Customer engagement is a very important aspect of a business. Before just having your product out in the world was enough, but now, customers are expecting more.
Customers are seeking a connection with the brands they interact with. Chances are if you’re missing out on customer engagement you’re missing out on more sales.
Optimizing your business with customer engagement strategies can yield powerful results and we’ll teach you everything you need to know about it.
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement has been in the recent business world lately, it may seem like a trend, but it’s definitely here to stay. Customer engagement is the relationship between a customer and a business.
These customer engagement examples could be by liking, commenting or sharing a social media post or blog post. It could also be interacting with the business in person while shopping or using a live chat feature when online.
If something you’re doing in your business provides value to the customers, then engagement can happen.
The benefits of customer engagement
More engagement will lead to more sales, but this isn’t the only reason for building engagement into your strategies.
Customer engagement strategies are essential for any business that wants to succeed. When you engage with your customers, you show them that you value their opinion and care about their satisfaction.
This in turn leads to higher customer loyalty, repeat purchases, and an overall better customer experience. Engaging with customers also gives you valuable insights into what they want and need from your business.
You can use this data to make improvements to your products and services, which can help to increase sales and boost profits with existing customers.
Customer engagement can also help to build relationships with customers, which can result in more referrals and word-of-mouth advertising.
Customer engagement can provide opportunities to showcase your brand and boost your brand awareness. All of these benefits make customer engagement an invaluable tool for any business looking to succeed.
Better customer relationships
Businesses need customer relationships. However, in the digital age, we can lose out on online relationships.
In-person shopping allows you to speak with customers and build a connection with them or leave a positive experience – but online doesn’t offer that. Customers can simply click on your website and then click off.
Successful customer engagement can stop this. By implementing a customer engagement plan you’ll be able to connect with your customer better and ultimately build those relationships.
It could be through a blog, social media posts, or even just interacting online with them.
Improve loyalty
Customer loyalty means higher customer retention. As customers engage with your business online they’ll start to connect with your brand. It’s also going to give you the chance to gain more data about your customer to improve.
Customers want to be heard and appreciated. If you’re continuing posting content they interact with and take value from or you’re continuing to take suggestions your customers are going to be more likely to buy from you.
Increase users
Engagement will continue to cause interest in your business. It’s often a win-win interaction as well.
Customers that engage with brands will continue to spend as well as talk about brands to family and friends.The business will often offer incentives like discounts or promotions to those that interact.
The key to increasing users with customer engagement is consistency. People need to interact with your brand so it eventually becomes at the top of their minds when they’re looking for a certain product in need.
Even if customers aren’t necessarily engaging the right way, they may interact in the future, once they keep seeing your brand and others engaging with it.
Sell more
Whether it’s increasing overall basket size or offering upsells the more you know about your customers the easier this becomes. The best way to achieve this is by causing engagements with your customers.
You’ll gain more knowledge about what they like, dislike and their needs. Improving the customer cycle with current customers is a lot easier, than improving the lead process with prospects.
The probability of selling to new prospects is just 10-20% while an existing customer is 60-70%.
Upselling is a good way to increase a customer basket size and overall bring in new revenue. Our unified commerce platform Breadstack makes it easy to offer upsells to customers online.
It can offer promotions or coupons in real-time so you can upsell in a natural way. Interested? Check it out here.
How to improve customer engagement
Value first content
Many businesses offer a newsletter, email campaigns, blogs and any other variety of mediums and a lot of them don’t provide value to their customers.
One of the easiest ways to improve customer engagement is if you already have a content strategy in motion.
You can work on optimizing content to engage your audience. The biggest tip we have is to offer value first.
Customers don’t want to be continually sold on products and they won’t interact with an ad well. Providing value-driven content first gives the customer more information to engage with.
Referrals strategy
Depending on the product or service you offer setting up a referral program is a great way to boost engagement. A referral is a mention of a product or service from a trusted source.
Referrals are great for businesses because the recommendation is coming from a friend, family, or co-worker. They’re already a trusted source and you can let them talk about your business.
Referral programs need to have an incentive for customers. Most businesses will offer a discounted rate or even money back for producing a referral. It can be set up in any number of ways.
Customer experience
Bad customer service may cause engagement but it will most likely be the wrong kind. Providing good customer service allows customers to have a positive experience causing more engagement with your brands.
You’re less likely to interact with people you’ve had bad experiences with and business engagement is the way.
Improving the customer experience has to start at the top and work its way down. Upper management or the owners, need to come to a conclusion about how they need their employers to interact with customers.
Everyone needs to be on the same page in order to have a consistent customer experience. Check out “How to improve customer service skills” to learn more about providing a better customer experience.
Growth Matters
Growth may not seem like it connects with customer experiences, however, this is far from the truth. Running promotions or discounts all the time doesn’t build long-term relationships with customers, but what happens when you stop running these?
Do you continually have sales? Businesses can not be built on continually offering these sorts of offers – this is where engagement comes in.
Customers that are engaging with your business will continually come back because you’ve built those connections.
If you’re looking to grow and strengthen your business, improving customer engagement should be at the top of your list. After all, happy and engaged customers are essential for the long-term success of any organization.
Personalize the experience
Personalization can be key to increase customer engagement. It makes customer feel more connected to the business.
But, it’s not just about adding a name to your customers account. It’s about connecting with them based on their interests.
By offering personalized messages, ads, recommendations, etc… customers will be more likely to engage with your business.
80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences.
Utilize social media
Social media can be a great way to gain customer engagement. It can make it easier for customers interact with your business.
Customers can comment, like, share, follow or subscribe – you just need to entice that action.
Create and share valuable content that resonates with your target audience, sparking conversations and encouraging them to engage with your brand.
Run contests, polls, or surveys to encourage participation and gather feedback. Social media can be a powerful tool to get connected with your customers.
How to measure customer engagement
Measuring customer engagement is essential for any business that wants to build relationships with customers and improve customer service.
There are a variety of metrics you can use to measure customer engagement, including customer satisfaction scores, rates, customer response times, and customer feedback.
Different ways to measure customer engagement
Customer satisfaction scores – a great way to measure customer engagement as they measure how customers feel about your products and services.
Customer retention rates – measure how often customers return to make repeat purchases, which is a great indicator of a customer loyalty program.
Customer response times – tell you how quickly you’re responding to customer inquiries or complaints, which shows customers that you value their time.
Customer feedback – a great way to measure customer engagement as it gives you insight into how customers feel about your products and services.
By using these metrics, you can get a clear picture of your customer’s engagement with your business and make changes to improve customer service.
Measuring your customer engagement is going to be an important step to ensure things are working properly.
Quick tips for customer engagement
The first step to improving customer engagement is to get to know your customers. Identify who they are and what they want, so you can tailor your products and services to their needs.
You should also make sure that you’re providing excellent customer service, responding promptly to customers’ inquiries and addressing any issues they may have.
Additionally, consider using social media and other channels to engage with customers and build relationships.
Through these channels, you can communicate with customers in a more personal and meaningful way. Finally, don’t forget to ask for feedback.
Use surveys, questionnaires, and other tools to get insights into what customers think of your product or service.
This will help you identify areas where you can improve, so you can ensure that customers have the best experience possible.
With these strategies, you can improve customer engagement and create a loyal base of customers who will stick with your business for years to come.
Get started with customer engagement
Breadstack is here to help businesses just like you implement better customer engagement.
Implement better customer service practices and connect with your customers the right way. Use our platform to better understand your customers while making the necessary improvements.
Check out a demo to explore how Breadstack can increase your customer engagement.
