by Natalie Chan
We live in a world that’s interconnected on many fronts. This has led to the proliferation of content as well as data giving customers accessibility to more products and services. You would think that all this interconnectivity and information would lead them straight to product sales with businesses laughing all the way to the bank, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that easy and it all starts with customer engagement.
What is Customer Engagement?
Customer engagement is about encouraging your customers to interact and share in the experiences you create for them as a business and a brand. When executed well, a strong customer engagement strategy will foster brand growth and loyalty.
Businesses that focus on customers engagement are focused on value creation, not revenue extraction. These are businesses that know how to engage their customers by providing them with real value whether it be through an exceptional end-to-end customer experience, great content or strong customer support that are about delivering more than the traditional sell.
Here are a few customer engagement strategies to consider when it comes to strengthening your customers’ experience with, and loyalty to, your brand:
Humanize your brand
At the heart of everything, it’s important to understand that every customer wants to feel you understand their needs and that they can relate to your brand. For fun consumer brands like Red Bull or Nike this may seem an easier task than it is for brands with more conservative attributes or those in the B2B realm. But even these businesses can be humanized without trying to squeeze themselves into a contrived persona that won’t resonate with their audience.
For example, find a personality within in your organization who is passionate about your brand and a natural communicator, you can grow them into a thought leader and give them a voice to humanize your brand and engage your audience.
Create opportunities for them to build their presence and promote your brand — they can regularly blog on your own site and guest blog on others, be used in video content, engage in speaking opportunities, present webinars and publish white papers and e-books — all ways to establish your brand’s voice with a trusted face.
Happy Customers Are Your Lifeblood
As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, will tell you, obsessing over your customers is key. It starts with your company culture and ensuring your customer support team, the frontline of your business, is empowered by and shares your focus on providing an amazing customer experience. For example, Zappos, the leading online shoe retailer renowned for their customer service, doesn’t enforce call time tracking because they believe their reps should spend that little extra time with customers rather than be focused on getting through each call.
Think about your business model and how you can best service your customers. When do your customers need you? What hours do you need to be available to them? Seamless, the online food ordering service and one of my favourite companies (not least because I love to eat at all hours!), services customers in different time zones across the US. Not only are they fantastic at providing customer service around the clock but they’re stellar at timely, relevant offers like snow day discounts and engaging you with fun food facts across their twitter and email channels.
The customer experience you provide is key because it gives marketers and business owners a way to increase satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy. A study by White House Office of Consumer Affairs found that 80% of U.S. consumers would pay more for a product or service to ensure a superior customer experience. Isn’t that telling?
It’s about looking at all of your customers and delivering them exceptional service no matter if they are worth $1 or $1M to your business. Remember, in the long run, your customers will determine your revenue.
