7 Easy Steps to Improve Customer Engagement in 2020

Customer engagement is an important connection between your business and your customers. A strong customer engagement strategy can skyrocket your business’ growth and loyalty. And the main goal of every customer engagement strategy is to create an emotional connection with customers in order to encourage them to involve themselves with your business and interact in the experiences that you create for them as an online shop.

Posted 3 years ago by Aleksandra Cugalj

Customer engagement can also work as a metric for your business that shows the quality of your customer experience and how loyal your customers actually are. 

Highly engaged customers buy more, promote more, and demonstrate more loyalty to your brand, that’s why providing an outstanding customer experience is a primary concern in customer engagement. As Bob Hooey once said: “If you are not taking care of your customers, your competitor will.” 

But establishing this kind of relationship takes time and effort. So how can you get this connection between you and your customers? 

Let’s dive in.

1. Outstanding Customer Service

The good news is that customers remember when they were treated well. But the bad news is that they also remember when they were treated poorly. Whether a customer had a positive or negative experience with your brand, it’s more likely that they will share it with their friends and family, and this will bring either more or less sales opportunities for your business.

So how to make sure that you are providing outstanding customer service to your customers?

First of all, you need to respond to every concern, whether it’s a small or big problem – it’s a call to action.

Secondly, make every single customer feel like he’s special because no customer wants to feel like they’re just a number. This is where small companies have a huge advantage over large companies, as they interact more with each customer.

And the last thing, try to do more for your customers, or as people say “walk the extra mile”, and they will appreciate it. Even the best products in the world will become useless if customers won’t receive excellent service and support when they buy them.

2. Create Useful Content

Another great customer engagement strategy is creating useful and informative content. Marketers around the world are trying to improve their customers’ experience by using content to entertain and educate customers. According to Google research, 48% of mobile users are more likely to buy from companies whose websites provide instructional video content. 

For example, Home Depot noticed that their customers were searching YouTube instructional videos for DIY projects, so they decided to create their own. And now their “how-to” collection on YouTube has over 43 million views. And of course, this grew their sales. Video production has become more affordable as there’s no need to hire a production studio now, all you need is a smartphone and video editing software.

So try leveraging video content to your customer engagement strategy, because according to Wyzowl, soon video traffic will represent around 80% of all consumer online traffic as every day half of a billion people watch videos on social media. 

Guest blogging is another option to engage with other communities. Blogs have a huge online influence now, as people search for all types of information on blogs. You can also show your knowledge of your industry by answering questions related to your products on Reddit and Quora, and make your customers trust you and be more loyal to your brand.

3. Rewards and VIP Tiers

It’s needless to say that people love getting rewarded – it makes them feel valued by your brand. The more rewards they get, the more they come back to shop your brand again.

Motivate your customers to like and promote your brand on social media, get more repeat purchases and increase customer lifetime value by designing Rewards and Loyalty Programs. It will help you keep them engaged with your loyalty program and your brand. If you find it confusing to build your loyalty program from scratch start with a step-by-step guide. 

VIP tier is also a great way to build a strong relationship with your loyal customers and show them how much they mean to you. With VIP tiers you’ll be able to make your best customers feel like a member of a closed privileged community around your store. Give your customers a special status which makes them stand out and more engaged with your brand.

4. Contests, Giveaways, and Sweepstakes

You can offer a set of products and choose what your customers need to do in order to participate in your contest or giveaway. There are a lot of options for how to run a successful giveaway. It can be as easy as subscribing to your email list or have an added challenge.

Either way, people love the idea of getting free stuff. Use giveaways and sweepstakes to engage with your existing customers and spread the word about your products to reach new customers.

5. Social Media

Social media platforms are another affordable but effective way to communicate with your customers on a daily basis. It’s a unique world, where you can engage directly with your target audience and improve the experience people have with your brand. Today social media is basically an online society.

According to Nielsen’s audition report for 2018, adults spend nearly half a day interacting with it! But in today’s social networking era, you shouldn’t be surprised to see these numbers. With more than 3.7 billion people using social media from day to day, try to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to your brand’s online activities.

Make sure you post high-quality content, interesting and useful information, and answer all questions from your customers.

6. Personalization

“Remember that a person’s name is to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language” Dale Carnegie

You probably heard Dale Carnegie’s famous quote, and if you think about it, this quotation refers directly to the value of personalization.

When it comes to building great relationships with your customers, knowing their names is an important step for businesses. Customers like to be treated as individuals when it comes to the brands they shop with. Remembering a person’s name and using it whenever appropriate is key to winning that person over.

There was a survey of 1000 people and 90% of them mentioned that they have found personalized marketing appealing. But what’s more important for your brand is that 80% of the surveyed audience acknowledged that they would be more likely to purchase from a brand that offered a personalized experience. It is a great tool for increasing customer engagement.

7. Smart Email Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful tool to reach your customers. Doing it the right way can take your business to the next level and grow customer engagement with your brand.

Constant communication with your customers via emails helps you keep your brand fresh in their minds and allows you to promote new products or share updates. 68% of customers increased their perception of a brand after companies sent them customer service notifications, according to Microsoft.

Automation tools can save you time while letting you stay in touch. A variety of emails can be sent out automatically to different audience segments.

One of the most effective automated email tools in the all-in-one marketing platform is Growave. Its automated emails work as a friendly reminder to purchase things that your customers liked while browsing your online shop, put in the wishlist but never bought. Growave sends out a reminder about these items and helps you to turn a one-time visitor into a customer.

Engagement is an Ongoing Process

In a world where your competitors are just a click away, you need to use various customer engagement strategies in order for your business to remain relevant. Simply offering a good product or service is enough anymore. And if you can meet your customers’ demands you will be able to keep your business on top of the game.