Must Read: 7 Rules of Customer Engagement You Must Abide To

As a concept, customer engagement basically means encouraging and spurring your customers to interact and converse about the experiences which they get from you as a business and as a brand. In the case of a right execution and implementation, customer engagement will go a long way in increasing business growth, profitability and brand loyalty.

Businesses which put a lot of emphasis on customer engagement are notable for also focusing on the creation of value rather than generating income and revenue at all costs. These businesses have mastered the art f engaging their customers by bringing real and lasting value to them, whether through the provision of awesome and interactive customer experiences, great advertising and business content or strong customer support and services which are aimed at delivering much more than the conventional sales.

Customer engagement has a lot of parameters and yardsticks that give an insight to the level of engagement which businesses are actually able to get from their customers. However, when you take away all the statistics and numbers, you might want to know the basics of customer engagement and why it really matters to the growth and sustainability of your business.

Engagement is the most accurate and viable measure of what your customers (and frankly, the general public at large) really think about your brand. Basically, investing in customer engagement is trying to see the peoples’ feelings and emotions about you.

While a lot of businesses see this as trivial, feelings actually do matter. They constitute one of the biggest factors of brand loyalty in the sense that if people like your brand, there’s a –probability that they’ll visit again. However, if people are in love with your brand, you’re sure to see them again….and soon, for that matter. This means that apart from getting regular patronization from them, they can actually also tell their friends and acquaintances about you and hence, your brand’s profitability and clientele will be increased drastically. Customer engagement is one way to ensure customer sentiment ad loyalty and is a good measure to help predict future loyalty and increase in customer base.

As stated earlier, a well conducted customer engagement strategy will go long way in developing customer loyalty. This is why we have come up with 7 rules and tips which you must always follow when conducting an engagement strategy.

Humanize Your Brand

At the center of everything, it’s important to know that every customer wants to feel like you understand their feelings and what they really want. They want to feel like they can relate to your brand and they need to know that you’re aware of their specific needs. Whatever you do, make sure that your brand comes down to the level of your customers and make sure that you have a way of appealing to their feelings.

Make Customers Happy at All Cost

Happy customers are the lifeblood of any brand or company. This is why whatever you can do to ensure that your customers are happy, you should do it. Make things very easy for them. It could be as simple as helping them with after sales services- just basically anything. Making your customers happy should be your biggest priority.

First Impressions Matter

Your customers’ first impression about your brand goes a long way on determining whether they’ll stay. If you’re offering certain services, make sure that these services are offered easily and as quickly as possible. Whatever process takes time, try to streamline it (or cut it out completely). An example of these processes is generating an invoice. To fix this, you could get awesome invoice software from Inv24. These invoices will make easier the process of invoice generation and payment implementation.

Make Use of Social Media

Social media has gone beyond a trend or some social phenomenon. These days, every business makes use of social media in some way to help get their brand and products out there. You could use a social media platform to engage your audience and make them up-to-date on products. Through that, you’ll be building a community through a social media customer service. However, you should make sure that your content is valuable and relevant. Also, make sure that you don’t bore your audience or bombard them with bulky content.

Rewards and Incentives

People always love to get something back. Sometimes, they even want free stuff. Periodically, you can organize a reward system for your most loyal customers and just get them something. It could go a very long way in keeping them.

Email Engagement

Email engagement can also work. You simply find a way to get the Email addresses of your customers and keep them engaged with periodic Emails. However, just like social media engagement, be careful of spams, unnecessary content and long, boring stuff.

In-Product Messaging

If you’re weary of the effects of out-of-context Emails, you could try sending your customers messages embedded in your products. You can think of this as an inbound approach to managing your clientele, which means that you’ll be passing across messages that are relevant to what they’re doing, while they’re currently doing it. This helps as it doesn’t catch your customers unawares and in those not-in-the-mood moments.