Increase Customer Engagement – 4 Sure Shot Strategies That Will Never Backfire!

Customer engagement is an all-encompassing terminology that expanses across business verticals, metrics and business sizes. If you have a business you have to provide impeccable customer experience and always look out for improved ways to increase customer engagement. At a broad level, customer engagement can be defined as the experience and touchpoints a customer has with your product and company.

• But, what does customer engagement really mean?

According to a study by Gallup, it’s an emotional and psychological attachment to a brand, product or company. In 2016, Marketo had conducted a poll amongst marketers about what ‘engagement’ meant to them. Here’s what they found:

• 63% marketers view engagement as customer renewals, repeat purchases and retention.
• 78% marketers think engagement occurs in the middle or end stages of the marketing funnel.

Highly engaged customers buy more, endorse more and are more loyal to your brand. Thus, providing a superior customer experience is an imperative constituent of your customer engagement strategy.

Needless to say, customer engagement is evolving and how. With countless occasions to engage customers today, it can be hard to know which are the most effective. Let’s take a look at 4 fool proof strategies to increase customer engagement that will never backfire.

1. Increase Customer Engagement The Social Way!

Social media channels have exploded in the marketing realm, especially with the capability of platforms like Facebook and Twitter to deliver real-time customer experiences and thus increase customer engagement. Moreover, messaging apps have recently surpassed social media networks in terms of monthly active users. Brands are making changes by engaging more customers with messaging apps, establishing a more direct and personal approach to customer engagement. Features like click-to-action buttons, QR codes and video attachments are increasing the sophistication available to social customer service. This has led to the development of platforms that focus on enhancing customer experience across social media and instant messenger channels.

2. Go Mobile To Increase Customer Engagement

The number of smartphone users is expected to reach 6.1 billion in 2020 globally. That could translate in greater demand for not only messaging apps but also other channels like SMS, email and phone calls. Brands are taking advantage of ecommerce experiences through mobile apps. They also use point-of-sale systems like in-store beacons and out-of-home digital media networks to continue the online conversation with their customers and send out more personalized offers.

3. Increase Customer Engagement With Predictive Analytics

Predictive analytics derived from customer behavior has redefined how we view marketing and customer engagement today. Over the past year, we’ve seen how customer feedback has moved from surveys or mass mailing to more personalized techniques where one-on-one interactions with customers take place in real-time. The more data collected from these engagements, the more opportunities businesses have to create richer and more targeted marketing campaigns.

According to a recent Forbes article, only 40% of the executives they polled believe their customer data is highly accurate and provides correct insights. While more businesses now realize the value of such data, there’s a need to focus on the right technologies to gather information and effectively leverage on this.

Microsoft IT, for example, uses Azure and the Cortana Intelligence Suite to create a scalable, cloud-based platform that generates and manages predictive models for their sales and marketing teams to increase customer engagement.

4. Increase Customer Engagement With Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence will continue to play a key role in delivering faster and more optimized customer experiences and thus increase customer engagement. The past year saw the rise of chat bots and intelligent assistants applied in the context of conversational commerce. AI also makes it possible to translate customer’s feedback into tailor-fit solutions, enhancing product development and allowing customers to make purchase decisions more precisely and faster. Watch out for more bots like Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s Home in the upcoming months.

Implement these foolproof customer experience and engagement strategies for your business and witness your business revenue shoot through the roof in no time.