2021 Global Customer Engagement Review

We’ve found companies that excel when it comes to customer engagement see higher customer lifetime value and lower acquisition costs, which is crucial for long-term success. As brands rapidly rethink their digital-first consumer experiences in an ongoing Covid-19 pandemic—what does brilliant customer engagement really mean, and is your strategy driving tangible results?

Find out in the first annual 2021 Global Customer Engagement Review. Braze tasked Wakefield Research to conduct a survey to help marketers identify opportunities to improve their results. That improvement can be significant: More than half of the companies we ranked as most mature in our Customer Engagement Index exceeded their revenue goals for 2020.

Each industry breakdown features a case study from a leading brand, including GOAT, Grubhub, Headspace, Payomatic, and the National Basketball Association (NBA) demonstrating the tangible success that comes with industry-leading customer engagement strategies.

The review uncovered several key findings:

More Brands Will View Customer Engagement as Critical to Business Growth 
Most brands understand that providing excellent customer experience is critical to building loyalty and retaining customers. However, the review also found that there is a direct correlation between the level of customer engagement a brand provides and business growth. Marketers who rated their own practices as "excellent" were more likely than those who rated it as "poor" to hit their revenue goals. Mirroring this trend, 56% of brands who earned the highest ranking in the Braze Customer Engagement Index surpassed their revenue goals as well.

Even Brands That Are Confident in Their Strategies Find Showing Success Challenging
While a whopping 88% of marketers responded that they are confident in their customer engagement practices, almost three out of four (74%) companies are worried their metrics don't translate into tangible business outcomes. One of the main factors contributing to the problem is that teams within a given organization don't always agree on what success looks like. For example, 26% of marketers have a shared, company-wide definition of success when it comes to their engagement campaigns.

Marketing Budgets Will Increase—With a Heavy Focus on Customer Engagement Tools
Last year, COVID-19 emphasized the importance of a digital-first and digital-only customer experience. This was reflected in our findings which showed that 60% of all marketing decision makers said their budget will increase over the next 12 months, specifically with a focus on investing in customer satisfaction measurement and customer engagement.

Marketers Can't Live on One Channel Alone
While many brands technically leverage multiple channels, they tend to rely on only one for the majority of their campaigns. It's not necessarily ineffective—sending messages via a single channel is better than sending none at all—but nothing beats leveraging multiple channels. The review found that brands that message customers across multiple channels saw a 58% increase in 30-day retention, customers that were 73% more likely to make a purchase, and 4X the increase in lifetime value.

To read the full review, please download the 2021 Global Customer Engagement Review.