Firms urged to engage more with customers

Businesses must come up with new ways of engaging customers as the economic downturn threatens to change consumer behaviour, a new report has said.

Compiled by E-consultancy and cScape, the study showed that 51 per cent of UK companies said they had focused more on customer engagement during the financial crisis.

Furthermore, businesses expected issues such as greater sensitivity to price, a renewed focus on quality, a need for simplicity and an intolerance of bad customer service to be at the forefront of consumers' minds in 2009.

Six in ten of those polled said they were looking to invest more in email newsletters as part of their customer engagement strategies next year, while 41 per cent cited Web 2.0 as a key area for increased spending.

"More companies are viewing tactics such as blogging, user reviews and on-site video in the context of a broader customer engagement strategy and pulling only those levers which are most appropriate for their business model and customers," said head of research at E-consultancy Linus Gregoriadis.

According to MarketingSherpa, email newsletters that contain minimal "hard sell" language are more likely to engage customers.