Pick a Squad for the Future: How Can Brands Ensure Their Customer Engagement Approach Is Future-Fit?

Image credit: Edoardo Busti via Unsplash

We’re now deep in the EUROs madness - while we’re all keeping our fingers crossed that we can bring it home, VCCP CE’s Strategy Director Alex Thoma gives a view on what brands can learn from the EUROs in order to keep their customer engagement approach fit for the future.

Our industry buzzes with reports exploring what's fresh and trending, but time and time again we pick the same approaches hoping for different results. There's a crucial but often neglected task before every endeavour - a frank appraisal of the approaches, or players, that always seem to get picked.

Below, I highlight five outdated customer engagement ideas that need to get dropped this season (and beyond). 

#1 Drop ‘em: Using Customer Engagement to launch longballs

It’s not unusual for Customer Engagement to be an afterthought, with a tendency to default to ‘matching kit’ churning out homogenous ‘push’ comms.  

Bright and beautiful TV ads turn our heads, and too often we’re left feeling flat with the brand experience... 

CE offers the opportunity for brands to create lasting and unique connections with people in everyday moments, but too often the channel is used to ‘lump marketing forward’.

Pick ‘em!: Using Customer Engagement as a brand building playmaker

People are engaging with traditional media less and less, CE offers an exciting way to play, explore and experiment with brand building at fan touch points. 

Brand and CE is the partnership that creates more opportunities to hit the back of the net… deeper, genuine and distinctive connections with people. 

MVP: LEGO is on a mission to be a global force for Learning Through Play, and have shifted their CRM from very functional and transactional, to delivering a programme that is as fun and playful as the bricks and brand itself.

#2 Drop ‘em: Relying on automation

VAR has shown that new and shiny tech isn’t always the best way to go. In an industry obsessed with 'the next big thing' we should drop what is hype, but we also can’t always revert to what is safe…

We’re at risk of over-reliance on a handful of mechanistic tactics at the expense of creativity. This can feel like a soulless afternoon sat in corporate hospitality, lacking the joy of being with the faithful in the home end.

Pick ‘em!: Show a red to soulless interactions

Forget cold, prawn sandwich eating, soulless interactions. Imagine customer engagement packed with energy and emotion, using AI in a human way to follow the feeling of the crowd. 

A fist pump to the crowd, the start of Viking Thunder Clap, a Clough-esque remark to brighten a mood. This all starts with empathy and then automation, to design customer journeys that create richer, more meaningful interactions.

MVP: Starling Bank uses an AI coach to analyse customer transactions and spending habits, to give tailored advice to positively educate and influence their financial fitness.

#3 Drop ‘em: Seen It All Before Loyalty Programmes

We’ve experienced enough loyalty programmes to know what benefits are formulaic and miss the target.

Discounts, points, or cash-back incentives… you cannot just buy success when so many people feel underwhelmed by generic benefits. People understand, more than ever, the value of their loyalty and are fatigued with these Fitz Hall and functional schemes.

Pick ‘em: An Ownable Brand of Loyalty

People can feel authenticity, and when something is delivered with genuine meaning. Creating an 'Ownable Brand of Loyalty' breathes life into a customer experience, recognising every interaction a customer has with your brand and crafting immersive, unique experiences that they can’t get anywhere else.

MVP: Octopus Energy’s Octoplus embodies its team ethos of driving the future of affordable green energy. It rewards responsible consumption, like  reducing peak-time energy usage and maximising savings when the grid is greenest, so customers save money while playing a more active role in sustainable behaviour.

#4 Drop ‘em: Static Segments

Imagine being stuck in a fußball table, forced into one position with no space to express yourself. This is where rigid, pre-defined segments fall short - in an era of abundant data and high customer expectations, brands fail to create a more dynamic and realistic view of customers on an individual level.

They overlook the unique contexts, preferences, playing styles, and evolving needs of each person, and the result is an impersonal approach.

Pick ‘em: Roaming Profiles

Tech empowers brands to connect with people on 1:1 level. The question is whether brands do the work to orchestrate dynamic and responsive interventions tailored to individual behaviours. 

We know distinctive and personalised experiences create better outcomes, we need to create the conditions to deliver exceptional experiences between people and brands.

MVP: Vitality incentivises healthy habits with personalised rewards, incentivising engagement in their wellness programs. Customised newsletters and push notifications promote health tips and incentives, nudging and rewarding behaviours that benefit customers and their premiums.

#5 Drop’em: Contrived Brand ‘Communities’

“If you build it, they will come” is not something that applies to brands trying to create a fan base, they often mistake gated channels for vibrant communities. At their worst, brands trap members in outdated platforms devoid of purpose.

In these echo chambers, self-promotion drowns out genuine reciprocity, and interaction dwindles. These bad habits restrain the potential of authentically embracing communities that become a part of the fabric of culture, and nurture lifelong fans that become synonymous with a brand.

Pick ‘em!: Organic Fan Communities

Fandom places community at the core, shaping and enhancing the brand experience, uniting people around shared interests, creating connections, and genuine, fluid dialogues through shared passions and interests.

Bringing people into active participation leaves a mark, and inviting them to shape the culture and the brand goes beyond attracting more people, it's about co-creating a brand identity that resonates on a deeper level.

MVP: Canon Club connects people pursuing their passion for imaging, and helps them develop their skills, creating a passionate community of creators learning and progressing together.

I’m no armchair pundit, but my advice to brands is that we need to look to a new captain if we want to challenge the functional, transactional side of customer engagement…. There’s something each of these MVPs have in common, and that’s Brand Intimacy. This is customer engagement’s North Star, guiding the creation of enduring relationships that drive long term value and brand love. My advice to brands looking to take home the trophy is to learn from the MVPs and find a way to bring brand intimacy into your customer engagement approach.