Event Recap: Cargill’s Customer Engagement Measurement Approach

Cargill is a large company serving customers and communities in 70 countries. There were many inconsistencies with how business units were interacting with customers and measuring engagement. On March 7, Lori Loflin, Global Customer Engagement Research Program Manager at Cargill, and Katherine Gustafson, VP Customer Strategies at TNS Global, shared how the two companies partnered to develop a holistic customer engagement and measurement program.

Lori and Katherine focused on the Voice of the Customer and relationship building. They shared tips for how any company can listen to their customers more effectively, and build a customer engagement and measurement approach that fits their needs.

·Do your research. Talk with your business partners, research the industry and take inventory of what you are currently doing (or not doing) to measure and build customer loyalty and to
drive value.

·Get buy-in from senior leadership by focusing on how money can be made and saved by listening to the customer and measuring your programs based on customer feedback and needs.

·Develop an advisory board of marketing, business and sales team stakeholders to oversee the development of the program and to be advocates in sustaining it. It shouldn’t be a top down program.

·Design the program based on your company’s culture and the way you operate. Determine the best way to optimize your program. Cargill partners with TNS.

·Personalize your engagement program for your customers. Understand what is relevant to them to determine cadence of outreach and data gathering.

·Play to your company’s strengths. Share with your customers how you can provide a unique experience compared to the competition. Don’t just focus on the things that you need to fix.

·Data is only helpful if you use it. Measure things like operations, product service/quality and relationships consistently across all business units. And measure against the competition.

·Be willing to make adjustments along the way. If you aren’t willing to change, you will get what you’ve always gotten.