I’m currently teaching an intro to marketing concepts course (online) in the MBA@Denver program. We’re using 2U as the platform and it’s going well. One of the questions I received from a student last night was “Is there a yardstick for measuring value?”. Unfortunately, there is no yardstick! But there is a simple model to help you out. When you think of value, you need to think engagement. The level of engagement between a business and it’s customer/potential customer determines the perceived value exchanged. Below is my definition of engagement.
- Recency – How recently was a customer/potential customer interacting with my business (online and/or F2F)/
- Frequency -How frequently to my customers/potential customers return to my business?
- Duration – How long do they spend interacting with my business?
- Virality – Does sentiment (positive or negative) about my business get shared. Does it resonate with a lot of users or a few?
- Ratings – How do people rate my business? 4 stars? Thumbs-up?
- Interactions – Do people interact with my business and if so, how?
- Conversions – Are potential customers converting into customers? Do existing customers come back to buy?
As you would suspect, not all of these are good. Recency, frequency and duration call all be seen as bad things for customer service. Same with interactions. Businesses need to be think about what specific metrics speak to these categories and then determine if “it” is a positive or a negative.
