Customer Engagement at The Co-operative Food

Customer Engagement is going beyond exceptional service and is about delivering more personalized experiences based on authentic relationships with customers. The more the store owner knows about the customer, the more personalized the customer experience will be. This, in turn, leads to repeat sales and having potential loyal customers. Co-operative Food sees new technology as a main factor of improving customer engagement and they put emphasis on consumers to make more ethical choices.

Sustaining engaging relationships with hundreds or potentially thousands of customers is an impossible task for Co-operative Food.
This is why they focus on engaging marketing efforts with their top customers as defined by repeat sales and word-of-mouth referrals. They use online tools to help them manage all of this information.
Co-operative Food want to cultivate stronger relationships with those top customers by providing insider deals and other perks not offered to their larger customer base. social media is an established platform for building good customer relationships. They can effectively engage with their customers both online and offline and comes down to:
A passion for their business that comes through in the way they interact with customers, talk about their products and services, and freely share their expertise.
Sincere interest in helping customers make the right purchasing decisions based on their particular needs.
Enthusiasm for building and sustaining authentic connections with customers.
The ability to move beyond traditional customer service and engage customers will make all the difference in driving a more profitable business.

Co-operative Food engages with their customers in a variety of ways to improve engagement and insight, and encourage customers and members to get involved in issues and campaigns. They are increasingly utilising social media to drive customer and member engagement. Social media and campaigns During 2012, Co-operative Food ran three campaigns: Plan Bee, Clean Energy Revolution and Grow co-operatives. As of December 2012, more than 168,000 people liked or followed one or more of their social media pages; a 65% increase from the previous year. In 2012, they engaged members and customers further through social media, with campaigning messages being posted on the main Co-operative Facebook and Twitter pages as well as on campaign-specific pages. Many more people are now engaging in these sites, with ‘Fans’ and ‘Followers’ of Plan Bee’s Facebook and Twitter pages, for instance, more than doubling in 2012. In 2012, they had more than 20,000 ‘Take action’ eNewsletter subscriptions.

Consumer panels and online communities are common practices for Co-operative Food. Firstly, talking about • The Taste Team – of the Co-operative Food Consumer panel which is made up of over 2,000 employees and customers, who sampled at home, and fed back on 374 new products in 2012. Secondly, talking about • Up for Discussion – The Co-operative Group Online community aimed at improving their understanding of consumer attitudes and behaviours. Over 2,000 new participants joined the community in 2012 and over 17,000 contributions were received. Lastly, • Talking Shop – The Co-operative Foods Private online community which is used to engage with consumers and provide daily insight into issues relating to the food business. There are currently 1,700 members with more recruitment planned.

In the 2012 annual report they say “Membership engagement lies at the heart of the business... However the key is not quantity but the quality of relationships forged. The more engaged their members are the more successful their business will be”. This is a suitable standard, though you should keep in mind that not all food-store customers are Co-operative Food members and engagement with all of the customers is equally important.

Having Good customer engagement strategies make it easier to:
Communicate,
Collect feedback from customer experiences and
One of the best ways to improve customer engagement is to turn Co-operative Foods into a more customer focused organisation.

So, step one in any successful email customer engagement strategy is to understand who in the Co-operative Foods organization is emailing the customers. Some examples include:
Marketing emails to customers
Emails announcing upcoming events
A monthly newsletter
A semi-annual customer survey