If there’s one thing this IRUK Top500 Brand Engagement Dimension shows us, it’s that there’s no longer one key channel that enables retailers to communicate with all their customers. Gone are the days in which retailers simply needed a phone number. Now they face the challenges – and the opportunities – of maintaining a range of channels through which their customers may choose to engage at any point, whether that’s reading a review, making a complaint or asking where their delivery is. The challenge of this is finding the resources to make all these channels work. It’s not enough to have a Facebook page – content must be regular and recent. But, as we’ve seen through the pages of this report, it’s when brands put in effort to make social channels work for them, and for their customers, that they see the strongest responses.
In a multichannel world, brands are represented at every touchpoint that consumers use. By ensuring their presence is a strong and consistent one, they offer shoppers a more seamless experience. That’s as important in engaging customers as it is in the customer journey through the website or in making delivery work.
This report is designed as a tool that retailers can use to benchmark their own performance in brand engagement. We also hope it will serve as inspiration by showing what can be done, and what ‘good’ looks like.
We’re always interested in how we can extend our research and improve the quality of our findings in this area. Is there a new or emerging tool or approach that you consider vital and that we should monitor in future reporting? Get in touch with your ideas and any potential datasets via research@internetretailing.net or tweet @etail with #IRUK500.
