Customer acquisition is a main objective of every business and with so much competition it is becoming difficult to grab customer’s attention. And if a company once gets the attention would want to keep the customer engaged to retain them. Social media has changed the way businesses used to communicate with the users. This has led to new customer engagement trends which companies are following to connect with their consumers.
One factor which highly affects customer engagement is how the customer feels while interacting with your brand. This is also known as customer experience. Brands are competing today to provide better customer experience and boost customer engagement.
Hence, we have consolidated a list of customer engagement trends which will rule in future
1. Personalization is the key
While big brands are fighting hard to provide personalized service to their customers, you cannot ignore this trend. It is one of the major factors affecting customer experience and hence customer engagement.
Personalization makes a customer feel more exclusive and important. Brands which have understood this, are providing more personal experience.
According to a survey by Customer Contact Week, 90% of organizations believe that personalization is important to their customer experience strategies in coming year.
2. Virtual Reality is the next Big thing
Virtual Reality is one of the customer engagement trends which is going to rule in the near future. Virtual reality is one of the latest technology innovation which is changing the game of customer experience. It brings in new ways a brand can promote their business.
Below are some use cases where VR can help you in keeping customers engaged:
Product Demonstrations: Brands are using VR in real estate to give customers a real-life experience of the property. It is being used by many real estate companies to sell properties in under-construction stage.
Virtual Learning: VR will allow the students to see the teacher and act/ interact by giving a real-life experience.
Broadcasting sports events to remote spectators: VR can give a much better experience to sports enthusiasts who cannot be physically present at the game.
Better Shopping Experience
Amazon has begun using augmented reality in their iOS and Android App for making shopping experience better.
3. Chatbots for Automation
Real time interaction has been important for enhancing customer experience and boosting customer engagement. Chatbots allows you to interact with your customers in real time and provide exceptional customer service.
In a recent survey, 63.9% of consumers agreed that businesses should be available via instant messaging.
Chatbots makes the task of a consumer. Instead of a consumer searching your whole catalogue of shoes, they can simply ask your chatbot to fetch running shoes with COD option in their preferred size. It takes the customer experience to a next level.
Customer Service chatbots would fetch and provide the exact location of the product instantly from order id instead of customer fetching tracking number from order id and then again searching for product location.
4. Machine learning & AI
Machine Learning and artificial intelligence is making its mark in every field of your life. A customer loves when you show him the product which he was not looking for but would want it.
One of the example of machine learning in practice is Uber. Uber’s Head of Machine Learning Danny Lange confirmed Uber’s use of machine learning for ETAs for rides, estimated meal delivery times on UberEATS, computing optimal pickup locations, as well as for fraud detection.
Machin learning can analyse the data and let the customer service team know of probable upset customers. It will help them in getting in touch with those customers before customers coming to them. It leads to a better customer satisfaction and prevents bad reviews.
You may understand the importance of online reviews from the fact that according to a research around 67% of online users are influenced by reviews when making purchases.
5. Social Commerce
Social media has attracted a lot of internet population and hence brands have also joined social media platforms. It opened a new channel for brands to connect with customers and take the communication to next level.
In 2017, people have spent around 135 minutes daily on social media which is huge amount of time spent online. And this time has been increasing from past 5 years regularly. Brand shave understood this fact and have begun to engage with customers on social media and messaging platforms.
They are creating chat bots on their facebook pages to keep their customers engaged. With the launch of WhatsApp for business, many brands have come on whatsapp to connect with their users. Twitter is a perfect example of brands using social media to connect with their consumers and providing better customer service.
6. Shift from multi channel to omni channel
With the advancement in technology and new communication channels, consumers have begun reaching brands on different channels. As discussed in the above point, people and brands are using social media as a tool/channel to provide better customer experience.
They are keeping customers engaged on ever channel be it email, phone or social media. Customers may get angry if they have to explain their problem on different channels all over again. This makes providing an omni-channel customer experience necessary.
Giving an omni channel customer experience will not only boost your customer engagement but also your business.
Having an Omnichannel presence will improve the company’s customer engagement.
Conclusion
Brands are evolving more than ever to keep their customer engaged. They are ready to leave no stone unturned in order to grasp and retain customer’s attention. This is making the competition even tougher as more brands like Amazon are working on principles of “Customer is King”.
If you think that I missed any point in these customer engagement trends, then please share it in comments.
