Consumer engagement is a very important factor that contributes to the success (or failure) of your business. Isn’t it interesting that fully engaged customers are 23% more profitable in terms of revenue and relationships? Its absence should flash a red light in your head that something is wrong. If customers were eager to come back to your website and shop in the beginning but now the situation is different, you should start looking for a reason why. It may be poor targeting of your offer or increased competition – there can be many reasons for this.
Of course, you could try, for example, to expand your offer or change the target if you feel that these are the reasons for a lack of commitment on your website. But we also have some ideas of our own and asked some professionals about their tips for boosting customer engagement. Are you interested?
Time response is crucial
Customer involvement is heavily influenced by the customer experience. After all, 86% of buyers indicated that they would be willing to pay more for a better customer experience. Do you know what your customers don’t like the most? Waiting. So don’t make them wait too long.
The first interaction with a client is very important. First impressions are only made once, right? Therefore, if you make clients wait from the very beginning, it does not bode well for a long relationship. Here is what Petra Odak, CMO at Better Proposals advised regarding this matter:
Reduce your first response time as much as you possibly can! If you take hours to get back to a customer, they could have already gone to a competitor and canceled their subscription with you. Either employ a chatbot to resolve the most common questions your customers ask (which we don’t do) or hire a dedicated customer support rep to cover all the time zones of your customers. You don’t need to immediately solve your customers’ problems, but it is crucial to respond as soon as possible.
Chatbots, as mentioned above, are a very interesting option. Bhooshan Shatty from Engati said:
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is radically changing business, and AI chatbots are becoming a feasible customer service channel. The best ones deliver a customer experience (CX) in which customers cannot tell if they are communicating with a human or a computer. AI has come a long way in recognizing the content – and context – of customers’ requests and questions. They are ubiquitous on nearly every brand website today, making a significant mark in consumer-facing tasks through fast and consistent support.
He also mentioned some of the biggest chatbot pros just to highlight their values:
1. Available 24/7 for Your Customers
2. Chatbots continuously learn
3. Ensure a Personalized Customer Service Experience
4. Your team has more context on each customer
5. Creates a consistent user experience
And just to support these words, forecasts say that approximately 40% of customer interactions will be automated by 2023. As you can see, automation is becoming a bigger player on the market in terms of interactions as well.
Just as important as quick responses is expectation management. Assaf Cohen, who runs card games site Solitaire Bliss, explains: “We always let customers know when they can expect a proper response from us. Sometimes we’ll tell them we can get back to them in three hours, or the following day. When a new game is requested, we also provide regular updates on where that game stands in our roadmap. All this has improved our customer loyalty considerably.”
It’s important to be understood
People need to know why they should choose you and how it could be beneficial for them to be engaged. Ugnius Zasimauskas from Attention Insight says that:
Whenever users open your page, they will immediately have several questions that you are expected to answer: Does this page have what I’m looking for? Where is it? How do I get it?
Ugnius highlights the importance of your page’s visual aspects, the way you organize it, and how easily navigable it is. He advises that:
You can also promote specific content, encourage your visitors to click on call-to-actions, and improve the overall user experience. All of which will undeniably increase customer engagement and your conversions.
The way your page looks and how easy is to find something on it is a crucial aspect. If someone visits your site, they are doing so for a reason. Firstly, what they’re looking for has to be relatively easy to find, and secondly, it must be clear why they should do business on your webpage. Send your message clearly.
Jeffrey Kagan from Nifty also has an interesting point of view. His main tip is to:
…focus on ensuring that users both paid and free have a good understanding of the best ways to use your product. In support of his words, he adds that:
At Nifty we have started offering biweekly webinars to our user base and they have become very popular among productivity junkies and new users alike, leading to a much more engaged and active user base.
And he has a point – boosting customer engagement is all about understanding your product. Showing how to use it or presenting some useful tricks may be the key to their hearts.
The same rules apply to mobile apps. David Cacik, Head of Marketing at CloudTalk explains:
The observed huge increase in the range and importance of mobile will continue. Mobile channels must provide customers with what they expect, based on intuitive interfaces and a wide range of available tools and options. Access to selected products may be limited due to the client’s ability and “ability” to close specific transactions, but the access to services and information itself must be sufficiently wide. Customers can be directed to specific places and channels (e.g. a dedicated call center or a designated, conveniently located outlet) in order to continue the process, but it must be done efficiently and easily, without effort from the customer’s perspective.
As for the mobile applications themselves – their capabilities, intuitive design, security of authorization mechanisms, etc. – the wealth of solutions offered on the market in all industries and markets is so large that each company can find and choose what best meets customer needs despite limitations and formal or legal requirements.
Show benefits
Once customers understand what your product is about and how to use it, they need to focus on the benefits. These are the main driving factors for choosing your product over competitors’. Konrad Caban has this piece of related advice:
Show your customer how their activity in your app can benefit them. Explain that the more they do, the more they get from the money they spend. And I’m not talking about some virtual rewards (gamification), but a real impact on their business (or life).
