Engaging Loyal Customers to Evangelize Your Brand


BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - October 8, 2009) - A recent study, "Customer Experience Management: Engaging Loyal Customers to Evangelize Your Brand," conducted by Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), explores the undeniable customer centric shift that is forcing all organizations to rethink customer engagement. "Measuring the customer experience emerged as the number one strategy all organizations will be implementing to mitigate challenges with customer satisfaction and the need to improve customer retention," explains Ian Michiels, Practice Director of Aberdeen's Customer Management Technology Group and author of the study. "Ultimately, CEM requires a customer centric shift in the way the entire organization thinks, not just customer facing roles. The more organizations can link CEM with improvements in business performance, the more valuable it will become to inject resources into the organization to manage and improve the customer experience; these may include technology investments, headcount additions (to own customer experience improvement), or consultants." The findings isolate organizations that achieve superior performance in customer retention and customer satisfaction to identify how these organizations grow and harvest customer advocates for new customer acquisition.

"Simply increasing communication with customers is not enough to improve the customer experience. The organizations that are thriving in this economy are creating superior customer experiences by showing customers how their input, opinions, and experiences have been translated into better customer experiences," explains Ian Michiels. "Every customer experience is an opportunity to influence customer acquisition, customer retention, loyalty, and advocacy." CEM strategies help define the relationship between customer satisfaction, retention, loyalty, and the brand.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: Cincom and Tealeaf. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?cid=6196.

Visit Research.Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary Customer Management Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company

Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

© 2009 Aberdeen Group, Inc., a Harte-Hanks Company
451 D Street, Suite 710
Boston, Massachusetts 02210-1928
Telephone: (617) 854-5200
Fax: (617) 723-7897
www.aberdeen.com

Contact Information: Media Contact: Ian Michiels Aberdeen Harte-Hanks (925) 264-1824 ian.michiels@aberdeen.com