The 4 P’s of Customer Engagement

“The 4 Ps of Customer Engagement” is a concept I coined a few years ago that encapsulates what businesses need to prioritize in order to create relevant experiences. For a customer interaction to embody the 4 Ps, it must be personal, predictive, proactive, and ubiquitous. Here’s what I mean by that:

1. Personally: We all know that the more personal you can make an experience, the better. Personalized product suggestions, real-time notifications of sales and special offers, and personalized rewards programs are just a few ways companies can tailor experiences to individual consumers based on their preferences and expectations. When you’re browsing Netflix and see a title with a 95% recommendation rate based on shows you’ve watched previously, or when you compare product recommendations from Amazon, Amazon is providing you with personalized experiences that go beyond completing a transaction or fulfilling a basic need. This type of personalization is the expected norm today.
2. Forecast: Once you know someone more personally as a customer, you can start anticipating things about their experience to make it less smooth and effortless. Imagine you are driving on the freeway and you receive a push notification from your insurance company that your car will soon need an air conditioning filter change. In addition, you get a list of nearby stores based on your device’s real-time location. Or you get an email from a company telling you that data shows it’s almost time to restock your favorite product. These are examples of predictive service at its finest.
3. Proactive: A proactive experience is one that gives the customer something they didn’t even think of or know they wanted/needed. Consider financial services. You call your bank about a car loan and your client profile shows you have twins aged 17. Based on this data, the service representative you speak to will receive a real-time notification on their desktop to inquire about student loans. Proactive service also helps businesses stay one step ahead of customer service issues. Suppose you call your cable provider about a problem. Since you have younger children, the customer service representative may offer you a free month of Disney+ subscription to make up for it. You didn’t think of that, but it will make your experience that much better.
4. Penetrating: A big part of the customer experience is being able to interact with a business in the way you want to interact with (e.g. chat, mobile, web, voice). This experience should be ubiquitous across all channels and devices as the customer continues on their service journey. If you start an interaction via web chat, then switch to SMS and follow up by phone the next day, the experience should remain the same in terms of personalization and quality of service. This requires businesses to have a unified view of the customer across all devices and interaction modes they use, including in-store.

What does it all look like combined? I’ll give a real life example. The other day I received an automated SMS text message that read: “Our records show that it has been XX days since your last Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination. You are now entitled to your booster vaccination. Learn more at [website] or see your doctor.” Personal, forward-thinking, proactive, and ubiquitous—all rolled into one.

The 4 P’s made easy

The Four P’s may seem like a lot to handle, but it’s not a gigantic undertaking. Advances in technology have meant that data is now much more easily accessible and usable to deliver personal, predictive, proactive, and ubiquitous experiences. Tools like CPaaS, for example, allow you to take simple data and act on it to create more personalized experiences in a matter of hours. It’s best to start small by creating digestible yet differentiated experiences.

Here’s how our customers achieve this with Avaya OneCloud CPaaS:

• Harris County, TX used Avaya OneCloud CPaaS to create a cloud-based notification solution as part of its case investigation and contact tracing program. The county health department was able to improve their investigations by 25% with the ability to quickly contact citizens via their preferred channels (e.g. voice, SMS) so that they can be appropriately quarantined. Because of this success, the county decided to also use Avaya OneCloud CPaaS for automated outbound notifications to increase voter registration in the 2020 presidential election. The solution allowed them to proactively engage with residents about their registration status, where to vote and how to register.
• Texas-based Round Rock School District used Avaya OneCloud CPaaS Create a mass notification system specifically for active shooters and weather-related threats. The school district can now proactively notify its nearly 57,000 students and staff of active shooters or other critical threats through a variety of methods including message boards, desktop phones, users’ personal devices (smartphones, tablets, laptops), SMS/text messages, email , social media and more.

Start with the four Ps of customer loyalty to be successful. Learn how Avaya can help.