James Wilson
James Wilson, content writer at Net solutions. He started out as a quality analyst and moved onto business analysis, where he discovered a passion for information architecture, wireframes, and user experience.
To enhance digital customer engagement, you need to give them a feeling of personalization. Also, they should not feel they are buying virtually. Try to give it a humanized touch.
“If you’re competitor-focused, you must wait until a competitor is doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.”
~Jeff Bezos
In today’s highly digitalized era, Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fittest’ theory fits perfectly.
Customers' demands are rising by the day. Hence, companies need to adapt their business models to meet the demands of their target customers to outsmart their competitors.
To meet such ever-rising demands, businesses need to come up with a more engaging customer experience for their target consumers. While some companies remain reluctant to accept the reality of the transformation among online consumers, the truth is that the digital customer engagement process has grown significantly over the past few years.
As per a study by McKinsey, digitizing customer service can increase customer satisfaction by 33%, thereby cutting back costs by 25-35%. Hence, it has become the need of the hour to safeguard your digital customer engagement prospects to ensure that you are running ahead in this age of digital transformation.
The following are the ways that can help your business drive impeccable digital customer engagement:
1. Build Digital Relationships with Personalization
In today’s digitized era, personalization is one of the ways to differentiate your business from competitors. According to research, customized experiences can boost sales by up to 20 percent.
To attract and retain customers, it is always important to build their trust; personalizing interactions is one such key. Your customers want to feel valued. One effective way to achieve this is to embed Facebook on your website, allowing visitors to engage with your social media content directly and fostering a sense of connection.
Targeting potential customers with generic emails is now passe. You will have to come up with something unique and go the extra mile for more enhanced customer engagement.
When we talk about ‘extra,' personalization comes into the picture, thus playing the role of that extra factor. Serving potential visitors with personalized content will definitely move them to take the desired action. No matter what the platform is - email, social media, or a scrolling pop-up - push your target buyers toward the desired outcome.
[ Recommended: Increase User Engagement With Rich Push Notifications ]
However, note that it is essential to reach the right persona at the right time by analyzing the behavioral data, purchase history, and browsing the interests of the visitors visiting your website.
2. Get ‘Live,’ Get Digitized
Why should you consider ‘going live' to enhance customer engagement?
It’s due to its huge and robust user base, as well as its ever-growing popularity. It was a more than $30 billion industry in 2016, and it is projected to double in size by the year 2021, a more than $70 billion industry. Users of all ages are watching and creating live videos in today’s scenario:
Hence, by going live, you have an opportunity to reach a plethora of new potential customers with a click of a single button. It provides users with a vicarious experience, paving the way for live feedback through user-contributed questions and comments.
Apart from this, live video can add a sense of trust among potential customers by facilitating meet-and-greets, Q&As, new product launches, and more.
One of the best examples of using live video to engage users was implemented by Buzzfeed. They came up with a concept in which two people kept putting rubber bands on a watermelon, one by one, to look at how many bands would get the watermelon to burst.
The video went on for over 45 minutes, and this concept generated more than 807,000 viewers at its peak in popularity.
But the question is ‘How’?
Buzzfeed successfully added the element of curiosity and gradually kept it escalating throughout the video.
Undoubtedly, bursting a fruit may not be your brand's ‘live video’ strategy. But what you can learn from Buzzfeed is to come up with a unique idea that could be used to expand your customer connections.
3. Improve Digitized Customer Service
Improving the customer experience means making sure that your potential customers receive the best possible service from your end. And it includes all the interactions with them before, during, and after the purchase.
Today’s cut-throat, digitized environment relies heavily on a five-letter word: ‘Speed.’ Even a study reveals that “47% of customers would take their business to a competitor within a day of experiencing poor customer service.” Hence, consumers have no patience for lackluster service.
To reach the highest level of success, addressing your customers' complaints within 1-2 weeks will set you apart from your competitors. Respond to their complaints quickly. And online is one such medium to address their complaints swiftly and effectively.
Mobile phones are still considered the best medium for the user to contact customer service. Hence, channelizing all your resources to target this medium can emerge as a winning strategy for you to target your potential customers.
Make use of social media to reach your customers. Make your team of experts available 24*7 online to address the customers' complaints. Being present on social media platforms can definitely help you to build trust among your potential customers.
"Forget the phone, email and live chat: Facebook, Twitter, and other [social] networks are the new front lines for customer service questions.” ~ Andrew Caravella
4. Add a Feeling of Community through Shared Experiences
A well-built microsite can help your business to deepen its engagement with your potential customers through shared experiences. A microsite is a website with a different web address that is accessed through the main website.
One of the best examples of a booming microsite is Spotify’s “Year in Music.” Spotify analyzed its users' listening habits from the leading site and converted them into simple data points. Based on these points, the microsite was further used to generate an annual report on top music tracks, playlists, and much more.
In 2016, Spotify added a billboard campaign to its digital strategy in the UK, highlighting the bizarre and interesting user habits in that particular year. Spotify not only garnered a huge digital boost but also managed to establish a deep connection with its users, who shared similar interests.
Building a microsite needs some extra web design and development efforts, but its potential to increase brand awareness and attract and retain consumers is a worthy investment.
5. Digital Customer Engagement - A Process Critical to All Business
“Customers are transitioning to communicating and buying through digital channels.”~ Gartner Survey
This has increased the importance of digital customer engagement manifold. However, the long-term annual growth rate of the U.S. economy has slowed from its average of 3.4 percent to 2.6 percent. This has led to growth strategy challenges for many companies. Hence, delivering a seamless, personalized, and consistent customer experience is essential to staying ahead in today’s digitized competitive environment.
Customer engagement is an emotional bridge between a customer and a brand. And if your business can acquaint and embrace the tips mentioned in the blog, then no reason will be left behind for you to move forward in your digital customer engagement journey.
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