With the mass of marketing messages hitting your customers every day, good customer engagement is critical to the ongoing success of your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The term \u2018customer engagement\u2019 is a broad one that covers everything from brand loyalty to social affinity to your call centre staff. It\u2019s main task, however, can be summed up simply: to make your customers emotionally invested in continuing to buy your products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The internet has made the term \u2018Customer Service\u2019 grow up. The rise of social media, in particular, is behind the reason retailers are now hiring Directors of Customers Experience and not Customer Service. Keeping your customers happy has become a multi-platform, cross-media task rather than just the sales staff in your store and the people in your call centre as it was 10 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So how do you engage the modern-day customer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We\u2019ve gathered 7 great pieces of wisdom from business leaders that have got it right \u2013 complete with suggestions on how you can follow their lead in your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBeing on par in terms of price and quality only gets you into the game. Service wins the game.\u201d<\/strong> Let\u2019s get the most obvious one out of the way first: it is already well established that good customer service<\/a> is essential for businesses to flourish. According to research from the Institute of Customer Service,\u00a063% of customers that receive good service would buy from that retailer again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n However, customer service has to be consistently high across all channels and touchpoints. More and more people are turning to social media to make their feelings known, meaning that your response times have to be quick and the team who manage your social media accounts need to be as trained up as your call center and retail staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more:\u00a0You Have to Optimize the Telecom Online Pre-Sales Customer Experience<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt helps a ton when you learn people\u2019s names and don\u2019t butcher them when trying to pronounce them.\u201d<\/strong> Personalization<\/a>\u00a0typically increases sales by 15-20% and significantly drives up customer engagement. That\u2019s not surprising when you remember that 75% of consumers have said they like it when brands personalize messaging and offers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The key lesson here is clear: in this era of choice overload<\/a>, digital marketing and cheap e-CRM software personalization, that ability to deliver bespoke, laser-targeted messages to your customers, their interests and needs is a requirement, not an add-on if you want to make more sales.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more:\u00a0Building Effective Chatbots for Customer Service<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.\u201d<\/strong> Customer engagement and customer experience<\/a> are becoming intrinsically linked; you cannot have one without the other in this digitally-connected age. And this is something that a growing number of brands are aware of \u2013 44% of companies already see customer experience as their key differentiator, according to some research, and this is expected to rise to 89% by 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You need to try to deliver an experience that is not only positive, but also memorable<\/a>. \u2018Good\u2019 service is not enough to stand out from your competitors. That\u2019s why you see \u2018Free Gift Wrapping\u2019 in certain stores at Christmas time, interactive POS to help answer customer questions, better fitting rooms or loyalty clubs. Think of what your customers would really like to make their shopping experience with you better \u2013 and offer it to them as well as you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhether you are big or small, you cannot give good customer service if your employees don\u2019t feel good about coming to work.\u201d<\/strong> Here, Martin Oliver eloquently highlights the powerful role that every staff member (and their attitude to your business) must play in building customer engagement. So, invest in recruiting, training and retaining the most engaged and enthusiastic employees you can.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To take an obvious example: if you\u2019re a music store then hire musicians; if you\u2019re a sports store then hire people who play and watch a lot of sport. Whatever industry you are in, there are always people who are more passionate and enthusiastic than others \u2013 hire those ones and you will see the positive impact on your customers and your business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLoyal customers, they don\u2019t just come back, they don\u2019t simply recommend you, they insist that their friends do business with you.\u201d<\/strong> The aim of customer engagement is to develop a mutually beneficial, ongoing relationship<\/a> between a customer and a brand; it\u2019s not a one-way street. You can build a community of followers through their loyalty to your excellent customer experience \u2013 and then empowering those same people to respond to your detractors and those people looking for conformation that your company can do what it says before they hand over their wallet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYour most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.\u201d<\/strong> Inevitably, your well-constructed customer experience will fail from time-to-time. An employee will have a bad day and doesn\u2019t deliver to expectations or a product doesn\u2019t meet the expectations of the customer. As long as these occurrences are rare, there is valuable information in unhappy feedback. You can gain valuable insights into what works \u2013 and what doesn\u2019t \u2013 with your customers, and use this knowledge to shape your future plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more:\u00a0The Definition Of Selling Needs An Update<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEvery contact we have with a customer influences whether or not they\u2019ll come back. We have to be great every time or we\u2019ll lose them.\u201d<\/strong> One of the most difficult parts in creating cohesive customer experience stories for the digital era is to roll them out across all your multichannel touchpoints<\/em> (Web, in-store, social, call-centre, mobile etc.) seamlessly and with a single narrative.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By continuing your story across multiple touchpoints, you\u2019re more likely to delight customers \u2013 increasing their loyalty and lifetime value in the process. In order to achieve this single view of the customer, your data has to be correct, up to date and usable across all channels rather than siloed in different parts of the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read more: 7 Technologies to Watch: Bringing Offline Retail Experiences Online<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI believe that customer engagement rests on four objectives \u2013 a) interaction, b) involvement, c) influence and d) intimacy. As a business owner, if you can achieve these four objectives, you can reinforce long-term engagement, loyalty and advocacy towards your business.\u201d<\/strong> The four \u2018I\u2019s listed above offer a concise guide: they really get to the heart of what customer engagement is about and what it aims to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tony Allesandra, Best Selling Author and Motivational Speaker<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n 2. Treat customers as individuals<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Jerry Yang, Co-Founder Yahoo Inc.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n3. Offer customers an experience<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n4. Passion and enthusiasm are infectious<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Martin Oliver, MD Kwik-Fit Financial Services<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n5. Empower your customers to become the first line of attack (and defense)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Chip Bell, Founder of Chip Bell Group<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n6. Listen to the feedback from your customers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Bill Gates, Former CEO of Microsoft<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n7. Build your strategy across all the multi-channel touchpoints<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Kevin Stirtz, Author of \u2018More Loyal Customers\u2019<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n** Bonus Tip: The four \u201cI\u2019s\u201d to rule all others<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Phil Grudzinski, CEO of the Professional Association of Customer Engagement<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n