Unlock Customer Engagement: Definition, Importance & Metrics

The novelty of hearing from a brand you love has worn off for many consumers, and there’s simply too much noise for them to wade through. The best way to avoid this is to steer clear of generic marketing communications that do more harm than good. That means ditching batch-and-blast automation and weaving personal details into every touchpoint to show users their needs and interests are top of mind for your brand. Today’s consumers engage with brands across various devices and digital platforms and are highly attuned to any inconsistency. Unfortunately, most messaging platforms start as point solutions to triage a specific, single channel but aren’t built to integrate with other technologies. Teams can easily avoid this by seeking a solution that provides a single, unified view of each customer.

Your customer engagement strategies will also vary on and offline, depending on the kind of offering a business provides. In a traditional model, where sales are discrete events and products and services are used away from the point of sale, engagement may not happen at all. In a situation where products and services may be supplied and consumed online, engagement with the brand happens as a matter of course.

Create a customer loyalty program

Companies that want to engage with customers need to offer different communication touch points—such as social media, phone, live chat, and messaging apps—and provide connected interactions across those channels. When you’re searching for additional insights, consider asking customers directly. For example, customer loyalty programs, social media interactions and customer surveys can be rich data sources. marketing isn’t a one-and-done process or a one-size-fits-all approach. We’ll explore tips for creating a unique customer engagement strategy and share tools for building and tracking audience engagement.

• For instance, you might send a customer an email to tell them that an item they liked on social media is now on sale or that a piece of clothing they previously purchased is now available in a new color.
• That’s one of the smarter customer engagement strategies because it feels natural — chatbots will work based on what the user needs.
• In a traditional model, where sales are discrete events and products and services are used away from the point of sale, engagement may not happen at all.
• Make your customers feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

A successful customer engagement strategy requires that you place your audience and their needs at the center of your engagement efforts. Keeping people engaged throughout the customer journey (including your post-sale existing customers) allows companies to build brand loyalty and improve critical sales metrics. These include upselling, cross-selling, and CLV (customer lifetime value). Customer engagement is the process by which a company builds a relationship with customers that results in brand awareness, product adoption, and overall loyalty.

Loyalty programs and community events

Get to know your customers by creating buyer personas based on demographic, behavioral, and psychographic data. This will help you understand their needs, preferences, and pain points, enabling you to create personalized and relevant engagement strategies. This metric represents the percentage of customers who continue doing business with your company over a specified period.

Your most loyal brand advocates are likely to keep buying your products, which contributes to your business’ stability. In short, people are growing impatient with the idea of waiting, and companies are challenged to accelerate engagement and create a two-way dialogue with customers in real time. Fifty-five percent of customers said they feel like they’re interacting with siloed departments rather than a unified business. For companies, ensuring a high level of connectivity across channels and devices feels difficult, if not impossible – unless you have the right tools. Shevlin’s definition of CE is well suited to understanding the process that leads to an engaged customer. “Repeated interactions that strengthen the emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in a brand.”

Use technology to manage customer engagement

The AARRR engagement model is a framework businesses use to understand and optimize their customer engagement strategies. They help businesses create a positive customer experience at every stage of the customer journey, from the first point of contact to the final purchase. Your repeat purchase rate is the percentage of customers who have made more than one purchase within a set timeframe. This rate will give you a clearer idea of the effectiveness of your customer retention and engagement strategy.

The three pillars of customer engagement are people, platform and process. Having the right people on your team is critical to addressing your customer’s needs. From there, it’s important to choose the right platform to manage your customer base and implement agile processes to make work more efficient. Airbnb’s strategy revolves around personalized recommendations and building online communities.

Activate automation for always-on engagement

The brand’s app offers personalized travel destinations to users based on their preferences and past bookings. Even negative feedback communicates that customers care about the brand’s improvement and success. They are engaged enough to suggest how the brand can enhance its offerings. CRM refers to solutions that allow businesses to manage customer interactions, data and relationships.

Despite the proven results of this model, only a few software companies train their users well. At most organizations, onboarding is more of an icky duty than a valued engagement tactic. Those that do offer a robust onboarding process often do it through a rehabbed internal learning management system, which was never intended to train external users. Therefore, getting the most from your social media starts with refining your message and the avenues you use to deliver it, including the platform and type of media. Social media options include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and TikTok. Even “serious” businesses now leverage the power of teeny-bopper platforms like the latter two.

Which model is right for your business?

Customers engage with brands over and over again when they feel appreciated, looked after, and excited by new and original offers. Of course, some companies can’t necessarily provide that level of engagement at every moment of the day (and night), and that’s where conversational marketing tools, like chatbots, can be a huge help. Engaging with customers effectively sometimes means reminding them about what you have to offer. Before engaging with a brand, the customer has to be aware that it exists and that it has something special, relevant or useful to offer.

• The value of a new feature isn’t a product of the time and resources you put into building it.
• When customers play and win, they’re more likely to remember your brand and engage again in the future.
• The brand’s app offers personalized travel destinations to users based on their preferences and past bookings.
• This metric represents the percentage of customers who continue doing business with your company over a specified period.
• SMS and MMS messages are sent natively via the messaging app on a mobile service.

Read more about Customer engagement here.