Citizen and Customer Engagement In The Public Sector

 


If Customer Engagement Is The Answer, What Is The Question?

Customer engagement has become a huge buzzword in the customer service industry -- a kind of holy grail. The notion is that if one increases engagement -- a fuzzily defined idea at best -- that profits will come.

In government, profit isn't an issue, because there is no link between what citizens do and expenditures. Still, government social media mavens often talk about the importance of engaging customers and citizens served by government.

So, Why The Quest For Citizen Involvement?

It's not clear. One can argue that government should be encouraging "engagement" in a democracy, but it's not clear what that means, and how it should be achieved. Does it mean running social media pages? Does it mean making government webpages more "sticky" so people stay longer? Or is really all a waste of time.

Perhaps citizens want the information they need and they want it quickly with no hassle. Perhaps customer engagement simply doesn't address what the users of government services want? That's our bet.

What's Happening With Governmeny Customer Engagement Initiatives

How do you measure the success of an app? Customer engagement is key - by Peggy Albright
Bad metrics. The only measure of the success of an app is its ability to drive revenue, short or long term. (Views So Far 361 )


The New Rules of Customer Engagement - by Wendy Lea
The rise of the social Web has led to a fundamental shift in the way businesses of all sizes engage with their customers. Rather than focusing on "touch points" during the marketing and sales process, they're using social technologies to form meaningful, ongoing relationships that involve frequent online interactions, oftentimes through social channels. It is paying off: Companies that engage with their customers via social media have more loyal customers. Better yet, customers who engage with a brands online report spending 20% to 40% more on that brand, or on that company's products. How can your business see this sort of boost? (Views So Far 333 )


Customer engagement is not a good metric - by Gerry McGovern
read it. Explains that when it comes to websites, the bells and whistles that create customer engagement can actually damage sales. By the way, I've been saying this for a long time, and it applies to non-web points of customer contact. (Views So Far 238 )


How Employee and Customer Engagement Interact - by John H. Fleming
What you believe about employee engagement and customer engagement may be wrong, or at least over-simplified, says this Gallup article. (Views So Far 246 )


How, and Why, to Drive More Customer Engagement for Your Home Performance Business. - by na
Good customer engagement is critical for home performance companies. Why? Because the home performance process is slightly more invasive than most other service industries -- it's not often that you have somebody digging through your wife's closet with an infrared camera looking for air leaks. Trust is critical, and a good relationship is crucial for trust. Customer engagement helps build this relationship (as do other things, like a good "about us" page on your website). (Views So Far 313 )


The Omnichannel Approach to Customer Engagement - by Andrew Kokes
Getting started with an omnichannel strategy It should be increasingly obvious that a disconnected trial-and-error strategy isn't the best experience for a customer. Some clients suggest their customer demographic is too focused on traditional voice channels of interaction to merit much focus on new and emerging channels of customer service. Yet some of these same customers are noting that over half of their inbound call volume now initiates from a mobile device, and an increasing percentage of those devices are smartphones. A major mobile provider noted that over 81 percent of its smart device cases began with an online search for support. Clearly an appetite for experimentation is in order. (Views So Far 318 )


Citizen Engagement Makes all the Difference - Hampton - by na
Profiles Hampton, VA, and how it's succeeded with its attempts to engage citizens. (Views So Far 248 )


Customer Engagement: Share Feedback with Front-Line Employees | PeopleMetrics Industry News - by na
Some suggestions about how front line employees can be harnessed to improve customer engagement, and thus, business results. (Views So Far 428 )


Engagement Is Not A Metric, It's An Excuse | - by Avinash Kaushik
Avinash's skepticism about the possibility of defining and measuring customer engagement kicked off the debate. The value of his criticism is attested by the number of high profile responses it elicited from a variety of 'champions' of customer engagement. (Views So Far 597 )



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