Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Frank Alpert
UQ Business School, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia
Abstract
Purpose Businesses today face a number of difficult challenges that make customer engagement more important than ever. The usual way in which
businesses operate makes it difficult to achieve high levels of consumer engagement. Perhaps the main problem with all the bits and pieces of ideas
that would promote customer engagement branding to consumers, internal marketing within the company, and service delivery is how to fit all
these together. The way to implement such models throughout the company is not clear and not easy to understand.
Design/methodology/approach The total engagement model puts everything together into an efficient and effective system. The key is focusing
on aligning all activities of the company on a unified plan for customer engagement, including advertising, service, products and the internal culture. An
important benefit of the total engagement model is the synergy through total brand strategy alignment throughout the company: the whole (through
integration) is greater than the sum of the parts (of which some may already be good and some not so good but they may be fragmented). The proposed
model is fairly comprehensive and thereby integrates and clearly explains, with emphasis on actionability, how to design and operationalise a growth
plan driven by increasing customer engagement.
Findings The findings of two case studies are presented, which illustrate the model at work.
Practical implications The approach will be of interest to managers who seek to integrate a comprehensive, actionable brand management model
throughout the company in order to maximise growth potential.
Originality/value The paper outlines an original business model, the total engagement model, which, when executed well, can help an
organisation to achieve business growth via customer engagement.
Keywords Brand management, Customers, Marketing models
Paper type Research paper
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1. Introduction
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1061-0421.htm
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8. Case studies
What would it be like to implement the total engagement
model in practice? The hardest part is implementing the total
model, all aspects at once and in complete alignment. To
show what this would be like, we present examples in two
different industries.
8.1 Sheldon College alignment driven by customerfocused leadership
Why would a school student plead to be re-admitted to a
school that expelled her two years ago for not meeting its
standards of behaviour?
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References
Australian Associated Motor Insurers Limited (2007),
About us: AAMI, available at: www.aami.com.au
Barnet, R.J. and Cavanagh, J. (1994), Global Dreams: Imperial
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BlessingWhite (2008), The state of employee engagement:
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Charan, R. and Colvin, G. (1999), Why CEOs fail, Fortune,
Vol. 139 No. 12, pp. 68-72.
Copernicus Marketing Consulting (2000), About
Copernicus: Copernicus Marketing Consulting, available
at: www.copernicusmarketing.com/about/docs/commodities.
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Durning, A. (1992), How Much Is Enough? The Consumer
Society and the Future of the Earth, Norton, New York, NY.
Fisk, P. (2006), Marketing Genius, Capstone Publishing
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Fleming, J.H. and Asplund, J. (2007), Human Sigma, Gallup
Press, New York, NY.
Hewitt Associates (2004), Employee engagement at doubledigit growth companies, available at: www.hewittassociates.
com/_MetaBasicCMAssetCache_/Assets/Articles/DDG
Engagementfull.pdf (accessed 15 December 2008).
Kirby, J. (2006), How to manage and measure the word of
mouth revolution, available at: www.marketingprofs.com
Kirby, J. and Marsden, J. (2004), Connected Marketing:
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LaMalfa, K. (2008), The positive economics of customer
engagement, available at: www.allegiance.com/library.php
(accessed 16 December 2008).
9. Conclusion
International research strongly supports the model:
.
A study in the UK attempted to look at the links between
brand, culture and shareholder returns. In an examination
of five year returns to shareholders, if the standard and
poor index 100, companies with high brand ratings
from consumers scored 160 and companies with high
brand ratings from both consumers and employees 320
(The Vivaldi Brand Leadership Study, 2002; as cited in
Woodcock and Starkey, 2005).
.
If an organisation without employee or staff engagement
performs at an engagement index of 1.0 then
organisations with high levels of employee or customer
engagement perform at 1.70 (Fleming and Asplund,
2007). However, organisations with high customer and
staff engagement perform at 3.40 (Fleming and Asplund,
2007).
.
The link between internal culture and customer
experience in inextricable. The customer experience is
typically a reflection of the internal culture. So if you have
a bland experience the organisation will typically have a
bland culture. In fact, 51 per cent of consumers state that
outstanding service is the number one reason they
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Corresponding author
Christopher Roberts can be contacted at: chrisroberts@
engagedmarketing.com.au
As the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, achieving the
necessary alignment between these elements can help produce
a final step where the intended customer experience lives up
to promises made.
A failure to clearly define the key elements prevents some
companies from creating engaged customers. Others achieve
clarity but not alignment due to elements being designed
separately. Clear definition and alignment is characteristic of
better performing organisations and some go even further by
ensuring that the elements become an integral part of daily
routines and operations.
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