How to Craft a Strong Customer Engagement Playbook

We are practically surrounded by customer engagement every day, like air. As customers, we frequently receive emails in our inboxes and come across promotions on social media while scrolling. You enroll in a meditation class on a Friday night, and as a fan of that local studio, you get a lot of emails about upcoming classes throughout the month (like the sound bath session every Tuesday night that’s been keeping you interested!).

Since engagement is one of the most effective means of fostering customer loyalty and growing your revenue, it should come as no surprise. In light of this, customer engagement campaigns are essential for every growing company. We will learn more about the idea of customer involvement today, along with suggestions for how to make it better.

What exactly is customer engagement?

Customer engagement is the interaction that takes place between a customer and your business through various offline and online platforms. You create customer engagement every time a customer contacts your company. It can involve leaving feedback on your most recent Instagram post, tracking email marketing clickthrough rates, or having in-person discussions with customers about your products. These interactions accumulate over time to form the customer experience, which has the power to make or break a business.

You want to foster excellent relationships with your customers, just like you would with any other component of the customer lifetime value puzzle. In light of this, pay attention to customer feedback and act upon it to help them connect your business with positive experiences. Marketing techniques that focus on customer engagement are helpful in this situation. Instead of leaving everything up to chance and relying solely on people’s innate need for engagement, you’re creating your own possibilities for developing customer relationships.

The significance of customer engagement

Positive customer experiences are without a doubt the backbone of your online store. Positive experiences promote brand loyalty, customer retention, brand advocacy, customer lifetime value, and your bottom line as a whole. Although it is only one part of your company’s story, customer interaction is nonetheless vital.

There are a number of reasons why customer interaction is important, including the following:

You can better understand your customers thanks to it

When you monitor involvement throughout the customer journey, you can gain a deeper understanding of your customer base. Your data and customer behavior provide information about their preferences, needs, and likes and dislikes.

A great example would be a subscription-based skincare company that provides customers with a platform to express their opinions on the company’s offerings. They could offer surveys to customers, asking the following questions: Are you satisfied with the variety of products? What products would you like to see more of? And, upon a customer signing up for the subscription, the company could ask if they prefer to receive specific products more than others and if they’d like to receive some tasty snacks along with their skincare products.

It helps with solving issues

Customer engagement is a great way to learn about the problems your customers are having. These problems can develop into pain points if they are ignored, so getting them taken care of as soon as possible is crucial.

Positively impacts the success rate of customers

When gauging customer engagement, you look for times when they are quiet. This typically occurs when they don’t have the desired level of success with your products. Identifying these gaps enables you to take immediate action, remove friction spots, and provide users with more satisfying experiences.

Why it’s important to have a customer engagement strategy

Given the importance of customer engagement, you shouldn’t take a gamble and rely on chance. That being stated, your best bet is to implement a customer engagement strategy and employ engagement platforms to compile a basic plan out of random customer interactions. In this instance, the customer journey map will include all actions taken by the customer both before and after the purchase.

Additionally, you can measure your process and take into account all customer needs if you have a defined strategy. Keep a careful eye on the plan and gather data on customer performance and feedback to see whether your method needs to be adjusted. By monitoring your social media statistics and metrics, you can increase customer engagement. You haven’t yet discovered the golden ratio that transforms marketing tactics into engagement chances when buyers don’t interact with your content.

How to create a plan for customer engagement

Starting with your sincere goal and interest in your customers is the first step in every customer-related strategy. Your customer interaction plan needs to incorporate research and a thorough understanding of your target audience, just like any other relationship. Strangers are impossible to engage, but you may do so with people you know and value. Start by compiling as much information as you can about your customers, and then utilize this information to create your ideal customer profile. Segment your customers into numerous categories according to their RFM scores and where they are in the customer journey.

Different content is needed at various stages of the journey. Prospects who are just learning about your brand need to be informed and reassured that you honor your commitments and deliver the value you promised. Long-term customers require incentive programs and rewards for their loyalty at the same time. Following that, you may start interacting with these customer segments on social media and promoting your company.

