which offers tools and advice and Open Forum a place for businesses to share and access the latest business and marketing news.

On its Open website, AmEx states that it “supports business owners with products and services to help them run and grow their businesses” But perhaps the most important thing that AmEx can teach BtoB marketers is to build engagement strategies based on increasing your overall value to your customers.

3 Takeaways to increase BtoB customer engagement:

» Dramatically change your approach from transactional to consultative, by understanding your customer’s requirements and creating solutions that will provide true value.

» Create ongoing interactions and conversations by providing insightful and relevant reports, newsletters, blogs, websites, and research, that transforms you from just another vendor to a trusted resource for both products and information.

» Create opportunities for engagement such as webinars, contests, events, chats, and virtual seminars that put your business in the spotlight as an expert.

Is Your Customer Service Multichannel?

The Challenge: Just as businesses must provide customers with a wide variety of marketing channels to choose from, they must allow a choice of multiple service channels.

As we've discussed previously, multichannel marketing enables delivery of messages per an individual's media preferences. Some customers want to engage businesses on social media, others want to receive email, and significant percentages still prefer direct mail.

If you focus on a single channel at the expense of others, you're neglecting a significant portion of your customer base. The same holds true for customer service.

ESSENTIAL CUSTOMER SERVICE CHANNELS:

Phone
American Express has recently demonstrated the amazing value of high-quality phone service. Outstanding service leads to increased revenue and shareholder value. But not every business can enable 24/7 phone support, and not all customers want to engage on the phone.

Email
Service operations shouldn't try getting customers off the phone as quickly as possible, but customers should have the option to handle issues without much engagement on their part. In those cases, the most popular alternative to phone support is email.

Important new workshop Customer Experience Marketing: 5 Steps to Ensure Success developed by the DMA & Ernan Roman. Click to learn more.

Live Chat
SMS text and online chat are a part of nearly all your customers' lives. Implementing Live Chat integrates this convenient customer option. Be sure your customer service team learns from the valuable Voice of Customer (VoC) data in the form of session logs.

Social Media
Regardless whether your business is on major social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, your customers are—and they're talking about you. Don't lose control of that conversation. Lead it.

Product Guides and F.A.Q.'s
Sometimes customers simply want to help themselves. For their sake, make sure that your online documentation is current and comprehensive.

BEST PRACTICES FOR MULTICHANNEL SERVICE:

Let Customers Prioritize Their Channel Preferences
Many businesses enable multichannel service, only to bury their phone number while placing a link to their F.A.Q.'s on every page. This should be the customer's decision, not yours. Give customers their choice of service channel by prominently displaying every option on every page of your site.

Enable 24/7 Customer Service
For many businesses, the marginal value of 24/7 phone support may be too low to justify the additional cost. But, customers should be able to engage your service team any time of the day—even by just sending a question. Enabling multichannel service allows them to do so.

Be Clear and Accurate About Response Times
Effective call center operations include wait time estimates, a form of transparency that significantly reduces customer frustration. The same should be true of all your service channels: immediately send customers an automatic response from all channels, and include a clear and accurate statement of when they'll get an answer to their question.