[citation needed] According to Hollebeek, Srivastava and Chen, customer engagement is "a customer’s motivationally driven, volitional investment of operant resources (including cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and social knowledge and skills), and operand resources (e.g., equipment) into brand interactions," which applies to online and offline engagement.
Discussion forums or blogs, for example, are spaces where people can communicate and socialize in ways that cannot be replicated by any offline interactive medium.
These factors enable customers to regularly engage in online communities revolving, directly or indirectly, around product categories and other consumption topics.
[2] In March 2006, the Advertising Research Foundation announced the first definition of customer engagement[3] as "turning on a prospect to a brand idea enhanced by the surrounding context."
With aspects of relationship marketing and service-dominant perspectives, customer engagement can be loosely defined as "consumers' proactive contributions in co-creating their personalized experiences and perceived value with organizations through active, explicit, and ongoing dialogue and interactions".
The book, Best Digital Marketing Campaigns In The World, defines customer engagement as, "mutually beneficial relationships with a constantly growing community of online consumers".
These are determined by the brand, product, or service, the audience profile, attitudes and behaviours, and messages and channels of communication that are used to interact with the customer.
[8] Moreover, customer engagement is the emotional involvement and psychological process in which both new and existing consumers become loyal to specific types of services or products.
Whether the aim is to enhance customer loyalty, drive revenue growth, or deliver personalized experiences, having a plan serves impactful engagement initiative.
Facebook and several other social media platforms have faced criticism for manipulating user emotions to enhance engagement, even if it is knowingly false content.
Professor Hany Farid summarized Facebook’s approach, stating, “When you’re in the business of maximizing engagement, you’re not interested in truth.
In the past, customer engagement has been generated irresolutely through television, radio, media, outdoor advertising, and various other touchpoints ideally during peak and/or high trafficked allocations.
It is a recent social phenomenon where people engage online in communities that do not necessarily revolve around a particular product but serve as meeting or networking places.
Due to the fragmentation and specialisation of media and audiences, as well as the proliferation of community- and user-generated content, businesses are increasingly losing the power to dictate the communications agenda.
Simultaneously, lower switching costs, the geographical widening of the market and the vast choice of content, services and products available online have weakened customer loyalty.
[15] Since the world has reached a population of over 3 billion internet users, it is conclusive that society's interactive culture is significantly influenced by technology.
Connecting with customers establishes exclusivity in their experience, which potentially will increase brand loyalty, and word of mouth, and provides businesses with valuable consumer analytics, insight, and retention.
Platforms such as Instagram and Twitter serve as useful tools for meaning dialog, enabling businesses to make lasting relationships with customers and amplify brand visibility online.
A Forrester Research's North American Consumer Technology Adoption Study[22] found that people in the 18-26 age group spend more time online than watching TV.
The lowering of entry barriers, such as the need for a sales force, access to channels and physical assets, and the geographical widening of the market due to the internet have brought about increasing competition and a decrease in brand loyalty.
In combination with lower switching costs, easier access to information about products and suppliers and increased choice, brand loyalty is hard to achieve.
[25] A study conducted by Salesforce shows an overwhelming 8% of customers acknowledge that their experience with the business is equivalent to the quality of its products or services.
[27] Engagement is a holistic characterization of a consumer's behavior, encompassing a host of sub-aspects of behaviour such as loyalty, satisfaction, involvement, word-of-mouth advertising, complaining and more.
From this point of view, "CE is the best measure of current and future performance; an engaged relationship is probably the only guarantee for a return on your organization's or your clients' objectives.
[30] As a metric for effectiveness, Scott Karp suggests, CE is the solution to the same intractable problems that have long been a struggle for old media: how to prove value.