It would be easy to believe that customer engagement is an indicator of how interested customers are in your business, but that would be only half of the answer. The truth is that customer engagement is a relationship, and as such, it’s a two-way street. In short, your customers won’t be interested in you if you aren’t interested in them and their needs.
That’s why most definitions of customer engagement speak about the activities you undertake to create engagement. It’s a relationship that’s built on customer experiences, and develops beyond initial purchases.
Not sure where to begin? Understanding what customers want is a good start.
Customer Engagement Strategies: Giving Your Customers What They Want
Customer engagement strategies help you to develop business relationships that feel very personal, regardless of how many customers you serve. You probably have an instinct for relationship-building already, but looking at what customers prefer can help to guide your strategies. Keep these principles in mind as you work to transform your business from a means to an end to an “old friend” whom your customers trust.
Personalisation and Omnichannel Recognition
Customer data allows you to personalise offers and communications – be sure to use data in accordance with privacy laws. When necessary, ask customers for permission to use their information. Tell customers about the data you gather, how you store and protect it, and how you use it. Most people will feel comfortable about their data being used to enhance the service they receive provided you’re transparent.
Customer data helps you to build customer profiles that enable you to engage across channels. For example, if a customer buys something in store and then engages with your company on social media, you’re able to acknowledge them as someone you “know,” rather than a complete stranger.
Most people are aware that you’re achieving this with a little technological assistance, but they still love the feeling of being engaged in a seamless “conversation” with your brand that spans all the channels they like to use.
Excellent Customer Service
There are times when people need help when interacting with your business or its products. At the same time, many of them will struggle along on their own for as long as possible, becoming increasingly frustrated in the process. Good customer service means offering help on demand. Excellent customer service means offering help before it’s asked for.
Software companies have the edge here. They’re able to spot signs that a customer is struggling to realise value from their products and customer success managers can ensure they’re offered the assistance they need. However, any business can inform customers about the resources at their disposal and invite them to get in touch if they would like help or advice.
Fast Response Times
Very few businesses can afford to keep their customers waiting. Think about the last time you were left kicking your heels while you waited for service. It’s quite likely that you regretted your purchase and vowed never to support the business again. Now think about the businesses that never leave you waiting and who always seem to welcome opportunities to hear from you. They make you feel important – and as a customer, that’s just how it should be.
Consistency
Do you have a favourite restaurant? Chances are they enjoy your support because you know you can always expect a great dining experience. If they let you down, you may not be back for more. In the same way, your business should offer consistent quality and service your customers can rely on. They’ll be proud to say they have a relationship with your brand.
Positive Emotional Connection
When businesses go out of their way to help customers feel good, they’ll be remembered for all the right reasons. Many businesses do this well right up to the point where they make a sale and then stop working on the relationship after that. Simply thanking people for their business is a good start. Making it clear that you’re still there for them, staying in touch, and involving them in decision making takes the relationship to the next level.
Problem Resolution
In an interesting experiment, researchers reached out to clients who had vented their frustration about airline service on social media. They asked respondents which airlines they would support. Formerly unhappy customers who had been contacted by airline representatives following their complaints had become staunch advocates.
They still expressed support even when the flights were more expensive than competing offers. And they had greater brand loyalty than people who had never complained about airline services. The message is clear: effective problem resolution helps to build relationships and boosts customer engagement.
Rewards
Who can resist earning rewards when buying things they need anyway? Supermarkets have long recognised the value of loyalty cards that offer repeat customers something extra. Your business can reward customer loyalty too.
Whether it’s discounts, free gifts, or exclusive VIP features, customers love an opportunity to earn a little bonus as part of your brand’s “family.” You’ll be working hard to develop loyal customers, and providing recognition for their repeat business or referrals is your way of thanking them.
Content Marketing
Offering valuable information for free earns you a reputation as an authority in your field and helps customers make the most of your products. For example, a clothing retailer can share content about the latest fashion trends or offer tips for accessorising. A bookseller can provide book reviews and information about upcoming releases from favourite authors, and so on. Give your content extra mileage via social media and your newsletters.
Newsletters
Getting newsletters just right can be something of an art. Formulate them for interest and enjoyment and ensure that your customers feel rewarded for the time they take reading them. If you’re implementing personalisations, you can even develop different newsletters for different types of customers.
Customer Surveys
Asking your customers for feedback and ideas is always a great idea. Those who are willing to share their thoughts will be happy to know that their ideas are being used to improve your business or its products, so be sure to keep them posted.