An excellent example would be a company attempting to advertise its collection of nail polish colors on social media, like Instagram. The following could be written on the page to make them seem personable and down to earth:

“We know how tough it can be to find the perfect nail polish color for that upcoming date! We’ve compiled a few of our colors that we think would be great for your special day!”

Then, what would follow is a list of colors for specific types of dates; for instance: the periwinkle color for that movie theater date or the tangerine orange for that beach date.

But you’ve been forewarned. Imagine that you begin developing content tactics to interest your audience. In such a situation, you’ll need to remain vigilant and respond to any comments or inquiries from your customers. Otherwise, it will appear that you are not paying attention and are uninterested in their feedback. Additionally, you could hold prizes and promotions on social media. This is a great approach to raising brand recognition and generating interest in your goods or services.

A good example? Well, the business can consider telling their followers on Instagram that if they tag their business on their Stories and tell their friends which color they picked for their date based on the colors the business recommended, they can be entered in a nail polish giveaway to win three different shades of nail polish from their collection.

In addition, since so many people are using social media, your interaction techniques will increase brand exposure. There is nothing better than developing a close relationship with a customer, so strive to be as sincere as you can by connecting with them personally. The problem with the digital environment is that brands frequently ignore the human aspect of their interactions and treat customers more like cash flows. When choosing your methods, take into account the characteristics of your target audience and develop specialized concepts that will appeal to them. Be truthful and true in whatever you say and do. People can tell when you’re being dishonest or acting with hidden agendas, so it’s best to refrain from acting in such a way. Authenticity and strong communication with your customers are key.

Customer engagement’s advantages

Let’s take a closer look at some of the benefits of customer interaction to help you decide whether you should focus your efforts on developing a fruitful customer engagement strategy.

Customer loyalty is boosted through customer engagement

Customers mostly interact with the companies they love in a positive way. High engagement improves the perception of your loyalty programs and makes retention easier to achieve.

You receive important insights

Speaking with interested customers offers useful information that helps you enhance your offerings in terms of goods, customer service, delivery methods, and other areas.

Customer engagement, customer experience, and customer satisfaction

You can feel a little perplexed by all the phrases linked to customers if you’re unfamiliar with the eCommerce environment or didn’t give customer interactions much thought. The main definition of customer engagement is ongoing communication with customers. Don’t restrict yourself to talking about products here. The key to maintaining a relationship with your customers is customer engagement.

Customer experience refers to how a customer feels about or perceives your brand in general. Everything that comprises the relationship, from the purchasing experience to the product quality, can impact the overall customer experience. Last but not least, customer satisfaction gauges how well your goods live up to customer expectations. You could gauge a customer’s satisfaction with your merchandise by looking at it.

Customer engagement suggestions

Tip 1: Share insights from your customer data

Although people are wary of disclosing sensitive information and tend to be suspicious about it, you can use the data without breaking any privacy rules.

Tip 2: Include devoted customers in decision-making

You could invite your community to participate in the creation of your business. You could, for instance, set up social media polls to choose your website’s new design or ask your customers what they want to see from you in the future. As an example, consider a pizzeria that wants to update its logo and decides to launch a poll on its social media channel, asking customers to pick between three possible designs. By including them in your activities, putting them in touch with one another, and building bridges between them, you can engage your customers.

Tip 3: Discuss your customers’ achievements

Keep in mind that your existing customer is your company’s superstar. They employ your goods for a position. When a task is completed, it is appropriate to celebrate. Add the fact that individuals enjoy hearing about success stories from their peers, who they can relate to.

When you witness someone achieve and feel a connection to that person, you begin to see yourself in the hero’s role and visualize your own success. People are looking for reality, trust, and honesty. Having stated that, it’s now up to you to look for customers who have had great success with your products and incorporate their testimonies into your marketing plans.

Metrics of customer engagement

If you don’t measure customer engagement, you can’t tell whether or not your customer engagement approach is working. The list of important measures is supplied so that you won’t be bombarded with data and KPIs.

