Engagement!!!!

Let's talk about engagement; not the down-on-one-knee, marry your best friend engagement. I'm talking about a website's ability to give a visitor the ultimate experience and gain their loyalty or business. Engagement is important for measuring your website's consistency, according to Measure what Matters, by Katie Paine. There are three major reasons for engagement:

1. Engagement is the first step in building a relationship between your customers and your brand.
2. Customer engagement helps promote and protect your brand.
3. Customer engagement can make your products better.

Although the meaning of engagement has changed over time, engagement is still all about relationships. A organization's relationships are what will make it stand out from everyone else. Paine also says that engagement can help show whether or not your organization is creating dialog, or just yelling at your audience.

Courtesy of amazon.com

Relationships and engagement are so important to creating the greatest customer experience. I know from personal experience that engagement on a website can make or break a sale. Amazon.com is a great example of engagement and relationships. Whenever I visit amazon.com, the website always says, "Hello Melissa!" Amazon also keeps track of my previous purchases and gives me suggestions on similar items. When I click on an item I am interested it, the website also provides me with products that other people purchased with the item I clicked on. My billing and shipping information is always stored safely and I've never been worried about spam or identity theft. I could go on all day about the great perks available on amazon.com. Amazon does a great job of showing recommendations and reviews from other customers. Amazon builds a very "personal" relationship with me. I always am able to find what I am looking for and the search is made easy on amazon.com. My experience with the website is always positive, even if I don't buy anything. The engagement level of amazon.com is high because it is so easy to get lost in the hundreds of thousands of products available on the website. From the beginning, Amazon does an excellent job, in my opinion, of engaging the customer and building a strong relationship.