Contact Engagement Scores
The 0-100 score that tells SI how each contact is responding — and what to do about it
What It Is
Every contact with SI enabled receives a Contact Engagement Score (CES) — a 0-100 rating that measures how actively engaged they are with your brand across all channels. The score is calculated by a separate AI scoring engine that evaluates six dimensions of engagement, then produces a lifecycle classification, a trend direction, and an actionable recommendation.
The engagement score is not a lead score. Lead scores typically measure how well a contact matches your ideal customer profile — demographics, firmographics, and fit. The engagement score measures *behavior* — what the contact is actually doing. Are they opening emails? Attending meetings? Visiting your website? Replying to SMS? Participating in webinars?
SI reads the engagement score before every decision. The score tells SI: this contact is leaning in (increase frequency), pulling back (decrease frequency), actively buying (escalate to human), or completely unresponsive (try a different channel). Without it, SI would treat every contact the same way. With it, SI calibrates its behavior to each contact's actual responsiveness.
Why It Matters
The engagement score is the single most important input to SI's decision-making. It is what makes SI adaptive rather than mechanical.
Consider two contacts in the same pipeline stage:
Contact A has a score of 85, rising trend, classified as "opportunity." They have opened the last 5 emails, attended a webinar, and visited the pricing page twice this week. SI's recommendation: increase frequency or escalate to human.
Contact B has a score of 22, declining trend, classified as "churn risk." They have not opened an email in 3 weeks, ignored 2 SMS messages, and their last call went to voicemail. SI's recommendation: re-engage through a different channel, or pause outreach.
Without engagement scoring, SI would send both contacts the same type of message at the same frequency. With scoring, SI knows to prioritize Contact A (hot lead, needs personal attention now) and change strategy for Contact B (current approach is failing, try something different before giving up).
The score also powers the Command Center dashboards — letting you see your entire contact base broken down by lifecycle, trend, and recommendation at a glance.
How It Works
The Six Dimensions
Engagement is measured across six weighted dimensions:
Communication (25%) — Email opens, clicks, and replies. SMS responses. How actively the contact engages with your outbound messages.
Meetings (20%) — Meeting attendance vs. no-shows. Feedback quality after meetings. Rescheduling patterns. Shows commitment and follow-through.
Content Engagement (15%) — Webinar watch percentage. Form submissions. Poll participation. Shows interest in learning about your offerings.
Website Activity (10%) — Session frequency, pages visited, return visits (tracked via the Webby analytics pixel). Shows passive interest and research behavior.
Call Quality (20%) — Number of calls, average duration, sentiment, and outcomes. A 15-minute positive call weighs more than a 30-second hang-up.
Signals (10%) — Intent signals: appointment bookings, enrichment events, contact engagement signals logged by external systems or form actions.
The AI scoring engine weighs these dimensions, considers the contact's history and context, and produces the final score.
Lifecycle Classification
Based on the score and behavioral patterns, each contact is classified into one of five lifecycle types:
- Prospect — Early stage, limited engagement. The most common classification.
- Opportunity — Active engagement, showing buying signals. Higher average scores.
- Customer — Converted, in the KEEP or GROW phase.
- Churn Risk — Previously engaged but declining. Needs intervention.
- Advocacy — Highly engaged existing customer. Candidate for referrals and testimonials.
Trend Tracking
The score includes a trend indicator showing movement over time:
- ↑ Rising — Engagement is increasing. The contact is leaning in.
- → Stable — Engagement is consistent. No significant change.
- ↓ Declining — Engagement is dropping. Something needs to change.
- • New — Recently scored for the first time. Not enough history for a trend.
AI Recommendations
Based on the score, trend, and lifecycle, the scoring engine produces one of seven recommendations that directly control SI's behavior:
- Continue Automation — Normal cadence. Standard SI processing.
- Increase Frequency — Halve the minimum gap. Enable micro-conversations. Prioritize this contact.
- Decrease Frequency — Double the minimum gap. Skip proactive outreach. Only respond to explicit signals.
- Human Handoff — Stop all automation. Notify the contact owner with full context.
- Pause Outreach — Complete halt. Do not process this contact at all.
- Re-engage — Current channel is not working. Force a switch to SMS or phone.
- Request Referral — Contact is highly engaged and satisfied. Shift to advocacy — ask for a referral or testimonial.
Human Override
You can override any AI recommendation from the SI Command Center. Click into a lifecycle, trend, or recommendation group, find the contact, and set a manual override with an explanation. Your override takes precedence until you clear it — and SI reads your explanation on its next pass to understand why you intervened.