Customer lifetime value

Customer lifetime value (CLV) has elevated to the top statistic for many eCommerce organizations, and for good reason.

You can forecast the entire value a customer will contribute to your company over the course of their lifetime using CLV. The term “lifetime” here refers to the whole amount of time a customer will do business with you. The longer they remain a customer, the more likely it is that they will contribute more money to your company. In addition to the financial benefit, returning customers are more likely to refer new ones. When customers are happy with your products or services, they will tell their friends about you, which will result in free word-of-mouth advertising.

You must multiply the average order value by the number of transactions and the retention duration to determine the lifetime value of each customer.

LTV = Average Order Value × # of Transactions × Retention Time Period

User activity

User activity can be assessed in two ways:

• Daily active users (DAU)
• Monthly active users (MAU)

This metric displays the frequency with which users access their accounts, distribute your content, or register for new accounts (for referral programs).

The safest bet for internet businesses is to compare the daily and monthly active users because there isn’t a precise formula for calculating active users. Your customers aren’t sticking, and you’re dealing with the leaky bucket syndrome if there is a serious breach between DAU and MAU. Leaky bucket syndrome occurs in companies with dissatisfied customers. Hard-won, recently acquired customers are losing interest quickly, and you rarely run into them for another purchase. Although customer churn is common, it becomes a concern when customers are leaving in large numbers and you are losing more customers than you are gaining. Fortunately, using the following statistic, you can spot your problems right away and fix them.

Customer stickiness

Stickiness is the likelihood that a customer will “stick” with your brand by making additional purchases. More involved customers become more loyal customers as a result of effective customer engagement. Acquisition is more expensive than customer retention. Stickiness therefore results in a decrease in your marketing expense. Personalized customer experiences, prompt problem-solving, and overall product quality are a few factors that impact stickiness.

The net promoter score

The net promoter score (NPS) gauges how happy customers are with your company. It is made up of customer questionnaires that were issued before and after delivery, two crucial points in the journey. “How likely are you to suggest us to your friends and family?” is typically the most crucial question to answer when calculating your NPS. Users rate items on a scale of zero to 10, with ten being the best.

The number of detractors (users who gave a score between 0 and 6) must be subtracted from the number of promoters (scores 9 and 10) to determine your NPS. It’s time to start measuring NPS if you weren’t already. The score makes it possible for you to monitor the health of your business and highlight any internal issues.

Customer satisfaction score

The customer satisfaction score (CSAT) gauges how happy a customer was with their most recent brand interaction. It can involve placing an order, experimenting with a new feature, or contacting customer service. In order to obtain your CSAT, you send out customer surveys and ask customers to score their satisfaction and experience on a certain scale. The scale typically has a range of one to five, with five being the highest.

You shouldn’t mix up the CSAT and NPS, even if the execution is identical.

• Customer happiness is the focus of CSAT, but customer loyalty is measured by NPS.
• CSAT is an essential indicator of successful customer relationships. Divide the total number of satisfied customers by the total number of survey respondents, then multiply the result by 100 to determine your CSAT.

CSAT = # of Satisfied Customers ÷ # of Survey Responses × 100

There are other additional measures you could track to gain a clear overview of customer engagement, like:

• Statistics from social media

• Your website’s bounce rate
• Website pageviews

You decide what is necessary for your business to flourish and how to go about doing it. The customer is without a doubt the most important stakeholder in your company, so measures showing how satisfied they are with your offerings are important.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, this customer engagement guide offered you a good place to start, but ultimately, it’s up to you. In the long run, one-size-fits-all approaches won’t work since your customers are unique individuals, and you need to adjust to their actions. Remember that people desire clarity, connection, and ultimately a happier life. The journey should be supported by these pillars throughout the whole customer lifecycle. Customer engagement is crucial for your company in the era of lifecycle marketing since it encourages customers to establish ties with your brand, which boosts loyalty and raises the overall worth of your customer base.

You are in good hands at Loyal-n-Save because we are here for you every step of the way and want to see your business succeed. Ready to learn more? Reach out to us today to schedule a consultation and demo with one of our specialists!