He added how they manage this issue in Super Monitoring:
For example, in Super Monitoring, you can stick to default checks and only view email alerts and reports. But when you create more checks, you can monitor more features of your website, besides availability – like load speed, transactions, expiring assets, etc. And when you log in, you can access detailed information about the problems detected for root cause analysis.
Konrad also highlights the importance of the cause-and-effect relationship between customer engagement and their benefits. He claims that it’s good material for case studies, but what’s crucial is that:
Such case studies should be presented to a user early as a part of the onboarding process.
Building community helps a lot
Community is a factor that allows customers to feel a bond with the brand in question. Moreover, it builds loyalty and keeps customers coming back. Matej Kukucka from Marketing Player says:
Create a community around your product with specific use cases. No matter your business size and industry, your customers are probably very keen on using your products or services. Therefore streamlining them into a single place is a great way to increase customer engagement, and it’s very possible to improve retention as well.
Martin Bloksa from StreamBee has exciting insights about using Discord for this purpose. He explains from his experience why it was a bull’s eye:
Considering we are streamer analytics software, Discord was an obvious choice when it comes to choosing where to engage with our customers. Create different channels and let your customers and potential prospects interact with you. Help them, they won’t forget about it. And for those who are your best clients, create a special place. Simply a VIP zone to feel them better. They will be happy to come back and engage with yourself.
It’s a very nice idea to go the extra mile and expand beyond well-known social media. After all, right now, most interaction takes place online, so why not have a chat with your customers in real-time and let them talk to each other too.
Building a community may also be helpful with creating or upgrading new products. More than 60% of companies admit they turn to brand communities in the case of product development.
Focus on relationships and authenticity
Building strong relationships is important both in life and in business. It’s crucial to be close with your customers to give them the feeling they have a go-to site where they can find what they need. Zach Boyette from Galactic Fed advises focusing on three P’s, which are:
Purpose: customers are more interested in social impact, especially when it comes to diversity and inclusivity.
Personalization: customers want to personalize their products and feel like brands are tailoring the product to them.
Positioning: brands that position their product to enhance or facilitate a new experience will come out ahead.
He adds that experience is crucial when it comes to relationships:
Customers want an experience that is more meaningful and less transactional, and brands that do this will boost their customer engagement as a result.
What is the foundation of each good relationship? Authenticity. That’s why Deepti Chopra from Adaface points out that:
Customers today are looking for authenticity over all else. Finding a voice that is unique, that customers can relate to, while staying true to your brand values is a long term investment which pays off over time.
She adds that relationships and authenticity support the community, which, as already mentioned, is another key aspect when it comes to boosting customer engagement.
Showing off your brand personality on social media (while still knowing where to draw the line) and building a community that adds value and maintains an ongoing conversation are also great ways to engage customers.
Authenticity goes hand-in-hand with security. Each client has to feel that their data is safe and sound when it comes to your database. Iva Anusic from Mediatoolkit added:
Observing the world around us, we commonly see two opposite trends. On the one hand, customers are ready to share more and more data, if only to get a better offer. At the same time, the same customers are expressing more and more caution and distrust when it comes to the security of use and the guarantee of storage of this data.
In order to gain the customer’s trust, banks should clearly and openly communicate the scope and manner of using individual data, with the option of “going in / out” (opt-in / opt-out) of a specific procedure for obtaining and using the data. That is to emphasize the care for data security and confidentiality. Plus, it can be another highlighting factor.
Content should be king
You have probably heard this phrase a million times, but it’s true. Without good content, it is hard to catch anybody’s attention, let alone engage them. Farwa Anees from Content Studio says that:
Using your blogs as a means of providing answers to what your audience is looking for will lead to happy and permanent subscribers, ultimately leading to company growth.
As a consultant for both small and large businesses, Felix Yim from GrowthBoost says that:
…the most common mistakes I see are advertisements that don’t engage with the customer. As a guide to boost your customer engagement, start all your campaigns with the pain point your customer faces, and then lead with how you can help.
You need to create a content plan: what, where, and when. You should then examine the content itself: its form, design, and accuracy. Remember to provide meaningful content, share your knowledge in a nice format, and don’t forget about personalization.
Agnieszka Kuprianowicz from Angry Nerds has a good insight about this topic:
Commitment starts with a better understanding of customers as people. It can and should be supported by the most up-to-date and beneficial information (including the offer). This information, in turn, should be provided in an attractive and engaging manner, building a good experience, using a wide range of complementary channels (omnichannel).
Jacek Wizmur-Szymczak from Scalac advices focus on topicality:
To increase the level of customer engagement, companies need to become more involved in terms of product offerings and promotions, but also in the way they share information and demonstrate understanding of customer needs. The so-called Content (content and form of communication) must be up-to-date, profiled, and “meaningful” for customers; it should not be seen as part of cross- and upselling activities.
Boosting your customer engagement starts now
As you can see, boosting your customer engagement is not rocket science. Hopefully, some of these pieces of advice from experts will pave the way for you and your customers to engage a little more.
Improving customer engagement is a big step towards building your business performance and brand awareness. When you engage your customers and strengthen bonds with them, they will stay with you for longer.