Consumer Engagement: Holy Grail or Fool's Gold?

"We all dream of the perfect customer: the fiercely loyal, energetic word-of-mouth advocate for the brand, who's willing to let our service mistakes roll off their back, and who comes back time after time to buy what our company offers. These consumers are willing to invest their time, energy and money in our products and services and do so with glee. Do such amazing customers actually exist? ... Moving the needle on consumer engagement is exceptionally difficult, and a bit of neuroscience explains why. The human brain processes about 10 million bits of information per second. That's roughly the throughput of the original Ethernet cable. Our conscious minds, however, use only 50 bits per second. This means that most of what we do happens automatically, under the radar, and beyond our conscious grasp. We point our attention at things that are either pressing or pleasurable, and the rest of the time we let things ride. In short, we are wired for inattention and inertia."