Making the Case for Compensation at the Customer Engagement Summit

By Blackhawk Network (BHN)

On the 28^th of November, Engage Customer held their flagship Customer Engagement Summit, which brought together more than 1,000 CX professionals. In this piece, event partner and exhibitor Blackhawk Network (BHN) share their experience.

BHN is focused on helping businesses turn every customer interaction into an opportunity for growth. That’s why we were delighted to be an exhibitor at the Customer Engagement Summit held in London on 28th of November. As well as having a well-attended stand at the event, Leona Heymerdinguer, our Head of Customer Engagement, was invited to give a presentation about the role of compensation in promoting customer engagement. Leona was impressed with the interest it generated:

"It was great to attend the Customer Engagement Summit in London on 28^th November. It was even better to be invited to give a talk about the power compensation programs have in building better relationships with customers. It seemed to strike a chord with attendees too, as our session was a sell-out and they were even turning people away at the door!"

Amongst the great talks and presentations during the day, Jamie Thorpe, Head of Experience Management at Ipsos, gave a keynote speech - The Forces of CX - which reminded everyone of the power of customer engagement to drive growth. Leona said of Jamie’s speech:

“What resonated with me and our experience at BHN, is the importance of treating customers fairly and the role of Status, Enjoyment and Belonging in building customer relationships.”

This perfectly reflected the power compensation can play in boosting customer awareness which was the theme of Leona’s own talk. Independent research commissioned by BHN showed that 78% of customers would do repeat business with a company if their customer service is excellent – even after a mistake. What’s more, 83% of customers said they felt more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve complaints.

However, many companies who offer compensation aren’t getting the most out of that action. Why? Because they will simply credit the customer’s account with a payment. Doing this doesn’t make a connection with the customer, as it is purely transactional and often only shows up on a bank statement. Making amends by giving a gift card or voucher is more tangible. It will be redeemed by buying something – clothes, a meal, cinema tickets or the weekly shop – and that purchase and the benefit will be remembered positively.

Leona’s presentation explored this subject in much more depth and the event organisers kindly filmed the whole thing, so if you’d like to hear more about the subject you can click on the link below to watch.

The bottom line is compensation gives you a great opportunity to turn a negative experience that might have led to a bad review or a lost customer into a positive experience that not only helps to retain the customer but increases their loyalty and can even turn them into brand advocates. Leona summed up the presentation, saying: 

“Our message was positively received by the audience, who were obviously listening closely as we got some great questions at the end and a lot of feedback on the BHN stand asking how payment solutions can be used, not just for compensation, but across the whole customer lifecycle from acquisition to retention and upsell and cross sell. We also had a lot of interest and questions about how incentives could be used to reward and engage both employees and business partners as well as customers.”

At a summit where the role AI has to play in customer engagement was a major talking point, BHN’s presence and Leona’s well-received and popular session on compensation offered a valuable and well received counterpoint - making a pragmatic and provable case for the role of easily implemented compensation schemes in reducing customer churn and boosting long-term customer value and revenues.

To discover how BHN can help you enhance your customer engagement strategy with compensation and appeasements, improve client retention rates and drive revenue within your organisation click here to start a conversation or give us a call on 08777 267153.