Are your customers or members engaged? Are they committed, loyal and even proud to be associated with you? To what extent do they feel a part of something special? At BMAI, we have been exploring the notion of engagement for many years and have developed our unique approach to assessing levels of engagement and advising organizations on how they can achieve greater engagement amongst their customers or members.

Engagement, like relationships, is a complex subject. Those who have a solid, positive relationship with a company or organization are the most engaged. They have strong feelings toward the organization, deal with it regularly, are active in supporting it and even take pride in their association.

But, as with many similarly complex concepts, engagement is defined simplistically in many organizations—often equated with metrics such as satisfaction and Net Promoter Score. We find that many organizations define engagement in behavioral terms—number of trips to the store, visits to the website, articles downloaded, conferences or webcasts attended, comments on blog posts, etc. Such metrics are indicative of engagement but they are not themselves engagement. They are the behavioral outcomes that are the result of being engaged.

Engagement is an emotional concept. It is something that a customer or member feels towards an organization. We like some of the ways that the Oxford English Dictionary defines “to engage”: “to participate or become involved in”; “to establish a meaningful contact or connection with”; “to occupy or attract someone’s interest or attention.”

At BMAI, we focus on what is at the root of engagement and not simply on the outcomes. We explore the essence of engagement and how people feel about being associated with an organization or brand. Our measures of engagement have provided direction to major national and international companies and member-based organizations to strengthen loyalty and drive organizational growth.

We capture the emotional connection of customers and members, allowing executives to assess where relationships are weak and where they are strong, pointing to strategic responses to improve engagement levels. The result is an improvement in customer or member involvement, stronger commitment, increased operational efficiency, and growth.