It’s one thing to get people to notice your company, but it’s another thing entirely to keep them engaged. This is the battle every business is fighting, a fight that can result in some desperate pleas for attention. But we don’t want to just be noticed, we want engagement. We want interaction, a give and take conversation with the customer that reveals insights to better sell your products. Because this is something everyone is dealing with, we need to find ways that are consistently driving customer engagement to interact with your brand. You need a customer engagement plan!
Here are 5 ways for your company to better drive customer engagement:
First thing’s first. Your customers want to know that they’re interacting with actual people. Humanizing your brand will go a long way to assure your customers that they can trust and relate to your company. The customer needs to feel that they can be heard and that their needs can be met, and if they get an “off” feeling from your branding, it could really stress any potential or existing relationship. Some companies have an easier time of this than others, but it’s still doable!
Even if you’re operating a B2B organization, you can humanize your brand. You may not be able to use Twitter like Netflix (which has gone so far as to use first-person pronouns on Twitter), but you can put a personable, natural communicator who believes in your brand and your mission behind the social media accounts to engage your audience. In fact, this person could even become the face of all customer-facing interactions. Use them in videos, webinars, blogs, social media, and anything other content that engages your audience.
The beauty of personalization is that it can manifest in a multitude of different ways. Celebrate your customers’ birthdays or buying anniversaries with automated (but personal!) emails. Send them a personalized video as a check-in. Recommend products based on their usage or search patterns. Integrate a personalized onboarding process that puts you directly in touch with new customers from the start. By adding small personal touches, you make the customer feel welcome, known, and…well…human.
The only way to truly anticipate what your customer wants or needs, you need to let them talk. It’s that easy. The more your customers talk, the more they will tell you where they are coming from, what they do and do not like about your product, what they are looking for, and how they can be helped best. These conversations are crucial to understanding the customer going forward, which will equip you to provide exactly what they need when they need it. This helps establish what the customer does not need, which is an equally revealing and important conversation to have. You might have people coming in looking for something specific but have not found success with another company. This is your opportunity to make sure that it does not happen again. Make your brand worth their time by having meaningful, personal conversations.
It’s crucial to have these important conversations with your clients, but there are a couple of things that are equally as important: timing and accessibility.
Timing is everything. If you screw up your response time, you have likely lost a lead. In fact, about half of sales go to the brand that responds first. This means that your communication mediums must be easily accessible to both your customers and your team members.
Set up a live chat feature on the homepage of your website that allows your customers to ask any of the questions they might have. Having an easily accessible mode of communication on your homepage tells your audience that you are willing and able to help them at a moment’s notice. Make sure that your customer service or sales teams have a rep ready to address any questions or concerns from potential clients. The quicker the response, the quicker the prospect becomes a customer.
Most importantly, ensure that your client’s experience is a top priority. When comparing your brand against a competitor, take a look at how easy it is to access things like their website, social media accounts, and customer service or support. If you find that your website is more difficult to use, you may want to consider an upgrade to your systems. If you have no social accounts or don’t have a solid customer response plan in place, consider setting up a system to streamline response times.
Essentially, driving customer engagement boils down to creating personalized experiences that stick with your potential customers. Does your brand have what it needs to keep your customers engaged?
Have questions on how to better drive customer engagement for your brand? vidREACH is here to help.