While MassMutual Retirement Services now has many customers who opt in to access content for retirement and financial planning…it wasn’t always this way.
MassMutual, an industry leader, was humble enough to realize that it needed insights regarding customers’ expectations for meaningful digital engagement. The company used the insights from Voice of Customer (VoC) relationship research conducted by ERDM as the basis for a complete revamp of its customer engagement strategies.
Related Class: Engagement Strategies: The Digital Customer Experience Case Study
As a result of its new initiatives, MassMutual experienced triple digit results. Here are five tips you can use to rethink your customer engagement strategies.
1. If you haven’t significantly updated your customer engagement strategies within the past 12 months, you're out of sync with the changing needs of your customers. MassMutual realized that today’s generation of customers has much higher expectations for the relevance and value of communications than previous generations of customers.
Per Kris Gates, VP of customer experience marketing at MassMutual's Retirement Services Division, “We learned that our customers now want communications driven by their individual preferences and interests. Based on VoC research learnings, we created an online, humorous, “down to earth” webisode series to address customer concerns and confusion.”
Gates adds, “Subscribers opted in to be alerted to new episodes. We used the rollout of these new educational webisodes to measure the difference in response between mass emails to an entire list versus preference-driven offers to those who had opted in. Results from customers who opted in to receive information versus the mass email population: 94 percent higher open rates, 1,062 percent higher video views, 100 percent deliverability, and Zero unsubscribes”
2. Engage customers in a relevant social media community. The MassMutual “Smart View” video series has a direct tie-in to social media. Videos referenced the MassMutual RetireSmart Facebook page, which enabled customers to have a multichannel engagement experience. This multichannel involvement helped customers become a part of a community rather than just be email recipients or video viewers.
3. Listening and responding to customers are now essential. MassMutual listened and responded by creating unique programs to address customer needs. Per VoC research findings, consumers:
- Have shifted from being passive recipients of “push” marketing to selecting companies that engage, listen to, and act on input from customers and prospects.
- Expect frictionless, high-value engagement across every medium in the multichannel mix. Engage with your messages across multiple media to ensure message and brand consistency across all your media.
4. Create content that delivers significant value to your specific audience. MassMutual developed a content strategy built around “value building” education. The company created educational content that taught customers about complex products, but in a humorous and nontraditional way.
5. Promote your content across all elements of your media mix. MassMutual promoted the webisodes across multichannel communications to encourage engagement. For example, it offered customers the opportunity to connect with the SmartView YouTube webisodes by including schedule information in e-newsletters.
Related Class: Metrics-Drive Demand Gen in a Multichannel World
In summary, when it comes to successful customer engagement you need to start with the premise that customer needs and expectations have profoundly changed. Be humble. Gain an in-depth understanding of what your customers truly expect from you.
Then, use the five tips above to create strategies that engage customers in a relevant, multichannel experience with your brand.