Maggie’s Mudroom – Building Customer Engagement One Pot at a Time

What is Customer Engagement?

Clarabridge defines customer engagement as “the emotional connection between a customer and a brand. Highly engaged customers buy more, promote more, and demonstrate more loyalty. Providing a high-quality customer experience is an important component in your customer engagement strategy.”

Customer engagement is continuously evolving. Once upon a time, building relationships with customers happened in person and through simple word of mouth. The following video from eLoyalty demonstrates the history of customer engagement and how it has changed.

In 2015, Erika Macguire of Forbes, posted an article titled “Six Strategies to Drive Customer Engagement in 2015” that focused on real-time, personalized experiences for customers.   The article highlighted six key ways to engage with customers including:

1) Real time benefits to encourage a fun customer experience

2) Using social media as a tool to engage with customers

3) Making the customer experience simplified

4) Using and analyzing data for better customer satisfaction

5) Encouraging customer feedback and managing issues from customers

6) Anticipating customer needs

 

In a post by Audrey Ference in 2017, you can see how even in a short time the focus on the various strategies for customer engagement continues to evolve and change.

The post highlights the focus on “value creation”, businesses giving customers something more than just a sales pitch – superior service from start to finish, meaningful content to the customer or positive support with a quick turnaround. The seven strategies listed centre around relationship building with the customer, including making customers a priority and humanizing your brand.

Maggie’s Mudroom

An excellent example of customer engagement through relationship building is Maggie’s Mudroom.

Located in the heart of Elmira, Maggie’s Mudroom is a Paint Your Own Pottery Studio and Café.   Maggie’s Mudroom is a drop in/walk in studio with a café full of homemade goodies homemade by Maggie. Birthday parties, special events and summer camps are also hosted at Maggie’s Mudroom. Maggie’s Mudroom can be found on Facebook and Instagram and Maggie posts blogs on the website for her customers.

In an interview with Maggie of Maggie’s Mudroom, she stated “I want to impact lives” and her email signature quotes “where friendships and creativity flourish”.   Maggie conveyed the importance of social media in customer engagement as a means of relationship building. Maggie highlighted how social media keeps her connected with her customers and provides an avenue for long lasting relationships.

Some specific examples of the relationship building Maggie enjoys with her customers:

1) Maggie’s handmade cups for customers

2) Girl’s Nights

3) Showcasing customer’s creations on Facebook and Instagram

4) Creating contests for customers to win prizes

Lessons for Others

Maggie’s Mudroom illustrates the importance of building and maintaining relationships with customers, particularly through the use of social media.  Several key learnings from Maggie’s Mudroom include: the importance of maintaining regular, ongoing contact with customers which helps customers feel a part of the business; responding to customer feedback quickly is crucial to allow for resolution; and personalizing the customer’s experience makes them feel part of a larger community.

As technology continues to grow and change, businesses need to grow and change to meet their customer’s needs.

I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Maggie from Maggie’s Mudroom. She was a very warm, approachable person and I look forward to my visit to Maggie’s Mudroom to paint something of my very own!

If you have concerns as to the accuracy of anything posted on this site, please send your concerns to Peter Carr, Program Director, Social Media for Business Performance.

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