Social Media Interaction
While social media is great for marketing, it also gives you a great opportunity to boost customer engagement. Interact with customers by responding to their comments, share positive posts in which your business was mentioned, and boost engagement by running contests. Remember to implement social media listening and don’t shy away from engaging with dissatisfied customers.
Gamification
Love it or hate it, Temu has mastered the art of gamification, offering users minigames in which they can win discounts and prizes. Everybody loves a fun challenge, and few can resist a bargain, so consider adding gamified content to ecommerce platforms and apps. Apart from boosting sales, these games are a form of instant engagement which the BBC has described as “as addictive as sugar.”
Build a Community
Harley Davidson provides a great example of how brands can build communities that engage customers. Building on a strong brand, the company offers members a sense of “belonging,” plus opportunities to connect with other enthusiasts. People love to talk to others who share their hobbies and interests. Look for ways to bring your community together.
Exclusive Offers and Events
Signing up to your community, loyalty programme or VIP club can come with extra benefits. Exclusive offers and special events will send a clear message to your customers, showing them that they are important to you. Invite them to product launches, online events, or offer them products that no one else has access to. Help customers to develop a sense of being involved in a special relationship.
Why You Need a Customer Engagement Strategy
Bearing in mind that customer engagement is all about relationships, you can’t afford to leave it to chance. Gaining new customers is costly, so fostering engagement and achieving brand loyalty and repeat business makes sound economic sense.
By paving the way for engagement, you’ll gain valuable feedback from customers, helping you to see things from their perspective. This helps you to perfect customer experiences and further enhance customer engagement.
Customer Experience (CX) vs Customer Engagement
As we noted in the introduction, customer experiences are the foundation for customer engagement, but they are only the beginning. Customer experiences are enhanced by optimising every touchpoint. Customer engagement is achieved through relationship building. Stay in touch. Offer value. Be supportive. Listen to feedback and demonstrate appreciation. Always be honest and live up to your commitments. It’s the stuff of which good friendships are made.
Customer Satisfaction vs Customer Engagement
A satisfied customer is a valuable asset, but they aren’t yet an engaged customer. After all, you can feel satisfied with a purchase without feeling as if you have a relationship with the company you supported. Of course customer satisfaction makes it possible to turn passing trade into engaged customers who are actively involved in your brand, but it’s only among the first steps toward engagement.
Customer Engagement Metrics
There are several metrics that can give you some idea of customer engagement levels. For example, you can look at customer lifetime value, repeat purchases, customer churn, and customer retention rates. Software businesses can look at customer usage rates, and businesses that offer an app can look at how much time customers spend using it.
A customer engagement score brings several metrics together. For example, it can measure customers’ social media engagement combined with email opening and clickthrough rates, app usage, and website visits.
Customer Engagement Platforms
Tracking customer engagement manually would be almost impossible. Fortunately, the same software you use for important features like customer profiling, segmentation and omnichannel communication can often serve as customer engagement platforms.
Depending on the platform you use, you can run campaigns, check their results, collect and analyse customer feedback and implement engagement tracking and analytics.
The Vital Link Between Customer Service and Customer Engagement
Customer service, in particular, in-person service, helps to drive engagement. When customers have experienced excellent service from your company, they’re more likely to engage in other ways. For example, they may interact with your business on social media and they’re more likely to participate in referral programmes.
In a recent report, PwC warns companies about becoming so technology focused that they lose the human touch. The research company notes that up to 82 percent of consumers these days want human interaction, a startling finding at a time when so many businesses are moving away from interpersonal contact. In fact, 59 percent of consumers feel that human interactions are being neglected these days.
However, the report highlights something you probably know already: now, more than ever, people don’t want to wait for customer service. It must be immediate, efficient, professional, and friendly. This poses a challenge for businesses who are hoping to achieve longer-term engagement from customers. How many customer service agents should they have at any given time? What about after-hours enquiries? And how will they recruit the superior quality agents that customers want to interact with?
RSVP offers you an all-in-one solution. Outsourced customer service really can be better than anything you can offer in-house. Living up to this principle has made us one of the UK’s most respected customer service businesses.
We do far more than just learning enough about your business to act as its representatives. We work with you to achieve your business’s goals. From boosting customer retention to giving you valuable information on client opinions, we’re the human element your customers want and the centre where they can make their voices heard.
Wondering about all that wonderful technology that helps you connect the dots and measure customer engagement? We’re people-driven but technologically enabled. Get the best of both worlds with RSVP.