“Customer Engagement” It’s a term you’ve heard about quite a bit over the last couple of years - and one that should be at the forefront of your marketing efforts.

But what is customer engagement? Is it satisfaction? Is it loyalty? Is it recommending your brand? It’s all of these - plus more.

Engagement is all about strengthening the emotional connection between the customer and the brand by consistently delivering (if not exceeding) the brand promise at each and every touch point. Customers that feel this emotional connection are more satisfied, more loyal and more apt to become ambassadors for your brand.

The 2009 PeopleMetrics Most Engaged Customers Study supports this definition --- and takes it a step further by showing the reverse impact of disengagement. Based on feedback from 20,000+ consumers, the research found that:

    * A fully engaged customer recommends a brand nearly 4 times more often and does an ambivalent customer who is setting “on-the-fence” (on average 11    recommendations vs. 3). By contract, an actively disengaged customer will tell, on average, 3 people to avoid (yes - AVOID) a company and its services
   

   *13% of fully engaged customers post to a blog or website about ...